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Epidemiologists have stressed that monkeypox can still transmit among other groups of people, although the risk to non-MSM at this time does remain low. Monkeypox has tended to present relatively mildly during this outbreak and has caused no deaths outside of the 11 African nations in which the virus has become endemic since it was discovered in 1970. Nevertheless, 18 gay men who contracted monkeypox told NBC News how it can cause unsightly and in some cases debilitatingly painful skin lesions — and has left them stuck glumly inside. “The thought of a full three-week quarantine is pretty scary,” said John, 32, a New York City tech worker who believes he contracted monkeypox from a guy he hooked up with during a recent trip to Los Angeles for the city’s Pride events. “I’m just feeling disappointed and bummed out. It was a bummer to miss celebrating Pride” in New York. John is among the swiftly expanding group of 560 U.S. residents diagnosed with monkeypox thus far — a figure experts believe is a vast undercount of the true case number, given woefully insufficient testing. California, New York, Illinois and Florida are the states with the highest numbers of confirmed cases. Even as Covid-19 restrictions have loosened, for many gay men, an uninvited guest called monkeypox has threatened to spoil long-anticipated festivities. Of the 6,924 confirmed monkeypox cases in the global outbreak, the vast majority have occurred among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, or MSM, various health authorities report. Skin-to-skin contact during sex, experts assert, has likely been the primary driver of the virus’s global spread thus far. Some of the men, like John, who shared their stories about having monkeypox with NBC News asked to only use their first names to protect their medical privacy. Most of the men interviewed expressed a strong sense of duty to draw attention to this new pathogen spreading so concerningly within their community. They also hope to combat stigma against those who contract the virus by giving it a human face. “I feel like this is something that’s about to hit pretty hard,” John said. “It’s on us to look after our own.” A worldwide outbreak likely fueled by sexual contact and travel Epidemiologists believe they have traced the global spread of monkeypox to midspring gatherings of gay men in Western Europe. These parties drew many men from other cities, some of whom then apparently carried the virus back home. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last month that of the first 17 U.S. cases, 16 were in men who have sex with men, and 14 were in people who between them had traveled to 11 different countries during the three weeks before their symptoms began. Nearly all the men who spoke with NBC News about having monkeypox said they were fairly certain they could trace their infections back to sexual encounters. Quite a few traveled during the weeks before developing signs of the infection. Justin, 38, said after returning home May 18 from a two-week European vacation, he became the 14th person in the U.S. and the second in New York City to be diagnosed with monkeypox. He said his case started with a bad fever, which along with symptoms such as swollen lymph nodes, headache, body aches, chills and exhaustion are common monkeypox signs. Soon after, the telltale lesions crept across his body.