In news everyone knew, but no one seemed to dare say out loud.

Since the outset of the global monkeypox outbreak in May, public health and infectious disease experts have told the public that the virus is largely transmitting through skin-to-skin contact, in particular during sex between men. 

Now, however, an expanding cadre of experts has come to believe that sex between men itself — both anal as well as oral intercourse — is likely the main driver of global monkeypox transmission. The skin contact that comes with sex, these experts say, is probably much less of a risk factor.

You don’t say.

This comes after a month of debate over sensitivities about the spread of monkeypox, that was entirely absent from the fascist COVID zero strategy which gleefully shut down everything, except Black Lives Matter riots and mosque prayers, with zero regard for anyone’s sensitivities. 

All the sensitivity, much like the HIV sensitivity, has hurt the people most at risk, gay men. 

In recent weeks, a growing body of scientific evidence — including a trio of studies published in peer-reviewed journals, as well as reports from national, regional and global health authorities — has suggested that experts may have framed monkeypox’s typical transmission route precisely backward.  

The framing wasn’t a mistake. 

Consequently, scientists told NBC News that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health authorities should update their monkeypox communication strategies to more strongly emphasize the centrality of intercourse among gay and bisexual men, who comprise nearly all U.S. cases, to the virus’ spread.

Democrats and allied LGBTQAPMQRZ activists have already made clear that’s a form of oppression and will go nowhere.

On Aug. 14, Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, an infectious disease physician at the University of Southern California, and Dr. Lao-Tzu Allan-Blitz, a resident physician in global health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, published an essay on Medium in which they reviewed the science supporting the argument that during the current outbreak, monkeypox is largely transmitting through anal and oral intercourse between men.

“It looks very clear to us that this is an infection that is transmitting sexually the vast majority of the time,” Allan-Blitz said.

This debate, however, is far from settled.

Dr. Rosamund Lewis, technical lead for monkeypox at the World Health Organization, told NBC News it was “unfortunate but true” that “we don’t know yet” whether the virus is predominantly transmitted through intercourse.

Unfortunate, but true. 

The WHO is still as vital as a sixth toe.