Cruising for bruising

Friday, December 2, 2011

This particular group was practically unheard of decades ago, but since 2008, their number has increased year after year.

Although MSM is only the second leading mode of HIV transmission in Cebu City (the first being heterosexual contact), it was the predominant mode of transmission in 10 of the 16 regions in the country in 2010, and in all of the regions this year,
according to the Department of Health.

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Positive

In the recent 2011 Integrated HIV Behavioral and Serologic Surveillance in Cebu City, a total of 299 MSMs were interviewed and submitted themselves to voluntary testing. Of the number, 14 tested positive for HIV.

The survey defines MSMs as those who are born male and are at least 15 years old, who had sex or oral sex with another male in the past 12 months.

MSMs are further classified into two: those who did not accept money in exchange for sex with another male in the past 12 months, and those who accepted money.

Of the 299 respondents, 295 are single and the age range is 14 to 49 years old. Of the
177 who do not accept payment, 103 are between 18 to 24 years old, while 72 of the 122 who accept payment belong to the same age group.

Dr. Ilya Tac-an, HIV/AIDS coordinator of the Cebu City Health Department, said that like the surveillance on injecting drug users, the survey results for MSMs is representative of the total population of MSMs in the city.

Sex hunt

She estimates that there are about 12,000 MSMs in Cebu City alone, and about 560 (4.67 percent) of them are HIV positive.

These MSMs look for sexual partners in places they call “cruising sites,” which are bars, coffee shops, parks or certain meeting places in the barangays.

MSMs of different backgrounds frequent these establishments, but Tac-an said that MSMs who are professionals usually prefer to look for partners online.

Jerson See, president of Cebu Plus Association Inc., said that since the CHD’s social hygiene clinic has been able to tap the community of MSMs of low economic status, they had to find ways to reach out to the young professionals as well.

Cebu Plus is a group dedicated to supporting people living with HIV and AIDS and raising awareness about the virus that causes Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome.

Networking sites

“These young professionals go into social networking sites when they look for partners. There are several gay social networking sites, and they’re specifically for MSMs. If they go there, everyone they will find are MSMs, so predominantly, these are men who go online because they want to have sex. So our approach in educating them is through online education. We also go online to encourage them to get an HIV test, and through this initiative, we were able to get a lot of referrals for testing at the
social hygiene clinic,” See told Sun.Star Cebu.

MSMs who work in call centers, medical facilities and other industries and businessmen log in to the websites Planet Romeo and ManGem to look for sexual partners who they later meet in bars or hotels.

At least 30,000 users log in to Planet Romeo at any given time, and thousands of these are from Cebu.

See said this corrects the stereotype that only gays who work in beauty salons and gay bars have vulnerable MSM populations.

Of the 100 people living with HIV who have been assisted by Cebu Plus, roughly 70 percent are employed, 10 percent are students and only 20 percent are unemployed.

Three men

“It’s not about what profession you have or what your gender is. It’s the things that you do that make you vulnerable. If you have risky sexual behavior, if you engage in unprotected sex, then you need to get tested. Sometimes an MSM would have sex with three different men at least three times a day and if all of these encounters are unprotected, then you can imagine how fast the transmission will be,” he continued.

Citing the 2011 surveillance report, See and Tac-an said they still fall below the targeted 80 percent condom use among MSMs.

Condom unloved

Of the 299 MSMs covered by the survey, only 168 (56.52 percent) used a condom with their last paid sex partner, and only 156 (52.4 percent) used a condom the last time they accepted money in exchange for sex.

“Condom use is still very low and based on our interviews, they don’t want to use a condom because for them, sex feels different when they wear one. It’s a good thing to note, though, that in the national results of the surveillance, majority of those who find partners online use a condom, although it’s still below our target,” Dr. Tac-an added.

Reject test

Fewer still are the MSMs who submitted themselves to an HIV test, even if more than half of the respondents felt they were at risk of getting HIV.

Only around five percent or eight of the 177 who did not accept payment for sex recently got tested and got the results. Of the 122 who accepted payment, only 10.66 percent or 12 respondents recently got tested.

See said that a lot of MSMs refuse to get a test because they fear they would test positive, and when they do, they fear that they would be discriminated against and rejected by their partners, friends and family. They also worry that they would lose their job.

Misconceptions

Aside from low condom use, See attributes the spread of the infection to several misconceptions about HIV and AIDS.

“Some are still uneducated about HIV. Some don’t even believe that HIV is true. There are those who don’t believe they can acquire it because they judge their partners according to their physical appearance. For them, if you look okay physically, then you’re HIV-free, which is false,” he lamented. (2nd of three part)