[1] The term has fallen into disuse, as both clinically imprecise and prejudicial: the issues it describes are not specific to gay and bisexual men, limited to the bowel, nor a medical syndrome.
[2] After Kazal, the term was used sporadically in medical literature from the 1970s to refer to a complex of gastrointestinal symptoms affecting gay men.
[3] The term was not specific to any particular disease or infection, and was used clinically to describe proctitis, diarrhea,[4] and a variety of other complaints caused by a wide range of infectious organisms.
Reported causes include herpes viruses, syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, campylobacter, and shigellosis, as well as a variety of protozoal infections.
"[8] Activist and author Michael Scarce criticized the concept in his 1999 book Smearing the Queer: Medical Bias in the Health Care of Gay Men.