Not having sex causes STDs

[White Cat]

More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics (requires registration), by Steven Landsburg

A couple exerpts:

Consider Martin, a charming and generally prudent young man with a limited sexual history, who has been gently flirting with his coworker Joan. As last week's office party approached, both Joan and Martin silently and separately entertained the prospect that they just might be going home together. Unfortunately, Fate, through its agents at the Centers for Disease Control, intervened. The morning of the party, Martin happened to notice one of those CDC-sponsored subway ads touting the virtues of abstinence. Chastened, he decided to stay home. In Martin's absence, Joan hooked up with the equally charming but considerably less prudent Maxwell - and Joan got AIDS.

When the cautious Martin withdraws from the mating game, he makes it easier for the reckless Maxwell to prey on the hapless Joan. If those subway ads are more effective against Martin than against Maxwell, they are a threat to Joan's safety. This is especially so when they displace Calvin Klein ads, which might have put Martin in a more socially beneficent mood.

A cautious guy like Martin does the world a favor every time he hits the bars. In fact, he does the world two favors. First he improves the odds for everyone who's out there seeking a safe match. The second favor is more macabre, but probably also more significant: If Martin picks up a new partner tonight, he just might pick up an infection as well. That's great. Because then Martin goes home, wastes away in solitude, and eventually dies - taking the virus with him.

If someone has to get infected tonight, I want it to be Martin rather than Promiscuous Pete, who would probably infect another twenty people before finally dying.

[Dooey Jo]

Uhm no. You won't be slowing AIDS down by having even more people have unprotected sex. The Maxwells of the world will simply go and find someone else if they can't get a Joan, plus the Martins will get infected and maybe infect a couple more before the disease really kicks in.

It gets better at page three, where he acknowledges that condoms exist, however I don't agree with this:

There is, however, more than one way for the world to become a better place. Maybe the epidemic slows down. Maybe people enjoy more sex. Maybe the epidemic speeds up, but people enjoy so much more sex that it's worth it.

Increased medical bills and slow, horrible deaths are worth it?

[TheKwas]

Uhm no. You won't be slowing AIDS down by having even more people have unprotected sex. The Maxwells of the world will simply go and find someone else if they can't get a Joan, plus the Martins will get infected and maybe infect a couple more before the disease really kicks in.

There's a limited supply of booty in the world, and if more Martin's start getting laid, then there's less supply of booty for the Maxwells. Some Maxwells will obviously go find other Joans, but some won't be able to.

Also, as the second quote says, Martin is doing the world a favour by getting an STD. If he gets an STD from Joan, that means he just protected some Promiscuous Pete from getting an STD, and although Martin can pass on his STDs to others, he has less sex than Marxwell, and thus less people will have STDs in the end:

If someone has to get infected tonight, I want it to be Martin rather than Promiscuous Pete, who would probably infect another twenty people before finally dying.

[TheKwas]

I don't know how to edit my post so here goes:

Increased medical bills and slow, horrible deaths are worth it?

Hypothetical question? How many years of your life would you be willing to give up for sex? I don't mean one instances of sex, I mean a lifetime of sex. You have two choices: A long life without sex or a slightly shorter life with sex. How much shorter are you willing to make your life?

[Shroom Man 777]

What the fuck kind of shit logic is that?

[TheKwas]

EDIT* change the very last 'Maxwell' into 'Promiscuous Pete' in my first post. I got the two mixed up.

What the fuck kind of shit logic is that?

Economic? He's not seriously suggesting that Martins will start going out into the world and start getting laid so that they can benefit others (Martins are going to look after themselves first and foremost, and if we want them to do that we have to make it worth their while). He seems to be just applying economic reasoning and economic tools to a taboo area with thought-provoking (and lol-provoking) results.

[Dooey Jo]

There's a limited supply of booty in the world, and if more Martin's start getting laid, then there's less supply of booty for the Maxwells. Some Maxwells will obviously go find other Joans, but some won't be able to.

Also, as the second quote says, Martin is doing the world a favour by getting an STD. If he gets an STD from Joan, that means he just protected some Promiscuous Pete from getting an STD, and although Martin can pass on his STDs to others, he has less sex than Marxwell, and thus less people will have STDs in the end:

That again presupposes that Maxwell is just after fucking Joan, instead of fucking in general. He could just walk down to the nearest club or something. And the fact that he is a Maxwell means that he's probably much more apt at procuring samples of said limited supply of booty, and perhaps the Martins have to become Maxwells to some degree to be able to compete. That wouldn't help matters.

Hypothetical question? How many years of your life would you be willing to give up for sex? I don't mean one instances of sex, I mean a lifetime of sex. You have two choices: A long life without sex or a slightly shorter life with sex. How much shorter are you willing to make your life?

I hope you meant to say less sex, otherwise you'd be engaging in a false dilemma there. And why yes, I would take less sex over a significantly shorter and not to mention much worse life. Hell, I might even take no sex over that. AIDS ain't exactly all flowers and green meadows.

[TheKwas]

That again presupposes that Maxwell is just after fucking Joan, instead of fucking in general. He could just walk down to the nearest club or something. And the fact that he is a Maxwell means that he's probably much more apt at procuring samples of said limited supply of booty, and perhaps the Martins have to become Maxwells to some degree to be able to compete. That wouldn't help matters.

Joan represents anyone STD-free in general. Who else is Maxwell trying to fuck?

Maxwells don't have any special ability to get laid (even if they do, it doesn't affect the argument), they are just those that go out and look for multiple partners while STD-plagued. Regardless of their methods, they will tend to get the girls if the girls are there. In order to make it so that there less girls for the Maxwells (who would give the girls STDs), more Martins need to start nailing some chicks so that there is less supply available to the Maxwells.

Consider another hypothetical situation on a micro scale. In a bar there are three Joans (girls looking for sex), three Martins (conservative guys who do not have STDs) and three Maxwells (guys with STDs looking for sex).

In the first, original situation, the Martins stick with their conservative nature and do not try to get with any girls. For religious or moral reasons, they decide that Chasity and drinking is more their style. Thus, the Maxwells and the Joans all hook up. In the morning, we have 3 new people who now have AIDS (all three Joans). This is not the social optimum.

If, for whatever reason (the author talks about different incentives in the article, but that's irrelevant for now), the Martins change their minds and decide they want get laid today. Now, the Maxwells have competition and there is scarcity concerning booty resources. Lets just say that 2 of the Martins succeed in hooking up with Joans, while the 3rd Joan was reckless and got with the 3rd Maxwell. 1 Martin goes home disappointed, and two Maxwells fail to spread their plague. In the morning, we have only 1 new person with an STD. This is closer to the social optimum. This is a simple example because the ratio of 'Fucking-Martins' to 'Saved-Joans' is exactly 1:1, but the principal behind the example would be the same regardless of the ratio as long as neither side is 0 (1:2, 2:1, 3.4:2, whatever).

It is important to note, however, that although it is better to get these Martins into the fucking gaming than keeping them out of it, we don't want them to get too involved in the game. Maybe they should only come to the bar twice a week, instead of 4 times a week like the Maxwells. The reason for this is although the 'Joans' are STD-free, there are also 'Janes' who may have their own STDs that they can give to the Martins. If the Martins start fucking as much as the Maxwells, they are likely to eventually to sleep with a Jane instead of a Joan, get AIDS, and become Maxwell's themselves. There is a socially optimum point in between the conservative Martin level of fucking and the Maxwell level of fucking.

As long as Martin's fuck less than Maxwells, it would be socially beneficial to have them in the fucking business (the degree to which they should be involved to optimize the social benefit depends on the aforementioned ratio). Even if they do get an STD, they fuck less than Maxwells do and thus will not pass it on to the same degree. In this regard, they are more likely to 'save' a 'Promiscuous Pete' (guy without STD that likes to fuck) from getting an STD and thus becoming a full-fledged Maxwell.

Remember:
Maxwell = Guy who fucks alot with STDs
Martin = STD-less guy who doesn't fuck alot
Promiscouse Pete = STD-less guy who fucks alot
Joan = Willing girl without STDs
Jane = willing girl with STDs (my invention)

It's easier to use names than to write all that down every time, but those are the defintions of the terms. If you misunderstand those, you are going to misunderstand the author's argument.

I hope you meant to say less sex, otherwise you'd be engaging in a false dilemma there. And why yes, I would take less sex over a significantly shorter and not to mention much worse life. Hell, I might even take no sex over that. AIDS ain't exactly all flowers and green meadows.

You misunderstood my question, and thus answered a question I did not ask. I was trying to apply what the situation would be on society as a whole (long average lifespan with no sex outside of marriage/long term relationships or shorter average lifespan with more sex) to an individual case so that you could determine which was better. If one case was better for you, as an individual, I could expolate that into what would be best for a society by the same logic. Economic utilitarianism generally has that quality. Sure, some people will gie young, but if 1000 people get lots of sex in their life, you have to weigh that in an utilitarianistic manner. I was trying to get you to weigh the two sides without directly putting a human face on it (which distorts the results from an economic/utilitarianistic perspective).

[General Zod]

If one case was better for you, as an individual, I could expolate that into what would be best for a society by the same logic. Economic utilitarianism generally has that quality. Sure, some people will gie young, but if 1000 people get lots of sex in their life, you have to weigh that in an utilitarianistic manner. I was trying to get you to weigh the two sides without directly putting a human face on it (which distorts the results from an economic/utilitarianistic perspective).

This doesn't seem to work at all. One individual is a piss poor sample for applying any type of model to a large society when there's so many exceptions to this type of reasoning.

[Darth Servo]

Joan hooked up with Maxwell because she was feeling deserted by Martin. Martin andn Joan could have just as easily left the party together, but not had sex and no one gets HIV.

There is also no reason why HIV infection is an exclusive either/or situation. Both Martin AND "Promiscuous Pete" can get infedted by the same person.

[Sturmfalke]

What the fuck kind of shit logic is that?

Economic? He's not seriously suggesting that Martins will start going out into the world and start getting laid so that they can benefit others (Martins are going to look after themselves first and foremost, and if we want them to do that we have to make it worth their while). He seems to be just applying economic reasoning and economic tools to a taboo area with thought-provoking (and lol-provoking) results.

The entire reasoning is based on the assumption that there is no way to avoid the transmission of STDs, which is obviously not true. Thus the results are in fact lol-provoking, but not like the author wished them to be...

If one case was better for you, as an individual, I could expolate that into what would be best for a society by the same logic.

No, you couldn't. Representative agent models aren't that great when it comes to making predictions about the outcome on the scale of an entire society.

[TheKwas]

If one case was better for you, as an individual, I could expolate that into what would be best for a society by the same logic. Economic utilitarianism generally has that quality. Sure, some people will gie young, but if 1000 people get lots of sex in their life, you have to weigh that in an utilitarianistic manner. I was trying to get you to weigh the two sides without directly putting a human face on it (which distorts the results from an economic/utilitarianistic perspective).

This doesn't seem to work at all. One individual is a piss poor sample for applying any type of model to a large society when there's so many exceptions to this type of reasoning.

Indeed, it is not infallible, which is why I said it generally works. It also only works for the utility standards/perceptions of the individual in question. If my perception of utility dictates that living in a polluted environment is an acceptable price to pay in order to have great material things, then those perceptions would normally extend to say that a polluted environment is an acceptable price to pay for a great economy with a similar ratio of emphasis on both cost and benefit.

Lets pretend that Dooey Jo answered my question and said he was willing to give up 2 years of his life if his life could be filled with sex. It would generally be inconsistent for him to turn around and say to society "Stop having sex society, it lowers your average lifespan by 2 years."

If Dooey was in charge of an ultimate incentive machine that could manipulate society's behavior, he would like make the judgement that his perception of utility is similar to everyone elses and thus manipulate the economic incentives so that society's average lifespan lowered by 2 years, but average sexual pleasure rises by a suitable amount.

However, in reality, such an utilitarian argument is more fickle than that because the average lifespan is deceased through mainly the loss of a few young lives, and young lives tend to have more utility potential, but the general principal does apply.

There is also no reason why HIV infection is an exclusive either/or situation. Both Martin AND "Promiscuous Pete" can get infedted by the same person.

Yes, that is true. Perhaps the very next time at the bar, the Joan that Martin slept with, ends up sleeping with some Maxwell. However, the probability of any individual Joan getting AIDs is reduced once she has one safe night with Martin. If Joan is going to have 50 sexual encounters with different partners, and about 1 in 100 sexual partners have AIDs, then every time she has sex without getting aids, the less likely she is to get aids in general. Aids-free Martin increases her odds of living a healthy life.

The entire reasoning is based on the assumption that there is no way to avoid the transmission of STDs, which is obviously not true. Thus the results are in fact lol-provoking, but not like the author wished them to be...

I don't see how the reasoning is at all. It merely accept the fact that people do not always use condoms. If Martins enter the sex-game, they are likely to enter every area of the sex game, including the condom-free area of the sex-game where this sort of analysis would hold.

It also holds for all STDs that are impossible to not transmit during intercourse. I don't know much about STDs, but I'm pretty sure they exist.

[General Zod]

Indeed, it is not infallible, which is why I said it generally works. It also only works for the utility standards/perceptions of the individual in question. If my perception of utility dictates that living in a polluted environment is an acceptable price to pay in order to have great material things, then those perceptions would normally extend to say that a polluted environment is an acceptable price to pay for a great economy with a similar ratio of emphasis on both cost and benefit.

The fact that millions of people have access to drastically different ranges of health care shoots your model down on its own. Someone who's capable of affording the top doctors in the world is naturally going to live longer than someone who can't while following the very same model you're proposing. It's far too simplistic to be useful in any real sense.

It also holds for all STDs that are impossible to not transmit during intercourse. I don't know much about STDs, but I'm pretty sure they exist.

Can I recommend not making retarded claims that you can't back up? The very definition of STD follows that the primary method of transmission is sexual in nature. Otherwise they're just a regular disease.

[Rye]

Seems to me someone wanted to write something controversial based on economics like that "freakanomics" guy and then just spouted bullshit. More people having more sex will lead to the proliferation of diseases spread by that medium. It's like saying "not inhaling air full of sneezed particles causes colds," pfft.

[Sturmfalke]

Lets pretend that Dooey Jo answered my question and said he was willing to give up 2 years of his life if his life could be filled with sex. It would generally be inconsistent for him to turn around and say to society "Stop having sex society, it lowers your average lifespan by 2 years."

If Dooey was in charge of an ultimate incentive machine that could manipulate society's behavior, he would like make the judgement that his perception of utility is similar to everyone elses and thus manipulate the economic incentives so that society's average lifespan lowered by 2 years, but average sexual pleasure rises by a suitable amount.

However, in reality, such an utilitarian argument is more fickle than that because the average lifespan is deceased through mainly the loss of a few young lives, and young lives tend to have more utility potential, but the general principal does apply.

On the level of an individual, the question having unprotected sex means that either you are lucky and don't catch a STD (which means your life expectancy doesn't change) or you are unlucky and catch a STD which considerably reduces your life expectancy (assuming we are talking about AIDS here). You reach the conclusion that the individual decision of your "Dooey Jo" is based on the average lifespan of the society, and that is not the case.

The entire reasoning is based on the assumption that there is no way to avoid the transmission of STDs, which is obviously not true. Thus the results are in fact lol-provoking, but not like the author wished them to be...

I don't see how the reasoning is at all. It merely accept the fact that people do not always use condoms. If Martins enter the sex-game, they are likely to enter every area of the sex game, including the condom-free area of the sex-game where this sort of analysis would hold.

It also holds for all STDs that are impossible to not transmit during intercourse. I don't know much about STDs, but I'm pretty sure they exist.

What do you want? A welfare model for the entire society or a model just for the "condom free sex-game"?

I see where the purely hypothetical thought that if more uninfected men date uninfected women who would date men with a high chance of having STDs reduces the overall rate of infection.
But if it has no implications for the reality we live in, its an utterly useless model - so what are implications?

The morning of the party, Martin happened to notice one of those CDC-sponsored subway ads touting the virtues of abstinence.

Ban those? (Well, good idea, the abstinence approach is foolish)
But apart from that, what to do?

[TheKwas]

The fact that millions of people have access to drastically different ranges of health care shoots your model down on its own. Someone who's capable of affording the top doctors in the world is naturally going to live longer than someone who can't while following the very same model you're proposing. It's far too simplistic to be useful in any real sense.

I live in Canada and I'm middle-cass, so I made the assumption that healthcare is generally the same for the masses. At any rate, poking a hole in the model in one instance doesn't disprove the model as a helpful tool in general. Especially since I used it originally in a different context. If you want to shoot down the model, please shoot it down in the way I employed it in this debate.

Can I recommend not making retarded claims that you can't back up? The very definition of STD follows that the primary method of transmission is sexual in nature. Otherwise they're just a regular disease.

Indeed, all STDs spread primarily through sex, but that doesn't mean they are automatically preventable during sexual intercourse by a condom (which I assume you meant, since I doubt you serious advocate Chasity). There are several strains of HPV infections that can exist on genital skin not covered by a condom, meaning that they can be spread even with the perfect use of a condom.

[edit] Condoms
Although condoms are highly effective for preventing the transmission of other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), recent studies have concluded that condoms only offer partial protection, at best, against the transmission of genital HPVs.[36][37]

This may be due to the fact that HPVs can infect genital skin areas that are not covered by condoms. On the other hand, some studies have suggested that regular condom use can effectively limit the ongoing persistence and spread of HPV to additional genital sites in individuals who are already infected.[38][39]

Thus, condom use may reduce the risk that infected individuals will progress to cervical cancer or develop additional genital warts. A 2006 study of 82 college students suggests that condoms can be up to 70% effective for preventing genital HPV infection if used for every sexual encounter.[37] Planned Parenthood recommends condom use to reduce the risk of contracting HPV,[40] but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintain that "While the effect of condoms in preventing HPV infection is unknown, condom use has been associated with a lower rate of cervical cancer, an HPV-associated disease."[41]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HPV
There are certain vaccinations that one can use to prevent the spread of certain HPVs, but the point remains.

. More people having more sex will lead to the proliferation of diseases spread by that medium. It's like saying "not inhaling air full of sneezed particles causes colds," pfft.

No, it is nothing like that at all. You can read the actual thread for details, but the main difference is the use of economic tools. The entire economic field is built of the simple basis of 'Scarcity'. In this hypothesis, the resource affected by scarcity is female partners. There is no resource of scarcity in the same sense for cold viruses, and that makes all the difference in the world.

[TheKwas]

On the level of an individual, the question having unprotected sex means that either you are lucky and don't catch a STD (which means your life expectancy doesn't change) or you are unlucky and catch a STD which considerably reduces your life expectancy (assuming we are talking about AIDS here). You reach the conclusion that the individual decision of your "Dooey Jo" is based on the average lifespan of the society, and that is not the case.

I don't see how this is relevant to my argument. Yes, on the individual the question boils down to either have sex or do not have sex (we are excluding 'safe-sex' options right now, taking into context only the area of the sex game where the original hypothesis applies), and the result is either get lucky or get unlucky. That doesn't change anything however, outside of what I said about the extra utility granted to younger lives here:

However, in reality, such an utilitarian argument is more fickle than that because the average lifespan is deceased through mainly the loss of a few young lives, and young lives tend to have more utility potential, but the general principal does apply.

We are all willing to sacrifice some poor souls for the collective benefit, the liberal notion that 'no life can have a price-tag' is just plain wrong. Utilitarianism can help us find that price-tag. The economist in the article is merely suggesting that the price-tag might be lower than the costs of the entire society (the society we are dealing with, the condomless society) not having sex.

I'm not sure how well people here are associated with utilitarianism, but it is a main tool for most economists. Essentially it argues for the most happiness for the most people. In such a case, we can consider society as a single entity and try and determine what will optimize utility. Generally, what you would consider optimal for youself as an entity, you would also consider optimal for society as an entity. More sex can trump living long to a certain degree. If that's true for your personal life, it's going to be close to the truth for your view of society.

What do you want? A welfare model for the entire society or a model just for the "condom free sex-game"?

Condom free sex-game. In retrospect I should have made that more clear. The condom people are unaffected by any an increase or decrease of Martins.

I see where the purely hypothetical thought that if more uninfected men date uninfected women who would date men with a high chance of having STDs reduces the overall rate of infection.

But if it has no implications for the reality we live in, its an utterly useless model - so what are implications?

I personally don't see much use in it actually. The incentive mechanisms the author mentioned as a solution to getting Martins into the sex game are pretty ridiculous, and don't seem to outweigh most of the risks associated with giving up conservatism. It's a thought-provoking exercise and illustrates how to use economic tools. I don't know about anyone else, but I found the article to be quite enjoyable.

[General Zod]

I live in Canada and I'm middle-cass, so I made the assumption that healthcare is generally the same for the masses. At any rate, poking a hole in the model in one instance doesn't disprove the model as a helpful tool in general. Especially since I used it originally in a different context. If you want to shoot down the model, please shoot it down in the way I employed it in this debate.

Go to any country that doesn't provide universal health care such as the US and you find that health care is not the same. If you don't want holes poked in your model, then can I suggest making one that doesn't suck?

Indeed, all STDs spread primarily through sex, but that doesn't mean they are automatically preventable during sexual intercourse by a condom (which I assume you meant, since I doubt you serious advocate Chasity). There are several strains of HPV infections that can exist on genital skin not covered by a condom, meaning that they can be spread even with the perfect use of a condom.

There's also several varieties that can be spread through sharing needles or infected blood donations. Which help render this model even more worthless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HPV
There are certain vaccinations that one can use to prevent the spread of certain HPVs, but the point remains.

Quoting a shitty source like wikipedia in a serious debate tends to be frowned on around here FYI.

No, it is nothing like that at all. You can read the actual thread for details, but the main difference is the use of economic tools. The entire economic field is built of the simple basis of 'Scarcity'. In this hypothesis, the resource affected by scarcity is female partners. There is no resource of scarcity in the same sense for cold viruses, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Since there is clearly not a scarcity of female partners going in any major first world nation (unless you have something resembling actual statistics) then I don't see how the model is applicable or even remotely useful at all.

[TheKwas]

Go to any country that doesn't provide universal health care such as the US and you find that health care is not the same. If you don't want holes poked in your model, then can I suggest making one that doesn't suck?

It was a fucking hypothetical example. The version that I used in this debate remains valid.

There's also several varieties that can be spread through sharing needles or infected blood donations. Which help render this model even more worthless.

That has absolutely nothing to do with this model. That distribution has nothing to do with sex. Are you seriously this retarded? This model is applicable to cases where people have sex without condoms, or where people can potentially spread STDs through sex even with the use of condoms. Needle sharing is completely irrelevent.

Quoting a shitty source like wikipedia in a serious debate tends to be frowned on around here FYI.

Wikipedia, for most intents and purposes, is a solid source for quick information to debunk nonsense. I think I used it wisely.

Since there is clearly not a scarcity of female partners going in any major first world nation (unless you have something resembling actual statistics) then I don't see how the model is applicable or even remotely useful at all.

There obviously is a scarcity of females in sex-related communities. That scarcity is hardwired into our genes. Females are much more protective of their sexuality because, in the case of pregency, they are the ones paying the costs and doing the nurturing. Guys, on the other hand, just want to spread their seeds. I'm not going to bother with links for such an obvious point, but 75+% of guys will say yes if a pretty girl asks them to fuck at random, but almost no girls will say yes in the reversed role. Causal sex is free for females, but is extremely competitive for males.

[Sturmfalke]

I don't see how this is relevant to my argument. Yes, on the individual the question boils down to either have sex or do not have sex (we are excluding 'safe-sex' options right now, taking into context only the area of the sex game where the original hypothesis applies), and the result is either get lucky or get unlucky.

It is relevant, because with your model you run into an aggregation problem. Even if the average life expectancy only falls 2 years, that is not the basis for people's decision to have unprotected sex. For them it is a potential live/die decision and thus (if they are risk averse) they will often decide against it.
What your model suggests on aggregate data is not reflected by individual decisions, and that is the cause for the nonapplicability for this model.

The model only works within its very narrow range of assumptions which have nothing to do with reality - thats not quite impressive.

I personally don't see much use in it actually. The incentive mechanisms the author mentioned as a solution to getting Martins into the sex game are pretty ridiculous, and don't seem to outweigh most of the risks associated with giving up conservatism. It's a thought-provoking exercise and illustrates how to use economic tools. I don't know about anyone else, but I found the article to be quite enjoyable.

Ah, ok. I thought you were defending his conclusions along with his model.

[General Zod]

That has absolutely nothing to do with this model. That distribution has nothing to do with sex. Are you seriously this retarded? This model is applicable to cases where people have sex without condoms, or where people can potentially spread STDs through sex even with the use of condoms. Needle sharing is completely irrelevent.

If the model has limited to no practical applications outside of its very narrow scenario, then the model is effectively worthless for preventing the spread of STDs on any type of large scale. This should be obvious.

There obviously is a scarcity of females in sex-related communities. That scarcity is hardwired into our genes. Females are much more protective of their sexuality because, in the case of pregency, they are the ones paying the costs and doing the nurturing. Guys, on the other hand, just want to spread their seeds. I'm not going to bother with links for such an obvious point, but 75+% of guys will say yes if a pretty girl asks them to fuck at random, but almost no girls will say yes in the reversed role. Causal sex is free for females, but is extremely competitive for males.

It's called a biological imperative dumbass. Humans want to have sex, and the biological drive to do so is a powerful one, it has absolutely squat to do with availability. But I'll take your refusal to provide actual evidence as a concession on this claim.

[Sturmfalke]

Lets pretend that Dooey Jo answered my question and said he was willing to give up 2 years of his life if his life could be filled with sex. It would generally be inconsistent for him to turn around and say to society "Stop having sex society, it lowers your average lifespan by 2 years."

If Dooey was in charge of an ultimate incentive machine that could manipulate society's behavior, he would like make the judgement that his perception of utility is similar to everyone elses and thus manipulate the economic incentives so that society's average lifespan lowered by 2 years, but average sexual pleasure rises by a suitable amount.

However, in reality, such an utilitarian argument is more fickle than that because the average lifespan is deceased through mainly the loss of a few young lives, and young lives tend to have more utility potential, but the general principal does apply.

On the level of an individual, the question having unprotected sex means that either you are lucky and don't catch a STD (which means your life expectancy doesn't change) or you are unlucky and catch a STD which considerably reduces your life expectancy (assuming we are talking about AIDS here). You reach the conclusion that the individual decision of your "Dooey Jo" is based on the average lifespan of the society, and that is not the case.

A little annotation:
When I refered to Dooey Jo I thought this name was used as an equivalent to "John Doe" or how a representative individual might be called elsewhere. I didn't realise that he is a member who posted earlier in the thread, sorry.

[Dooey Jo]

If, for whatever reason (the author talks about different incentives in the article, but that's irrelevant for now), the Martins change their minds and decide they want get laid today. Now, the Maxwells have competition and there is scarcity concerning booty resources. Lets just say that 2 of the Martins succeed in hooking up with Joans, while the 3rd Joan was reckless and got with the 3rd Maxwell. 1 Martin goes home disappointed, and two Maxwells fail to spread their plague. In the morning, we have only 1 new person with an STD. This is closer to the social optimum. This is a simple example because the ratio of 'Fucking-Martins' to 'Saved-Joans' is exactly 1:1, but the principal behind the example would be the same regardless of the ratio as long as neither side is 0 (1:2, 2:1, 3.4:2, whatever).

But how do you know that this is at all applicable to reality? You can't just factor out human variables here. Those Martins that don't fuck a lot tend to have certain characteristics, and it's quite possible the type of woman that would have sex with such a person would not want to have sex with a Pete type of guy. Thus, the total amount of unprotected sexual encounters could well increase, and the infections with it (since the amount of fucking Maxwells get is unaffected by how much sex uninteresting women have. I supposed you'd say that it is an unrelated resource). It's never a simple "either or" situation.

You misunderstood my question, and thus answered a question I did not ask. I was trying to apply what the situation would be on society as a whole (long average lifespan with no sex outside of marriage/long term relationships or shorter average lifespan with more sex) to an individual case so that you could determine which was better. If one case was better for you, as an individual, I could expolate that into what would be best for a society by the same logic. Economic utilitarianism generally has that quality. Sure, some people will gie young, but if 1000 people get lots of sex in their life, you have to weigh that in an utilitarianistic manner. I was trying to get you to weigh the two sides without directly putting a human face on it (which distorts the results from an economic/utilitarianistic perspective).

If so, you are forgetting that it isn't all about life expectancy. They don't just die young, they suffer a lot, and they drain medical resources in doing so, and if the average life expectancy is reduced by two years, that's a lot of suffering. And even if it is mostly children that drags the number down, dying children cause massive suffering to their grieving families. If "lots of sex" is somehow economically good, then surely "lots of suffering" must be bad.

The morning of the party, Martin happened to notice one of those CDC-sponsored subway ads touting the virtues of abstinence.

Ban those? (Well, good idea, the abstinence approach is foolish)
But apart from that, what to do?

They should replace those ads with ones advocating safe sex. I assume this article is written from an American perspective, and that is precisely what is wrong there; that abstinence is touted as the only "safe sex" when it is nothing of the sort, not that socially awkward people don't fuck that much. Bring proper sex education to the schools instead.

[General Zod]

Just to dash apart that retarded scarcity theory, here's some actual statistics.

According to Census 2000, 281.4 million people were counted in the United States — 143.4 million of whom were female and 138.1 million male.1 The former made up 50.9 percent of the population, compared with 51.3 percent in 1990.

Females are rarer? I think not.

NationalAtlas.

[TheKwas]

It is relevant, because with your model you run into an aggregation problem. Even if the average life expectancy only falls 2 years, that is not the basis for people's decision to have unprotected sex. For them it is a potential live/die decision and thus (if they are risk averse) they will often decide against it.

Indeed, there are those who decide against it and those who decide for it. The Petes, the Joans, and the Maxwells have already decided for it, apperently deciding from their perceptive that they gain more utility from having unprotected sex than not having no sex at all or going through the trouble of dealing with protective sex.

However, as the article states, this 'natural' state of affairs is not socially optimum. Individuals all acting in their own interests will often lead to everyone being below their potential utility. A single instance of a Prisoner Dilemma illustrates this notion quite nicely. What the author is proposing is a way to increase overall utility by manifacturing some sort of defacto 'cooperation' amoung the players through incentives. Essentially, give the Martins lots of incentives to have sex, so that they the benefits of joing the sex game exceed the costs of doing so. There's no real way to do this, despite what the author says, but I've just be taking it as granted to illustrate how the hypothetical situation could work.

Coming to the point, the author says that when we speak of social optimum situations, we do not just mean that the least amount of STDs = the best. If that were the case, we would ban sex! At some point or another, some level of risk of STD infection is worth the joy of sex. That is what he meant when he said:

There is, however, more than one way for the world to become a better place. Maybe the epidemic slows down. Maybe people enjoy more sex. Maybe the epidemic speeds up, but people enjoy so much more sex that it's worth it.

It is this quote that got Dooey offended, and I tried to illustrate his error through a little trick using a model (which failed because he didn't really play along). But the model does provide an illustration of how the risk of harmful things can be balanced out.

I'm sorry that took so long, but I couldn't think of a good way to show how the model works from the individual level to the social level. The actual situation that the individual is in is drastically different than the situation that society is in. But if you view both society and individuals as mere entities regardless of scale, you will find that you generally want the same things in your individual life that you want for your society.

Does that help?