AIDS Action Committee’s Blog

This week, the New York Times ran an op-ed and a story which together illustrated the challenge facing AIDS advocates. The op-ed made the point that poor countries in Africa get too much money for AIDS and not enough for some basic infrastructure which would have more impact on people’s health. [Read the op-ed.] The story described the precipitous increase in new HIV infections among gay men under 30, particularly gay black and Latino men—between 2001 and 2006 the increase was more than 30%. [Read the article.]

I’m certainly not arguing against investing more money in improving the infrastructure in poor countries—I do challenge the zero sum mentality of the op-ed. And the story makes clear the challenge of reducing new infections. After all of the money and the studies and the social marketing etcetera, the issue remains sex: who should have it and what kind exactly they should have. Much greater strides have been made in combating intravenous drug use-related transmission of HIV than have been made in curtailing sexual transmission. Look at the numbers—new infections are increasing in young gay men, particularly young gay men of color. Because of cultural taboos, we have been unable to stop everyone from engaging in unhealthy sexual behaviors with AIDS-specific funding. How could anyone imagine it could be done in the more general context of public health?

God, yes, fund the infrastructure needs. But don’t do so at the expense of sexually active people here and abroad. And let’s not wait till AIDS sickens as many people as dirty water before we figure this out.

Well it seems the evangelicals have finally found a way to bring AIDS into their special fold of Christian charity—they skip the part about gay men. Apparently, if AIDS is contracted by drug use or unsafe sex between heterosexuals, or better still a transfusion or perhaps maternal-child transmission, God not only permits but encourages ministering to its victims. And, there’s the international waiver—if you’re outside the USA, preferably in some poor benighted African country, it doesn’t matter how you contract it. There’s room for all in the fold. But there still doesn’t seem to be any room at the inn for gay men in the United States.

Sadly, that seems to be a pretty accurate description of this administration’s position as well. Restrictions on proven interventions have essentially read the gay community out of prevention efforts and have resulted in–drum roll please–an increase of infections in gay men! Of course I’m sure that when the CDC does finally, officially, release its increased estimates of annual HIV infection we won’t hear anything about that—but I predict there will be much conversation about the refusal of gay men to abandon their “ways” and significant hand-wringing over their unwillingness to become heterosexuals. Unspoken, perhaps, will be the phrase “Serves them right,” but many of us will hear it nonetheless.

According to the Our Bodies Ourselves blog CBS and Fox have both refused to air a new series of Trojan commercials because they focus on pregnancy prevention, rather than disease prevention. Isn’t pregnancy prevention the main reason some frisky farmer with no more room for little ones initially brainstormed the idea of a sheep’s intestine tied off at the end in the first place?

I am more surprised about Fox’s stance as opposed to CBS, since CBS has traditionally catered to a much older and more conservative demographic (although if you’ve seen any of the soaps on CBS you might question them as well.) But CBS aside… to think that Fox — the same network that brought us such morally and ethically questionable gems as Temptation Island and The Swan (not to mention the scrapped O.J. special) — feigns scruples around such a thing is pretty absurd. These programs have assaulted the “moral” concepts of marriage and fidelity and gratuitously furthered unhealthy image ideals while exploiting emotionally fragile women, and pregnancy prevention is where they draw the line? Does the person making these decisions actually watch their shows?

No matter the reasons, this policy is ridiculously inconsistent and should be revised. In order to make real progress in measures to protect women, children, and families, the media needs to take some chances and get these messages out. Perhaps Trojan could send Fox the commercial hidden in a giant wooden statue of Ann Coulter …

Wait… is that redundant?

Was anybody else bombarded with email alerting us to the uncomfortable truth that our mothers are having sex and our daughters will someday soon? If nothing else, my inbox last week reminded me of what many people work to deny - that our mothers are sexual beings. Take that one logical step further and we see why HIV preventionists and reproductive rights advocates are taking this opportunity to talk about sexual health and safety.

In case your inbox was neglected: Planned Parenthood reminded us to “Protect Her Future. Protect Her Health.” by (HPV) vaccinating our daughters. The Global Campaign for Microbicides didn’t miss a beat in taking Mother’s Day as an occasion to remind our legislators that mothers, and all women, around the world need new prevention methods like microbicides to protect themselves, their partners, their children, and future generations.

Though it was a couple degrees of separation to get there, I commend these groups for creatively drawing attention to that fact that mothers and daughters are also women who have sex – and are thus vulnerable to HIV and HPV - and that they deserve access to current and future technologies that give them the power to keep themselves healthy.

Ellen Goodman hits the nail squarely and eloquently on the head today in her editorial in the Boston Globe today. As we’ve been discussing, Randall Tobias’ recent resignation in the wake of the discovery that he was a regular client of the now infamous “D.C. Madam” is only the latest blow to the Bush administration’s failed abstinence-only policies.  Goodman connects the issues beautifully –

“Well, Tobias was not just your everyday CEO-turned bureaucrat.  This is one time that “private life” and “public record” are as tightly wedded as a pizza and its toppings.  As the first global AIDS czar, Tobias oversaw American public policy for foreign private lives.  He was in charge of doling out sexual morality with the money.” 

Why the pizza reference?  Tobias has publicly likened calling the escort company to “calling out for pizza.”  So now the man who has personally been responsible for exporting not only the failed abstinence-only, anti-condom rules with American funds for countries struggling to contain exploding HIV crises but also the anti-prostitution and trafficking rulings tied to the funds (for a good summary, see OSI’s report)  is a self-described consumer of those services?  The very services he has condemned and forced developing, impoverished countries with sky-high HIV epidemics partly driven through sex work to renounce in order to receive US funds?  Like ordering PIZZA? 

Bravo, Ellen Goodman!

Last week was a bad week for the Bush administration’s abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.  Abstinence-only proponents were still reeling from the ab-only doesn’t work Mathematica bomb when it was announced that the ACLU, SIECUS and Advocates for Youth had sent a nine-page letter to the Secretary of HHS, Mike Leavitt, demanding the medical inaccuracies in abstinence-only-until-marriage programs (ala the Waxman report) be corrected within 30 days or HHS will face legal action.

Friday was even worse:   more than 65 organizations signed on to letters to the Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education calling for the end of abstinence only until marriage grants for community based programs and for the government to begin allocating dollars for comprehensive sex education.   Friday also saw the resignation of Randall L.Tobias, the former ab-only guru for the Bush administration, after it was widely reported that he had hired an “escort.”  The Randall development underscores not only a good dose of hypocrisy but more importantly that the standards of behavior that the Bush administration has laid out as expected and acceptable is unrealistic for even the most ardent adult supporters.

Yesterday I wrote about how abstinence-only-until-marriage (AOUM) programming is religious indoctrination masquerading as sex ed. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t stop there. These curricula dangerously isolate and stigmatize GLBT kids-a group already prone to higher rates of depression and suicide. The guidelines of AOUM programs explicitly state that “expected standard of sexual activity” is a mutually monogamous relationship between a man and a woman. Moreover, many AOUM programs either show a clear bias against homosexuality or omit the topic altogether. One program, CLUE 2000 equates homosexuality with incest or pedophilia.

That’s right kids, the fact that you have a crush on someone of the same gender means you are one step away from sleeping with your siblings or molesting babies. Just in case you missed all the memos – you’re already not living up to the expected (read: acceptable) standards of society. Awesome!

It doesn’t end there. Throughout the AOUM curriculum, marriage must be defined as a legal union between one man and one woman. It doesn’t matter if you live in Gay Marriage Babylon Massachusetts. Our state’s laws don’t matter and those marriages don’t exist in AOUM class.

Just so we’re on the same page, what does this mean? These programs teach children-our children-that

1. gay people are criminals in the making.
2. gay people don’t ever get to have sex because they can never really be married.
3. same sex relationships should be non-existent or invisible.
4. same sex relationships are permanently outside of marriage and are therefore permanently outside being acceptable.
5. gay people will never be as happy or successful as straight people.

GLBT kids already face tremendous challenges and difficulties in adolescence and school. AOUM reinforce the most damaging messages about homosexuality all the while questioning the efficacy of scientifically proven safe-sex practices. Those facts alone should have all people - the GLBT community of course - demanding that AOUM programming be history in Massachusetts.

Yesterday, the Globe ran a story about Governor Patrick rightly rejecting abstinence-only-until- marriage federal funding in his budget. Predictably, ab-only proponents immediately cried that the Governor wants to give up federal grants that are merely used to teach students about abstinence. They want people to believe that the Governor doesn’t believe in abstinence and wants kids to go around “doing it” as much as possible.

This is standard fare for proponents of ab-only. They want people to believe that without abstinence-only-until-marriage programming, abstinence isn’t valued and won’t even get a quick mention in typical sex education classes. They are (gasp!) wrong. Quite the contrary, comprehensive sex education curricula are abstinence-based, emphasizing that delaying sexual activity is a great choice for young people and not having sex is the only sure fire way to avoid pregnancy or disease.

Comprehensive sex education doesn’t stop there; it also provides information about contraception and safer sex. The goal of comprehensive sex education is to avoid unplanned pregnancies and the transmission of disease. It recognizes the fact that most young people become sexually active before leaving high school and many need information. Abstinence-only-until-marriage programs may not discuss contraception or condoms except to emphasize their failure rates.

So, what is the goal of abstinence-only-until-marriage programming? The federal guidelines governing this funding require, among many things, that students be taught that the “expected standard of sexual activity” is abstaining from sex outside of a “mutually faithful monogamous relationship within the context of marriage.” (More on these guidelines and gay kids tomorrow)

Moreover sexual activity is defined “as any type of genital contact or sexual stimulation between two persons including but not limited to sexual intercourse.” No sexual stimulation between two persons? Let’s be honest, if you’re over-the-moon gaga for someone at fifteen, sexual stimulation doesn’t take much – it could be holding hands or a hug. The above definition isn’t abstinence – it is chastity, a religious virtue more appropriately taught in a private religious institution, and an entirely inappropriate goal in a public school class.