“Both of those children are traced back to individuals who come from the men-who-have-sex-with-men community, the gay men’s community,” Control Prevention and Control (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said Friday. We essentially have a global map of participants in orgies and those with whom they came in sexual contact. If only one of the girls in Jeffrey Epstein’s care had monkeypox, we’d have a global map of billionaire sex traffickers. Instead, we have a global map of hedonistic gay men.

This is the uncomfortable truth.

A friend sent me a link the other day to a Twitter thread of a gay porn star who contracted monkeypox after participating in several orgies over a week-long period, including a birthday orgy for a friend and encounters with strangers met over the internet. An acquaintance flagged an article for me on a gay news site that advised gay men to be safe but also noted they should not be stigmatized by monkeypox because usually, the symptoms are mild, and contracting it just shows they’re more willing to have sexual adventures. I’m not going to share those links because you really don’t want to go there. I pity the heterosexual or monogamous gay man who gets monkeypox through close contact at the office. That person is going to be stigmatized. The men at the orgies seemingly don’t really care.