When I First Saw Elon Musk for Who He Really Is And the discomfort and fear that people may feel about an outbreak of a new disease, and about certain types of sex, may then adhere to gay and bisexual men as a group. Even though monkeypox does not appear to be sexually transmitted in the traditional sense (through semen and vaginal secretions), sex is a likely cause of its spread, and it has now been publicly linked to events and locations, like a fetish festival and a gay sauna, that might push the margins of acceptability for some people. Infectious disease and sex, and sexually transmitted diseases in particular, are already highly stigmatized. They don’t necessarily need to know the sexual behavior or the sexual orientation of people who might have been identified.” After all, scientists think monkeypox can be spread through any sort of close contact-hugging, contact sports, touching someone’s bed linens or towels-not just sex.īut the statistical association between monkeypox and gay and bisexual men has become a focus-and now that it has, Valdiserri says he does does worry about the risk of compounding stigmas. “What we know is how monkey pox is transmitted,” she says. Given those facts, Poteat says, the messaging could have looked quite different.
