Biden Advisor Supports Diverse Perspectives on Safe Sex

President Joe Biden’s monkeypox advisor appeared to defend risky sexual behavior — waving it off as simply someone’s idea of a “fun Friday night” — during a Sunday appearance on MSNBC.

Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a physician and gay activist who specializes in the prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, has served as Biden’s Deputy National Monkeypox Coordinator since August 2022 — and he told MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart that his role in the administration is to “get the word out in a way that supports people’s joy” rather than warning them that their behavior could be “risky.”

WATCH:

Biden monkeypox advisor Demetre Daskalakis says the Biden administration aims to “support peoples’ joy as opposed to calling them ‘risky'”:

“One person’s idea of risk is another person’s idea of a great festival or Friday night.” pic.twitter.com/nKsRQNmOwY

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 18, 2023

“I work in HIV normally,” he explained, adding, “I always say that I’ve never made an HIV diagnosis in someone that hasn’t somehow related to stigma, I think M-Pox is the same.”

“Stigma tends to be a barrier to testing, a barrier to vaccination,” he continued. “And so, you know, really addressing stigma intentionally and making sure that we get the word out in a way that supports people’s joy as opposed to, you know, calling them ‘risky.’ So I think, you know, one of the things to think about is one person’s idea of risk is another person’s idea of a great ‘festival’ or Friday night, for that matter, so we have to sort of embrace that with joy and make sure that folks know how to keep themselves safe.”

What Daskalakis did not say aloud was that monkeypox (renamed “M-Pox” in an effort to lessen the stigma he had warned about) is often transmitted through close contact with the skin or mucosal surfaces of an infected person — and that it appeared to have hit hardest among men who engaged in sexual contact with other men.

Daskalakis recently came under fire when a video circulated of him appearing onstage wearing a business suit and a bondage harness alongside two men wearing bikini bottoms. According to a report from the Washington Free Beacon, Daskalakis was there “‘on assignment’ in his role as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s director of the division of HIV/AIDS prevention — for which he was paid a taxpayer-funded salary of about $246,000 last year.”

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