Rotello argues that gay men significantly lowered the first leg of the triad, infectivity, through the use of condoms, yet condoms alone proved unable to quell the epidemic because the second leg of the triad, prevalence, was already so high. Therefore gay men needed to address the third leg of the triad, the contact rate. Rotello argues that lowering the contact rate while continuing to emphasize condoms might provide enough additional ‘room for error’ to bring new infections below the epidemic's tipping point.