Did you know that gays saved America from the Monkeypox scourge?

Yep, that is The New York Times’ take on the relatively rapid decline in Monkeypox cases in the US.

In Opinion

While the monkeypox outbreak "ended faster than many believed it would, it was far worse than it needed to be, representing both a public health triumph and a public health failure," @InaParkMD and @fakedansavage write. https://t.co/6uLt98SaEn

— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 16, 2023

Until yesterday Monkeypox was basically a nonissue. A very rare disease, it almost never appeared in the United States. It only arrived here due to the fact that gay men engaged in an orgy in which at least one of the participants had the disease, and only spread because the gay men who caught the disease went on to spread it at a series of other gay orgies around the world.

It literally only existed because gay men were practicing unsafe sex at orgies–behaviors that any thinking person understood were incredibly unsafe and likely to spread diseases. Orgies are not exactly known for being sanitary affairs.

The New York Times’ take, though, is that gay men saved the world from a larger Monkeypox outbreak by temporarily refraining from engaging in regular orgies until the spread subsided.

How noble the sacrifice!

I have nothing against gay people per se, but I have a big problem with people being unable to exercise the most obvious, modest, and common-sense self-restraint. When thrill seekers climb to the top of cranes and skyscrapers and hang off the edge and inevitably fall I don’t blame the crane, and I don’t applaud when people who engage in such stupid activities decide to stop it for a month or two after a fatal accident.

My heart skips a beat, worrying for their safety pic.twitter.com/6rD9oC7OJW

— Qin (@ChineseOracle) December 18, 2022

I think they are stupid and irresponsible for doing it because they are being stupid and irresponsible.

That’s not how the Times sees it. They are heroes for reducing the death rate for a few weeks. It never occurs to them that the behavior that causes the tragedy should be stopped.

The sudden appearance of so many mpox cases everywhere and all at once was shocking. Aside from an occasional case among travelers from countries in West or Central Africa, where the virus is endemic, mpox was extremely rare in Europe or North America. The United States had seen only one outbreak, back in 2003, among Midwesterners with pet prairie dogs that had been housed with infected African rodents. There were 47 cases then and no documented cases of human-to-human transmission.

This time was different. In early May of 2022, mpox found its way to gay raves in Spain and Belgium, huge annual parties that draw men from all over the world. Clothing was scant, grinding was plentiful and when the parties were over everyone flew home. Within weeks, mpox cases — resulting from human-to-human transmission — began cropping up in cities worldwide.

…

The virus required close, sustained contact to spread, which is why it was fanning out overwhelmingly through sex. So this outbreak that started in gay and bisexual communities mostly stayed in those communities, but not for long.On Jan. 31, 2023, the federal government declared an end to thempox emergency, as average case counts fell from a peak of over 450 per day in early August to less than five during the last week of January. While the outbreak in the United States lasted just under nine months, it caused plenty of damage, resulting in more than 30,000 cases and 42 deaths.

The outbreak was devastating within the community of gay rave attendees. It was totally predictable because, it turns out, engaging in sexual orgies with uncountable anonymous partners is a very bad idea.

It really is that simple, and it is common knowledge and has been forever. It is true for heterosexuals as well, although the technical details of gay sex make it somewhat more likely. No need to go into that, because it isn’t relevant.

Monkeypox spread wildly due to the chosen behavior of people. If they temporarily stop that behavior it is not “saving us” because they caused the problem in the first place.

Cause and effect. Funny how that works. If only the Times understood that.

Gay party promoters canceled long-planned events and individual gay men temporarily deleted hookup apps from their phones and reduced their sexual contacts. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention verified these shifts in behavior, reporting that half of gay men surveyed reduced their number of sex partners, one-time sexual encounters and use of dating apps during the outbreak. And gay and bi men got vaccinated in droves; two-thirds of those surveyed by the Pew Research Center in September 2022 reported that they had already received an mpox vaccine or were planning to do so. Gay and bi men endured frustrating attempts to secure appointments for the crucial first dose of the two-dose series and hourslong waits at pop-up vaccination sites.

I’m sorry but is not heroic to quit doing dangerous things. It is common sense. And, unfortunately, as the waning of the HIV epidemic has led to an increase in dangerous behavior (unprotected sex and orgies), the same will happen with Monkeypox.

One of the arguments for gay marriage–and one that I thought was very persuasive–was that admitting gays into the community of married people would reduce dangerous behaviors. Apparently not, because unrestricted sexual activity is a sacrament of the Left, as is the embrace of anything that violates our social norms.

As I wrote earlier today, this is how the Times deals with the cognitive dissonance that inevitably arises in most people when confronted with inconvenient facts. The bad behavior is lionized and the people criticizing it are demonized.

It is a far more pleasant way to deal with uncomfortable realities. Personalize the issue against the people whom you dislike and/or lionize the people engaging in destructive behavior.