Talk:Blood fetish

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[edit] Blood fetish

Regarding blood fetish: please don't suggest to people that:

- a common way of finding out whether a person would be safe to engage in bloodplay with is for them to go to their local blood donation organisation, who check blood if it is safe and contains no diseases before it will be stored.

Using a blood donation organization as a proxy STD test is highly irresponsible; if the testing is not 100% perfect (and in never is), and the person trying this is positive (and presumably anyone who is considering doing this considers this to be entirely possible), they will almost certainly (because of pre-test blood pooling, and the very large blood volumes involved) infect one or more unwitting third parties with a potentially lethal disease.

Instead, they should get tested at their local sexual health clinic. -- Karada 20:37, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

People just wanting to make sure are no more likely to have an STD than other first-time blood donors.. I don't see your point: If that kind of carelessness goes on things would happen *anyway* --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 20:41, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

It's reasonable to assume that people who take part in high-risk activities are at higher risk than other members of the population. In epidemiology terms, it's assortative mixing among people with high risk tolerance; people who take part in one high-risk activity are more likely to take part in others, including taking part in these activities with multiple partners; and no, you can't trust your partner who tells you "I've never done anything like this before, either". Consider the outbreaks of HIV in the regularly-tested adult movie industry; this in a population that take part in high-risk activities, and yet are all tested monthly. -- Karada 20:50, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm I guess that makes sense, kinda

I would be interested in reading if you feel like creating articles for "assortative mixing" and "risk tolerance" maybe {{psych-stub}} or {{neuroscience-stub}} --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)}

I'm not familiar with the article or the subject of its concern, but I fail to see how saying "X does Y" constitutes an actual endorsement of Y. If such a method is indeed commonplace then, regardless of the advisability of such method for practitioners of said activity, it should be included as part of the article on that activity. Kurt Weber 22:01, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Karada, I think you miss the point here. Just because certain behavior is inadvisable does not mean Wikipedia should not state that people engage in it (if indeed they do) and describe it. Certainly, the encyclopedia should not ENDORSE it (but then again, neither should it endorse anything else--NPOV and all that), but simply stating that it happens and describing what it is hardly constitutes an endorsement. If we were to remove all content that describes inadvisable behavior, then we would also have to remove Collectivism, Fascism, Socialism, Christianity, Communism, Totalitarianism, Anarchism, Democracy, New England Patriots, Detroit Pistons, and Houston Astros. Kurt Weber 22:10, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that there are some bloodborne diseases that we can't yet test for. (Prion diseases like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease comes to mind.) In addition to spreading these diseases to one's blood play partners, one would then potentially infect one or more innocent bystanders each time one donated blood. Most jurisdictions also bar donations from individuals who have recently (in the last 12 months) come in contact with another person's blood. Lying to the nurses when they ask about this stuff could conceivably make you civilly and/or criminally liable for any morbidity or mortality resulting from a tainted blood donation. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:39, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

The question is, is it actually a 'common way' for people to test blood? Do we have a reliable source for such a claim? The wording would have to be amended anyway—even if tested at a blood donor clinic or–preferably–a public/sexual health clinic, there is no guarantee that the blood is 'safe'. Blood tests have a false negative rate, recent infections may not be detected, and there are some diseases transmitted by blood for which we do not have a lab test. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:21, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Do we have evidence (a reputable source) that this is a 'common way' for people to test their disease status? Blood donor clinics in my neck of the woods (Canada) actively discourage the use of blood donation to test for STDs, and will put individuals in contact with (free) sexual health clinics who can do the testing. In most western countries, it's not difficult to have one's blood tested, and in many places such testing is available free of charge—no blood donation required.

I have little doubt that it is possible to locate poorly-educated web forum members who give bad advice like 'get a free blood test at a donor clinic', but I suspect that individuals who have some experience in risky behaviours have learned to do these things through the 'proper' channels. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:16, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Verifiability is important; it's also not the issue here. Karada did not remove the content on the basis that it is false or unverifiable; he removed it on the basis that it describes conduct that is inadvisable, which is not a valid reason for removing content. Kurt Weber 22:21, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough—perhaps he did the right thing for the wrong reasons, then. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:23, 2 January 2006 (UTC)