The Glam Reaper is a “viral” campaign produced by ACON, referencing the original Grim Reaper advertisement and encouraging condom use. It’s cute :)

I find it fascinating the way the bottom-up approach to the HIV epidemic developed, particularly amongst gay men & sex workers in Sydney, in the 80s and 90s. That kind of collaboration really needs to happen more often.

I think a large part of what made HIV/AIDS such a special case, and one of the reasons people have become complacent about it since, is that in the early 80s AIDS was this BIG SCARY DEATH SENTENCE. The Grim Reaper ads were a perfect reflection of community attitudes towards this disease that people didn’t really understand, but which was killing off injecting drug users and gay men at alarming rates (and don’t get me started on the fundamentalist whackjobs who declared it God’s judgement for precisely that reason). Part of the reason the at-risk communities mobilised so rapidly was precisely because there was a suspicion that if they didn’t, they would indeed be treated as disposable.

Another important point as background to Hexy’s post – here in Oz, sex education tends to be delivered earlier and more effectively than in the US, at least from the anecdotes I’ve heard from Americans. I think this was largely a result of the AIDS crisis and may be slipping now, if the dramatic climb in chlamydia infection rates is anything to go by.

I liked that ad. Partially because it was applicable to all STIs, and partially because every attempt during high school to tell me I couldn’t know the past history of my partners felt like “they could be lying!” which, as a sixteen year old who was seeing the same girl for years, didn’t hold much water. And because, from memory, it didn’t feel like sly slut-shaming the way a lot of the education I received about STI’s did.

I realise this is frustratingly vague, but I don’t think I was even 10 at the time, so my memory isn’t clear enough to recall the slogan and google it. :/

he story of someone double-gloving to put a band-aid on a HIV+ man’s finger.

0_o

I guess that’s a step up from refusing to share plates/bathrooms/workspace/etc. *sigh*

Your link just comes back here. I have seen a great many positive and effective education campaigns, not all of which are in-community for at-risk groups. I might try and source some for another post…

However, we don’t want to stigmatise those who are HIV+. I used to work within a first aid organisation, and heard the story of someone double-gloving to put a band-aid on a HIV+ man’s finger. I shuddered.

Ads like this which are currently up on trams and bus stops around Melbourne do more to help stop the spread of HIV and other STIs without stigmatising people who have them.

I can’t speak for gay men or IV drug users, but as a sex worker I really get the shits with health professionals who are either unaware of the actual stats surrounding HIV infection in this country or have the knowledge but fail to apply it. We’re treated like walking AIDS vectors despite being, in general, safe sex experts.

To get back on track; I was tested every year because of insecurities about the blood supply when I was transfused. And each and every one of those tests was absolute torture – not only because of the fear of a positive result, but because of the stigma that was (and still is) attached just to the idea of needing a test. A woman who asks for testing at the local health department (as I had to, not having medical insurance) and tell the nurse you need an HIV test they will automatically make several assumptions about you. That you’re 1) a slut and 2) an IV drug user. And when the nurse asks why you need the test, if you dare to claim it’s because of tainted blood supply s/he will roll hir eyes and give you the ‘sure’ look. I can only imagine how much harder it must be for even more marginalized groups.

I had to start that routine at the ripe old age of 15. And even after having that same test, at the same health department, for almost 10 years not ONCE did I get any education about the prevention of HIV. Not once. I educated myself (and this was long before the internet was a household item), and often had to educate my peers as well.

As stated above, I have teenage children. I have, in the past few years, had to explain that HIV is not ‘only’ for gay men, or for IV drug users; that HIV is not spread through kissing, or sharing a drink from the same cup or bottle; that yes, heterosexual men and women can both be infected with HIV through sex. Of course, I live in the rural, Deep South. The Bible Belt. So there is no kind of comprehensive sex education in the schools, not even to the point of how to avoid STDs and HIV. The only prevention is abstinence after all, so why educate?

And people wonder why the US still has such appalling infection rates?