Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials, including the White House’s new monkeypox deputy, Demetre Daskalakis, frequently play down the central role sex between men plays in monkeypox transmission and overemphasize the uncommon cases that transmit through other means. The agency can’t even bring itself to use the words “gay” or “men” in its monkeypox safer-sex materials.

This reluctance is driven by an entrenched belief that telling gay men to alter our sexual practices is intrinsically homophobic or stigmatizing. The notion is partly understandable; it acknowledges that such demands could backfire, given an all-too-human resistance to being told what to do in private matters, especially within a community whose sex lives have a history of being criminalized. It also acknowledges that anti-LGBTQ policies and sentiment (including monkeypox-driven attacks) are on the rise, and that a segment of the country still wields gay men’s sexual norms to justify discrimination.

However, this thinking also patronizes gay men as perennial adolescents determined to defy any whiff of paternalism regardless of the cost to themselves or the community at large.