Forum targets issues affecting lesbians

Drug smuggling, battling the Federal Drug Administration and oral sex were only a few of the variety of issues discussed at the first installment of the Women's Discussion Series sponsored by the Program for the Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual Community at Penn. People With AIDS Health Group Executive Director Sal Cooper and Columbia University graduate student Beck Young led the informal discussion Friday which touched on topics affecting lesbians. Much of the dialogue centered on whether or not a woman could contract AIDS through sex with another woman. Young said AIDS transmission by lesbian sex is much less probable than any other intercourse where body fluids are transmitted. "Sex between two women, no matter what they are doing, is lower than any other kind of sex," Young said. "It is much harder for woman to pass the virus to a woman than a man to a man." But Young cautioned the small audience. She explained there has been very little research into lesbian transmission compared to homosexual and heterosexual activities. "The [Center for Disease Control] has been very resistant to investigating woman to woman transmission," Young said. "They are the only federal agency to handle these studies." Young said there were only eight reported cases of AIDS transmission through cunnilingus. Of those, she believes five are plausible and only one has been developed into a case study. "There are plenty of lesbians out there who don't know any infected people," Young said. "There are also lesbians who know plenty of infected women." Cooper added that women cannot be completely safe. "I can't really talk about degrees of risk," Cooper said. "Whenever you get someone else's fluids into your body you are at risk." Cooper urged the audience to get to know their partner before the relationship progresses too far. "Trust is a very key ingredient in sex," said Cooper. Program Assistant for PLGBCAP Elizabeth Storz agreed with Cooper's analysis. "For me, knowledge is safety," Storz said. "People I know who are positive are less positive because the unknown is eliminated." Nursing sophomore Elizabeth Schmidt attended the conference because of her interest to work in HIV health care. "I always felt frustrated by the lack of concrete information on woman to woman transmission," Schmidt said. "I believe there are a lot of myths over AIDS transmission in the lesbian community." Schmidt said a number of those myths were dispelled by the talk. Storz said she will try to hold two or three discussion each semester as part of the series.