Dr. Sawyer: Back in the 1980s when AIDS first appeared and everyone was freaking out about this new disease, the conservative side of the political spectrum took great delight in suggesting that so many gay men were being infected and dying because they were being punished by the Almighty for their sick and disgusting behavior. I used to take great pleasure in countering such propaganda by commenting that lesbians must be God’s chosen people then, because they rarely if ever contract AIDS! Although this is a slight exaggeration, HIV/AIDS is rarely sexually transmitted between lesbians compared to gay men and heterosexual couples. Of course, there is always a risk of transmission from vaginal secretions that certainly contain HIV, but the risk of transmission is so much less when a penis isn’t part of the equation!
Do lesbians have a lower risk of contracting HIV?
