Sometimes reading The New York Times is like peeking into a world of urban make-believe.

The view that emanates from its pages - especially its opinion section - is often delusional.

Take, for instance, a bizarre piece published Sunday under the headline, “How Gay Men Saved Us From Mpox.”

Mpox is the new, woke name for monkeypox, a disease distantly related to smallpox - but far less serious - that causes painful, unsightly lesions. It was renamed last year after the woke crowd decided it was degrading to the people who were catching the disease. Or maybe it was insulting to primates. Who knows.

According to the CDC, monkeypox was first discovered in 1958 in research monkeys. The first human case was found in 1970 in the Congo. 

The rare disease is caused by a virus, is contagious and usually found in central and western Africa. An infection lasts several weeks and patients usually recover fully. 

There was an international outbreak of monkeypox in the spring of 2022 that briefly fueled panic of a new pandemic. It was quickly traced to two “raves” - a polite term for orgies - one in Spain and one in Belgium according to the NYT:

In early May of 2022, mpox found its way to gay raves in Spain and Belgium, huge annual parties that draw men from all over the world. Clothing was scant, grinding was plentiful and when the parties were over everyone flew home. Within weeks, mpox cases — resulting from human-to-human transmission — began cropping up in cities worldwide.

These parties, where gay and bisexual men had intercourse with strangers - caused the disease to spread around the globe, ultimately infecting more than 30,000 people.

Almost all were men with a median age of 35.

So how did gay men save the world from mpox? They didn’t. They did, however, save themselves by cutting back on sex parties and getting vaccinated.

The New York Times article attempts to portray orgies as perfectly fun events and the men who stayed away from them until they could be vaccinated were smart guys who bravely sacrificed fun for safety.

In a valiant attempt to seem enlightened and open-minded, there is no suggestion or value judgment attached to this promiscuous behavior. Nor is there even a hint that perhaps it’s always smart to stay away from orgies. Especially when you consider that these monkeypox-spreading international raves were happening during covid, when many countries and some states in the U.S. were still imposing pandemic-related mandates.

Let’s be clear: Not all or even most gay men participate in sex with random strangers. Since the virus isn’t airborne or even spread without close skin-to-skin contact, most of us - gay or straight - were never at any risk from this disease.

Any person who enjoys random anonymous sex takes all sorts of health risks. 

Here’s an idea: Cut it out. 

Not because writers for The New York Times will call you a health hero, saving humanity from an epidemic that was never going to happen.

Because it’s not safe.