Friday June 25, 2010
Clinic Stats: 86% of all STD’s among 45+ Found in Swingers and Gay Men
June 25, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Swingers – straight couples who regularly swap sexual partners at organized gatherings and clubs and indulge in group sex – have rates of sexually transmitted infections comparable with those of recognized high risk groups such as gay men, reveals research published ahead of print in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.
More than half (55%) of all diagnoses in the over 45s were made in swingers, compared with around a third (31%) in gay men. One in 10 older swingers had Chlamydia and around one in 20 (4%) had gonorrhoea.
The findings are based on the numbers of patients seeking treatment in 2007 and 2008 at three sexual health clinics in South Limburg in the Netherlands.
These clinics, which serve a population of 630,000, have systematically recorded whether a patient is a swinger since the start of 2007, in a bid to track the infection rates among this group.
During the study period, there were just under 9,000 consultations at the three clinics. One in nine of the patients (12%) was a swinger, with an average age of 43.