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Sunday, December 26, 2010

Fucking like an actuary.

To the Federal Aviation Administration, a human life is worth about $2.7 million. Oh my God, that's horrible, right? Well, you can dispute the amount, but the way the system works, there has to be an amount. In philosophical terms a human life may be worth infinity dollars, but when you're building an aircraft, you can't spend infinity dollars on safety features. Every design will let some people die, and you have to assign a specific number value to decide exactly where you draw the line between "this airplane is unsafe" and "no one can afford this airplane." If adding five-point harnesses to airline seats would save 10 lives and cost $30 million, then those 10 people are knowingly--and, although I wouldn't like to say this to the families, reasonably--sacrificed. They die not from cheapness but from compromise, from the understanding that if we want commercial air travel then we accept some deaths.

And this is why sometimes I have sex with strangers.

I'll admit right now, mea culpa, I haven't done the math. If I were really working this FAA-style I'd assign the benefit of gettin' some strange a dollar value, then multiply the odds of every possible adverse event by their assigned dollar values (1% chance of getting the herp x $500 worth of sadness caused by the herp = $5 Expected Herp Cost), and subtract costs from benefit to determine whether the sex breaks even. I haven't literally done this.

But I'm aware that there is math going on. The one thing I will not do is insist on a 0% risk. That's not sensible, reasonable, or possible. I won't even insist on the absolute minimum risk. Telling me "condoms have a failure rate" doesn't scare me--I know it; I'm neither ignorant nor in denial. I've simply estimated that it's still worth it.

So it's from the same philosophy, not a contradiction, that I won't fuck strangers without a condom. The Expected Herp Cost goes up too high, all the passengers on the plane die, and it's not worth my $2.7 million anymore. Taking calculated risks doesn't mean I'll take any risk.

A corollary of this approach is that not only should you avoid saying "I'll only have sex if it's infinitely safe," but you also need to not say "if I got the herp, that would be infinitely bad." You can't designate it as a moral failing or a sign that you're a disgusting or stupid person--you just happened to win the Virus Lottery, that's all. You're going to suffer some negative consequences, but you aren't going to be ruined. (I've noticed that some sex-positive circles are actually terribly judgey when it comes to the subjects of STDs and unwanted pregnancies, as if someone with these is not only shamefully irresponsible, but somehow an affront to sex-positivity itself. Sex couldn't possibly be positive and also sometimes harmful!) The fact that I don't have the herp means that I'm lucky, not that I've been doing everything right. And--whether you're a virgin or a streetwalker--you too. The amount of luck you needed might be different, but it was some. Nobody can say "I didn't need luck because I was smart."

And will I be steering this post in a circle if I point out that that's no excuse not to be smart?

My vagina is an airplane, and every time I take it up, I know that I might fall. I have a seatbelt, but I do not have wings. But I fly my vagina-plane anyway. Because it's worth it to see the world fall away beneath me, to break through the clouds, to tilt away toward the sun and soar.

8 comments:

  1. Sorry - technical point - you can get the herp even with condoms. So there's that. I find it interesting and sometimes complicated to be inclined towards ethical sluttery and have herpes - some people in kink circles seem to consider it gauche to mention it, and some consider it gauche to want to take precautions. Gah, people are weird.

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  2. Seitzk, I don't think that's the point Holly is trying to make...yes, you can get the herp with condoms as well as HPV; but using condoms STILL decreases your risk.

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  3. That was one of the philosophies I really liked that came through in a motorcycle riding course I took a few years back.

    They were safety minded, but also, bikers tend to, er, disrespect authority. So they talked about knowing your risks, and talked about the details of the risks -- the rates of accidents for people riding while drinking, what happens to your brain if you crash without a helmet, etc -- without preaching. There definitely was some "You'd probably be an idiot if you do this, but you've a right to be an idiot. In New Hampshire, anyway."

    Many people seem to think that if, in education, you increase the apparent cost of doing X to infinity, then people will say OMG and not do X. But most people see through that pretty quickly. So all they know is X is probably kinda bad.... and that's just not enough information.

    Everything you do, and everything you don't do, has a cost. Every choice you make, including hiding at home and pretending you're not making choices, has risks and benefits. Every day, we do this analysis, and the better our information, the better we can make choices.

    So tell me the truth about transmission rates and treatment plans and lived experience of an STD. Except for "can share with others", for instance, I seriously doubt herpes is worse than the incurable, possibly life-threatening conditions I manage every single day.

    The inverse, of course, is that people also really suck at taking responsibility for the risks they take, and have magical thinking about the chances of things happening. If I indulge in a pasttime with a 1 in 6 chance of badness, and I do it once and nothing bad happens, it just means I got lucky. It doesn't mean that I'll keep getting lucky because I always got lucky before! But that's how people think. "Grandpa smoked and drank and it never hurt him!"

    I'll stop ranting now. Mostly I want to say "YES. WHAT YOU SAID."

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  4. Oy. I'm in the process of coming to terms with herpes as someone who recently contracted it. I'm also not really a practitioner of ethical sluttery - not because I'm unethical, but because I think I am mostly monogamous, in spite of having fought this tendency. It is a huge relief to have someone else point out that sex-positive folks are not always the best about STIs in terms of acknowledging that some of their readers might actually have them! There need to be more resources out there on how to talk about one's STI status with partners, and about how to do so without making yourself out to be the virus-ridden bad guy. Once I stop feeling that way about myself, I might try to put a few things together...

    Seitzk, any advice on talking to prospective partners about herpes? I would so so love it.

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  5. @ Anonymous
    I highly recommend the vaginapagina LJ community for advice! There are usually a good number of posts about herpes, with some very knowledgeable and helpful commenters, and VP is very much about destroying stigmas, including those around STIs.

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  6. I just want to say that I loved that last paragraph, where you extended your metaphor way beyond the points for which it was originally introduced and made it work perfectly anyway. That was beautiful.

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  7. @ Melinda
    Thanks! Actually, I know a woman who has written for them in the past. I met her in training at the reproductive health clinic I volunteer/work at. Which I mention because I find it extra sad/notable that I still have to ask for direction and need help coping with this stigma that I can name so easily for my clients.

    Big love to you, Holly, and all of y'all pervs.

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