You're listening to the microversion of the Savage Love cast at Savage.loaf.

The first headline I saw about the monkey pox outbreak, I didn't think I needed to read it.

I thought, oh my god, I am plagued out at the moment and nothing in this headline makes me think I need to read past the headline which most people don't do whatever the story is.

We scan the headlines, we skip most of the actual news stories. All of us do that. Even news junkies like me do that. You can't read everything.

But I started reading. It's a viral infection related to small pox sounds kind of unpleasant, rarely deadly.

First seen in monkeys, hence the name, but you don't get it from monkeys. Last time anyone got it in the United States was in 2003 and it was from a prairie dog.

And it's almost always seen in people who have visited Western Central Africa or been in close contact with an infected person who has recently visited those parts of Africa.

It's also really hard to catch. It's not as infectious as COVID. It's not airborne. Sometimes mistaken for the flu at first.

Akes and pains in the fever, swollen lymph nodes, but then a rash and pus filled blisters, follow and there were pictures and Ick.

Anyway, I kept reading. Even though I didn't feel like monkey pox was something I personally needed to be worried about.

And the headline certainly didn't make it seem like it was something I needed to worry about.

But I like to be informed even about things that don't have anything to do with me.

I'm also Catholic and a bit of a hypokondriac. And I like to worry about things that shouldn't worry me. A man needs a hobby.

So I kept reading. And then 15 paragraphs into this story. I learned that almost all of the cases in this outbreak.

And now 15 countries all over the world, all at once, which has never been seen with monkey pox before.

This outbreak, which is freaking the fuck out of scientists at the World Health Organization and the CDC, all of these cases seem in the UK,

US, Spain, Canada, Belgium, Australia, Austria, Israel, Switzerland have been among gay and bisexual men.

Oh, so this is something I might need to worry about. And it's something other gay and by men might need to worry about.

But they won't know to worry about it unless they keep reading past the headline and write down to the 15th paragraph,

which most people gay or straight don't do.

Seems to me that they're kind of maybe burying the lead on this whole monkey pox thing.

Seems to me that the people most at risk, gay and by men, most need to be informed.

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