The New York Times - July 18, 1983
Glenn Collins

As evidence, Dr. Felman cited city statistics that show a steady decline in the number of cases of primary and secondary syphilis. "But we still have enormous problems with gonorrhea in the straight community," he said, "and also, among women with pelvic inflammation disease," another common sexually transmitted disease.

His comments reflect the opinions of public health officials in several cities and at the Federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, as well as sex therapists, university health-service physicians and a sampling of adults and college students.

The Los Angeles County Health Department made headlines in June with an announcement that the number of cases of gonorrhea in 1982 had dropped to 39,834 from a high of 52,851 in 1980. Suggestions were made that sexual activity had been affected by fears about AIDS and herpes.

AIDS has been fatal in most cases and has no known cause or cure; 71 percent of its victims have been men who acknowledge being homosexual or bisexual. Herpes is caused by a virus; though widespread, it is not fatal.

"Possibly we're seeing a change toward less promiscuity, but it's nothing more than a hunch right now," said Dr. Michael A. Langer, assistant chief of the Los Angeles Venereal Disease Control Program.

He said there was no significant change in the rate of primary and secondary syphilis in Los Angeles in 1980, 1981 and 1982. "It's only speculation that AIDS and herpes have had any significant impact on patterns of sexual behavior," Dr. Langer said.

Reports received by the Centers for Disease Control from state and city health departments across America do not show any consistent clues about changes in rates of casual sex. "There's been some speculation over the past months that the herpes scare has slowed down heterosexual contacts, but we have no evidence of that," said Joseph H. Blount, statistician for the agency's Division of Venereal Disease Control.

In San Francisco there are frequent assertions about both a decline in attendance at heterosexual singles bars and a drop in patronage at homosexual bathhouses, said Dr. Erwin H. Braff, director of that city's Bureau of Communicable Disease Control.

However, Dr. Braff added that since 1979 the rate of early infectious syphilis in the city had gone up 50 percent by 1982 but appeared to have leveled off. "I suppose one could argue that the rate for syphilis might have gone higher if current fears were not so widespread," he said, "but that's really speculation."

Dr. Ira M. Sacker, who supervises a clinic at Brookdale Hospital Medical Center in Brooklyn that treats 3,000 adolescents a year, remarked: "We are continuing to see tremendous amounts of sexual activity among adolescents. The big problem is still that they're not using the contraceptive resources that are available."

Although some college students said they thought there was a trend away from casual sex, especially among women, the majority reported little change.

"I suppose AIDS and herpes are definitely on people's minds," said Peter Korn, a 20-year-old junior at the State University of New York at Binghamton. "But I don't think they have in any way curtailed the sexual revolution among most people my age."

Dr. Warren E.C. Wacker, director of the Harvard University Health Services, which treats a population of 30,000 students, staff and clerical people, said: "Heterosexuals don't seem to be concerned, and I don't know that fear of AIDS or herpes has changed sexual behavior. If there were widespread fears or concerns, we think we'd have monitored them."

Dr. Richard G. Carlson, director of the Columbia University Health Service, believes that fears about sexually transmitted diseases have had some effect. "Perhaps, before herpes, people felt sex was reasonably natural, and now it's characterized as somehow dirty or unappealing," he said. Some heterosexual students have told him about fears of catching AIDS, but he has not noticed any signs of panic. "I think unease is a better way to describe it," Dr. Carlson said.

Dr. Gene Abel, director of the Sexual Behavior Clinic of the New York State Psychiatric Institute in Manhattan, thinks it "dangerous to make assumptions because of the tremendous variability in sexuality."

"Some people are not at all concerned about these diseases, and others are extremely worried," he said. "Often people's fears are directly related to whether they know someone who has contracted a sexually transmitted disease."

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