AIDS-Preventing Sexual Hygiene:

Complement Condom Use By Gargling, Douching, and Washing After Sex

A Newly Available Book By Toby Marotta, Ph.D.

This short book is an anthropologist's analysis of how and why the AIDS epidemic is unfolding in the United States coupled with suggestions for a new approach to prevention. Most practically, it develops the idea that safer sex should be treated as sexual hygiene.

The basics of AIDS-preventing sexual hygiene can be summed up simply. Speak of complementing condom use by gargling, douching, and washing after sex, employing vinegar or other mild disinfectants that kill HIV. In a pinch, apply soap and water to intimate fluids that might carry germs. To sum things up, equate AIDS-prevention with cleanliness.

My book begins by offering a holistic perspective on the progress of this epidemic. With the help of metaphors and anthropological observations as well as science, I explain why the course of infection leading to AIDS is most aptly referred to as HIV Disease.

The resulting picture of this disease emphasizes that ongoing patterns of sexual behavior are associated with deteriorating health. To make it clear that the recommended hygiene is worth adopting at any stage in a sexually active lifestyle or relationship, whatever the health status of a participant, I emphasize that each exposure to sexually transmitted germs bears a cost.

Details

Most importantly, AIDS-PREVENTING SEXUAL HYGIENE should help people understand why, in the case of intercourse with a possibly infectious partner, it is safest to complement condom use with disinfecting vinegar-and-water douches -- rectal and/or vaginal as the case may require. I explain the statistical research that has led experts to discourage people from douching before sexual intercourse with possibly infectious partners. But I dwell on the advice about after-intercourse hygiene delivered most authoritatively in The Guide to Living with HIV Infection, by John G. Bartlett and Ann K. Finkbeiner, medical professionals associated with the well-regarded AIDS Clinic at Johns Hopkins University.

Their own guidebook puts it this way: "Anyone who makes a mistake and has unprotected sex should use a vinegar douche as quickly as possible."

From the beginning of this epidemic, laboratory research has shown that soap and water kill HIV. Bartlett and Finkbeiner report that vinegar does the same.

Should a condom not be used during sexual intercourse -- or should one break or leak -- douching with a solution of vinegar and water can lessen risk or harm by reducing the amount of HIV left on penetrable skin-linings and susceptible cells. Using soap and water, vinegar, or some other mild disinfectant to wash a penis after intercourse can help keep HIV from reaching blood through any warts, sores, or skin breaks on it. Gargling with an HIV-killing disinfectant after oral sex can help prevent infection via the mouth.

Significance

You will not find advice of this sort spelled out elsewhere.

Only a handful of the thousands of books on sexuality published during the last half-century make any mention of sexual hygiene. Not one discusses the relevance of this subject to AIDS. Nor do the vast majority of publications dealing with the nature or control of this epidemic.

AIDS-PREVENTING SEXUAL HYGIENE should be especially useful to people who remain sexually active. It can serve as a resource for all who give them advice.

The book examines vaginal intercourse form the perspective of women as well as men. It portrays oral and anal sex as behavior enjoyed not only by homosexuals, but by heterosexuals.

Its lessons about hygiene are easy to remember. These recommendations are so sensible that in retrospect they might seem obvious.

Now that Americans are assessing basic values with end-of-the-century consciousness, this book should be seen as a pace-setting primer. It tackles age-old taboos with unprecedented explicitness. It applies traditional wisdom to a modern plague.