Profs: Sex with oldies or youngsters will give you the clap In a finding sure to send ripples of fear through the showbiz world, profs in Florida have disclosed that having sex with people who are much older or younger than you increases your chances of catching a Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD). “Partner selection is an area of STD prevention that could complement what we are …
and there was me thinking that the only way to catch an std was to shag someone else who had one.
so presumably any couple with a 5+ year gap between them can now spontaneously generate an std?
i'd heard you can catch thrush from differences in yeast, pH, or something, but this one seems a whole step further on.
Paris, of course..
Usual rubbish of somebody confusing correlation with causation. The correlation of increased incidents of sexually transmitted diseases with age difference is quite probably simply because at least one of the partners, and possibly both, are just rather less discriminating than average.
This roughly confirms one application of the 12 year cycles built into chinese horoscopes, where 6 year's difference between relationships is worst, but 4 and 8 and 12 are okay.
Regarding Hollywood, this may be an interesting special case requiring further study, by intrepid students with thick skins and zoom lenses.
So if A, a 20-year-old, consorts with X, a 60-year-old, each of them is more likely to get STD from the other?
But if the same A disports with B, who is also 20, neither of them is at risk. Likewise if X makes out with Y, another 60-year old.
This could set the science of medicine back 1000 years. Unbalanced humours, anyone?
Mrs AC and I are separated by 4 years and 8 months. That's a close call. another four months difference in age and I'd get a dose for sure. Or she would.
Frikkin idiots. The way to get an STI is to have unprotected sex with someone that's already got one.
Paris, well I wouldn't now. She's more than 5 years younger than me. Who knows what I'd catch.
Round of applause for the bloke who found this out. I's assuming that extensive field tests were undertaken? I'd have volunteered if asked..... I'm eight years older than my wife, so my question is...Who actually gets the clap? Is it me as the older partner or her as the younger member of the team. My vote is that the newbie gets it !!
I suppose what they're really saying is that it's good and healthy to meet someone your own age and marry them for life, whereas it's unnatural and disgusting to sleep with people much older or younger than you - which makes you a slut.
And if you're a slut, you must be sleeping with loads of people, therefore you're far more likely to have picked up the clap. All of which means that any young oik who's into grannies, or a Marianne Faithfull type character is an unclean sinner from whom you'll almost certainly catch sommat from.
I think it's just a long-winded way of saying "Young people don't know as much as older people, not having been around as long, and haven't learned as much about risk-taking and self-control." Or "plain old-fashioned common-sense", as it used to be known.
As to the granny-pulling, well, what do you expect? Alzheimers' makes it terribly hard to remember contraception as well as everything else...
The risk is you never know what a person's sexual history is regardless of age. Pants come off protection goes on, simple as that. I don't think the age of the people involved will minimise the risks much when your already taking such a massive gamble without protection anyway.
As for age gaps, I have seen plenty of them around these days.
Get my coat the one with the condoms in the pocket.
If there's a big age difference, isn't it likely that it's a casual encounter rather than a soulmate-for-life one? And don't we already know that casual sex is more risky in all sorts of ways?
What next for our intrepid prof, the discovery that you're more likely to get pregnant during sex if you're female?
I would ask about the IT angle, but that would only prompt vulgar jokes about it's angle, not to mention trajectories...
anyone notice the new religious zealots all claim to be into science for their explanation. And we get the oddest type of morality being shoe horned in on dodgy data, and spurious assumptions.
Oh they need to give it up, they feel something and then just make up things to fit in with their world view. And it is akin to saying STDs are a punishment by Science the new God, bollocks, STDs are more likely to happen the more sexual partners you have. If you are dope smoking monk then your chance of STD is pretty small, unless you do blow backs.
The idiot here is you, apparently, so I hope nobody is paying you.
They *already* found (if the study's conclusions are right) that the age difference is correlated with higher risk. The "how" is a different question, of course, and some of the suggestions in comments above are plausible -- which does not mean they are true. I for one am curious to know why that correlation exists. So I guess they can write a new grant proposal to get some more money and go find it out. :-)
I don't think penguins can clap.
“Partner selection is an area of STD prevention that could complement what we are already doing with promoting condom use, and could possibly really help people. If somehow we could convince individuals to incorporate this information in a meaningful way into their decision-making, then we could reduce STDs.”
Bloody academic, obviously being paid by the word.
As I recall, half your age plus 5 years is the socially accepted lower age limit to avoid dirty-old-man-hood. In my case that's a good deal more than 5 years difference. But although I have on occasions pushed close to the limit, I haven't experienced any pathological consequences.
"If somehow we could convince individuals to incorporate this information in a meaningful way into their decision-making, then we could reduce STDs.”
Nononononononononononono!
As someone has already pointed out correlation is not the same as causation!
It may be observed in hindsight that people who have sex with others +/- 5 years their own age get the clap more often. However, I'm pretty certain that if a drunk person in a club has to choose between one of two people, one their age or one much older then all else being equal the chances of picking up an STI is the same whichever one looks better with your beer goggles on.
They might have, on average, a better record of having safe sex but one of the growth areas for STIs is in fact : 45+. Newly divorced, shagging around and thinking it's safe because they've been made infertile. At that age, or older, practically everyone has herpes (oh, sorry, it's not herpes when it's a 'cold sore' you got once on your mouth, is it?).
There are, sadly, also sometimes specific communities where sleeping with older people has a significantly higher risk of contracting various STIs.
Given that people, for the most part, stick to partners within a reasonably narrowly defined age range it's not that unreasonable to suggest that straying outside that range exposes you to a different risk profile. That does, however equate to catching different STIs - not an increased risk.
To say that a greater than five year difference automatically provides a greater risk is obviously bollocks, although I do like one of the commenter's theories that the people who routinely have sex outside that age range tend to follow a higher risk lifestyle.
It's very easy - if you have no knowledge of a subject - to rubbish research. Especially when you haven't read the report itself (as opposed to a brief synopsis in a news item).
I think the article would've been much more interesting if it had given more details of the evidence and - crucially - if it had provided an explanation of the link between age-difference and STD transmission.
Your scepticism is perhaps directed at the wrong group.
This is another in a long line of "scientific" studies based on statistical analysis of an dataset that is a priori biased (it only includes people who visited STD clinics).
This is a simple clear-cut case of bad statistical practice, dressed up as science. You don't need to read the paper to surmise this. Doing so would be a waste of time. You may as well read the Timecube site - at least it's entertaining.
Even if the dataset were not wholly biased, correlation within this dataset *still* does not provide *any* evidence of causation. There are these things called "hidden variables". The obvious candidate here is "riskiness of lifestyle", which correlates with *all* the specific "causes" that are mentioned.
It is easy to rubbish research which has no scientific value whatsoever, and that's what people here are doing.
I just lie about my age from now on and the clap won't get me.
Do you still get the clap automagically if you lie about your age? What if you __both__ lie and say that you were both born on the same day? Also, not that I want to find out but how do people get the clap in prison? I mean, uh, no women... in there.
Also, also, how does this apply to work? If I work with someone that's older than me will I start itching?
That Professor must have had a really hrd job. Talking to those older/younger/drunk people...
Older people 'desperate' for sex with younger people will likely lower their standards if the allure is strong enough. Possibly many of these 'relationships' are one-nighters with little known about the others' background. Same goes for the youngish that are most willing to have sex with significantly older--they are more willing to have sex in general and are likely to have a wider range of partners, and no doubt not as many qualms about much of it being unprotected sex. More sex+unprotected sex+unknown sexual history=VD
Somebody had to do it and it seems that "you" have fallen for it, it being the mythology regarding differing ages in sexual matters. What you have stated is "a cargo of redundant shoemakers". The only route by which you can attract an STD is by sexual contact with an infected person. Not from lavatory seats, infected cigarette stubs or any other mythological method. I suppose that you could get "Galloping Dandruff" from close embraces with the opposite (or same) sex without the organs meeting but I doubt it. Go back and complete your research before jumping into print again. You never know, IT COULD BE FUN.
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