How do stds take place?

[epicsexy]

Sorry if I worded that wrong. Such a silly question, but I wad homeschooled till 8th garde and missed out on sex ed classes. I have heard aids came from a gay man having intercourse with a monkey is this true? I know protected sex can help prevent stds; however I'm sure at one point in time everyone was clean. So how did they.. originate? (Sp?) Sorry I cant think of the right word.

[Ducy]

AIDS is not because a gay man had sex with a monkey...please slap whoever said this.

Now although any theory could explain why, the plausibility of that one is absurd. Here are some "big" theories that have a pretty decent "following"

1. Hunters in Africa killed and ate monkey affective by SIV. The blood of the monkeys (its simian immunodeficiancy...basically HIV for monkeys) got int the hunters cuts and this virus evolved into HIV-1 or the monkey could have already been infected with HIV via "viral sex"

2. Govt conspiracy

3. Vaccination for polio. Its something along the lives of "Man was trying to make a live polio vaccine. Cultured the virus in live human cells...**** hit the fan and there was a mix up and people wound up receiving HIV "vaccines".

4. Unsterile needles being used during medical treatments in Africa leading to the spread of HIV.

Honestly the hunter theory makes the most sense. Similair to the origination of ebola...african tribesmen ate the remains of dead monkeys that had been infected with ebola (suspected from the bat guano in caves somewhere in the jungle)

As far as STD's in general, usually its a mutation of a virus. The human body fights and kills a virus, then someone somewhere has trouble "killing" it and the organism evolves and becomes more resistant to human defense mechanism.

[Brandye]

They have evolved over the millenia as other living organisms have. STDs can be caused by bacteria or virus. Ducy gives you broad picture of how they have evolved but, perhaps, your question has to do with how are they transmitted.

If neither partner in a sex act is infected, neither will become infected. If either is infected, the other will likely become infected. That is how they are passed on.

STD is a rather broad term generally referring to diseases that are transmitted through sexual contact. Most (not all) diseases that are passed on genitally can also be passed on through oral or anal sex. You should really do a search on STDs and get some basic information because the time will come when you will need to be protecting yourself.

[epicsexy]

So if stds can be a mutated virus, wouldn't it be possible for a non infected person to become infected. If not why would this not be, since that's how they evolved?

[big916]

if i understand your question after reading it are you asking if a healthy person can become infected for no reason? infections whether HIV or the common cold have to be transmitted from one infected person to a healthy person. you cant get any infection or disease if you are never exposed to it.

and not all stds are viruses, some can be treated with meds.

[epicsexy]

Yes that is my question, I was just curious. Just seems like someone had to be the first infected.

[big916]

who knows what kind of activity took place to create them. some believe in higher powers creating them or just the cause and effect of the world we live in (examples ducy gave). i never understood why the 60's were called the free love era. they still had all kinds of stds to pass around just not HIV.

[RedRoses]

I think it was in the same sixties that ways to treat STD's had much advanced. The pill was first considered 100% effective; if it didn't work, the logic was the woman had skipped one or more. So basically the overall opinion became you could have sex unlimited with no risk on pregnancy. And if you did catch decease, for most it was a quick fix at the doc and ready to go again. Off course this is a bit exaggerated and certainly not everyone acted this way. Even physicians actually kept that attitude on the pill till the eighties. Imagine the surprise to my parents when I had decided to dig in

[Ducy]

I think the "Free Love" movement was showing that people no longer shunned sexuality but embraced it. I think that all this really helped spur the growth of the condom and birth control industry.

As far as first infected. We will never really know. Its my understanding that vaccines canno be created from viruses when there is no "patient zero" that every so often a disease mutates. This is why we don't have an ebola vaccine synthesized. Whether this is true or not is beyond me.

I do believe that some people may have been infected with a less "violent" strain of an STI and that lack of treatment led it to evolve a little more. Or simply a weakened immune system allowed it to evolve and adapt to humans.

Some diseases though seem too violent to be from mother nature. Look at some effects from the most dangerous of diseases and they seem too much like a horror story to be natural.

[RedRoses]

Originally Posted by Ducy

I think the "Free Love" movement was showing that people no longer shunned sexuality but embraced it. I think that all this really helped spur the growth of the condom and birth control industry.

There is true in this, though the change in attitude towards sex only became an en masse-movement when birthcontrol did evaluate. There is no (risk)"free love" without proper medical evolution. It's like a bell curve that predicts revolution. A bit like the innovation adaptation curve of Rogers. There will always be innovators and early adapters before it becomes en masse.

It's also my understanding that the constant mutation of a virus like HIV causes it to be so hard to make a cure or vaccin. You could say the strength lies in it's instability. It becomes harder to predict. And even if you figure out a pattern and would now how to respond, the counteraction does not last long enough to destroy the virus, as it has evolved to the next stage too soon.

As far the origins of viruses, there is this theory that humans are actually acting like a virus upon the earth. Since we've lost natural enemies, the balance requires other enemies in nature's little and most powerful creations. Seems logical to me, though certainly not much fun to be the species that nature needs a bit of wipe-out to do on...