Hetero Bareback Anal Out of Control in NYC

A recent survey conducted by New York City’s Department of Health suggests that more than 100,000 women in the Big Apple are having anal sex and many of them are doing it without protection.

The bulletin from New York City Department of Mental Health and Hygiene pointed out that anal sex is more likely to result in damaged membranes, which some studies suggest may increase risk of transmitting HIV 30 times from the risk of transmission associated with vaginal intercourse.

While we have done our best to kill the idea that HIV and AIDS are the “gay disease,” for a long time, efforts to educate the population about transmission risk have focused on gay men only, leaving heterosexual women out of the loop. Only 11 percent of the highest-risk women reported being offered an HIV test by a health care provider, though 94 percent of women surveyed had recently been to a health care provider.

The result of both the stigma and the focus on gay men is a startling 77 percent of women who don’t bother with condoms during anal sex (the figure for men is 39 percent) and 65 percent of women who never test for HIV (the figure for men is 37 percent).

“Many people are aware of the risk of HIV when men have sex with other men, but this report shows that a large number of women also are putting themselves at high risk through unprotected anal sex,” Dr. Thomas Farley, New York City Health Commissioner, said in a statement.

New York City sees 74,000 new sexually transmitted infections reported each year, and 3,800 new HIV diagnoses. Heterosexual sex accounted for 90 percent of infections diagnosed in NYC in 2008.

Header image by NIAID. Information and graph from Animal New York, via @cthon1c.