Dr. Salim Abdool Karim (pictured) of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) will give the keynote speech, guiding participants through an overview of HIV prevention research science and advocacy.
This workshop will feature seasoned advocates and researchers from the HIV prevention research field who will provide new and experienced advocates, community representatives, and trial staff with the latest updates and previews on topics to be presented at the conference. An array of thematic skills-building sessions also will be conducted including an introduction to new prevention technologies and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a short course on prevention research literacy and ethics, and training on advocacy and campaign building.
The M2010 Pre-Conference Workshop will take place from 8:30am to 3:30pm at the Westin Convention Center Hotel, located directly across from the site of M2010 (lunch will be provided).
Directions: The Westin Hotel (Westin Convention Center Hotel, Pittsburgh) is directly connected to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center by a skywalk.
If you wish to attend the M2010 Pre-Conference Workshop, please register here.
Space for the M2010 Pre-Conference Workshop is limited and will be awarded on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Registrations will be accepted through 1 May 2010 or until we have reached capacity.
PLEASE NOTE
* The Pre-Conference Workshop is scheduled to end before the official M2010 Conference Opening Ceremony scheduled for the evening of 22nd May 2010.
* We are not able to offer financial support to attend the pre-conference workshop. We welcome those already planning to attend M2010 to register for this workshop and to consider booking your flights in time to participate in this pre-conference event.
* After the conference, we will make the Pre-Conference Workshop materials and presentations available online for those unable to attend the conference and/or the workshop.
When 26-year-old Steven Monjeza and 20-year-old Tiwonge Chimbalanga celebrated an engagement ceremony in the African nation Malawi, it was symbolic of their love. But the legal ramifications that followed have been too severe, say critics of the way that the men were arrested under the country’s decency laws and kept confined for months in a maximum-security prison.
As the case has dragged on, Malawi has become yet another African nation making headlines for its anti-gay laws, along with Uganda, where a proposed law would provide the death penalty for some gays. Earlier this month, the trial of Monjeza and Chimbalanga was postponed, according to a March 22 article at Xtra.com. The judge agreed to allow the defense to use the additional time to gather witnesses. Although the postponement allows the defense more time, Chivuli Ukwimi of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission criticized the court’s decision, saying, "This ruling is the most recent in a line of deeply troubling decisions and actions by the Malawian authorities in this case, including the decision to deny bail to Steven and Tiwonge, claiming that their continued incarceration is for their own safety."
Xtra.com also reported that the men have been forced to undergo intrusive physical examinations in order for authorities to determine whether they have engaged in anal sex.
A protest that took place March 22 in London condemned the months that the men have spent in prison since their arrest late last December. Gay Malawi refugee Edi Phiri spoke at the protest, saying, "I urge my President and government to intervene to release Steven and Tiwonge. These two men don’t deserve the way they are suffering in jail." Added Phiri, "The delay in the trial and the postponed verdict is a sign that the government and judiciary are split. Some officials want to convict and others don’t. They keep on putting off the verdict. It is unfair to treat Steven and Tiwonge like this." Noted Phiri, "Malawi’s anti-gay laws are not African. They were imposed by the British colonizers nearly two centuries ago."
Some independent experts believe the (HIV infection) rate among Indian homosexuals is probably higher than 10 per cent. A recent study by staff at the Sion Hospital in Mumbai found 17 per cent of homosexual men and 68 per cent of transgender people surveyed were HIV positive.
Sexual identity can be complicated in India, where few men are brave enough to call themselves gay, writes Matt Wade.
Ajay, another Andheri sex worker dressed in a tight pink shirt with ''playboy'' emblazoned across his shoulder blades, says he joined a recent gay pride march in Mumbai. But he does not identify strongly with the tag.
''Gay and homo are words wealthy and educated people use,'' he says. ''The people around here call us gur [raw sugar] or mitha [sweet].''
Young homosexual men in Mumbai often move between multiple city identities including sex worker, massage boy, student and even Bollywood film extra. But they may have a wife and family back in their village.
Kavi, an adviser with UNAIDS, has identified at least 13 distinct groups of men who have sex with men in India, apart from the gay community. This includes India's traditional Hijra, or transgender community; itinerant transport workers such as truck drivers; and aspiring male actors who flock to Bollywood each year in the hope of stardom. Male film extras have been identified as vulnerable to HIV infection because many sell sex in order to survive between acting jobs. They may also have to exchange sex for work.
When we arrived by bus at the HIV/AIDS Resource Center in Katuna, Uganda (the border between Rwanda and Uganda), twenty men were intently watching a match between Manchester United and Chelsea on a small television. Along with the pool table, board games, and additional television downstairs, soccer games provide a much needed distraction for the long-distance truckers who have to wait for their vehicles to be cleared by customs before entering Rwanda.
But just eight months ago, instead of television and camaraderie among workers, the easiest diversion for truckers was sex. Katuna is one of many towns along what is known as the Northern Transport Corridor -- a span of highway that stretches from Mombasa, Kenya through Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and all the way to Djibouti.
In the past, the truckers were often delayed for days on the border, giving them little to do. Boredom -- and drinking -- often led to unsafe sex with prostitutes at the truck stops along the highway. As a result, truck drivers have one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in Eastern Africa. Unfortunately, the virus doesn't stop with them, and is often spread to their spouses.
Now, thanks to the work of the Solidarity Center, a non-profit launched by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organziations (AFL-CIO) to empower workers around the world by helping them form unions, and Uganda's Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union (ATGWU), which has about 3,500 members in
Uganda, the amount of time truckers spend on the border has been reduced from days to just hours. The union has worked through bargaining with the government to reduce the amount of time it takes their paper to go through which reduced the amount of free time they have on the border. When they don't have as much free time, they're not as likely to engage in unsafe sex.
"Unfortunately, there are some places in this country
that are still uncomfortable with anal sex."
Excerpt:
In order for everyone to get comfortable shilling the female condom to gay men, Petrelis says that the public must first acknowledge that anal sex isn’t just a gay thing. “I hope you’re sitting down for this: Straight people have anal sex, too,” says Petrelis. “It’s not just gay men who need to know how to use it anally.” Promoting the condom’s anal use among straight women could be a vital tool in preventing the spread of HIV: Women who engage in anal sex are at a higher risk of contracting the virus, particularly if they are chiefly using condoms for pregnancy prevention. “I’ve got to put my hair down here and say that regardless of straight, gay, in-between, vaginal, anal, there is still a great reluctance to talk honestly in America about s-e-x,” says Petrelis. “We’re going to have to get over that if we’re going to protect ourselves.”
About half of the women in the survey said their sexual satisfaction remained the same throughout the pregnancy while a lesser proportion -- 27.7 percent -- said it declined. Sexual desire was the same in 38.8 percent and down in 32.5 percent of the participants.
The most common type of sexual activity was vaginal (performed by 98.3 percent), followed by oral sex (38.1 percent) and anal sex (6.6 percent). About one-fifth of women said they masturbated during pregnancy.
"Homophobic obsession with anal sex arguably has less to do with the act itself – increasingly acceptable in heterosexual discourse – than the perception that a man is denigrating himself by taking on what is perceived to be the passive, feminine role."
Published last Monday, the Stern Review sets a new benchmark in discussions of rape and sexual assault by describing victims in gender-neutral language. Male rape was only recognised by English and Welsh law in 1994 and as a result there is little statistical history, with what there is varying wildly. According to the Stern Review, the victim is male in around 8% of all recorded rape cases. The unrecorded figure is thought to be far higher. UK charity Mankind suggests that three in 20 men are victims of sexual violence – a figure that corresponds with statistics in the United States. Neither takes into account instances of rape within prisons – to which there is a collective state of denial in the UK relative to the US.
Rape and sexual assault are seen as women's issues – the victims are female, the perpetrators male. But it is no longer acceptable to pretend, as some do, that rape and sexual assault are only committed by men against women. The proportion of men who go on to report sexual assault is extremely low and the number of victims greater than the government or media coverage would suggest. Male rape victims face an enormous amount of social prejudice in coming forward. One organisation working with male victims told the Stern Review: "Very few men will access the police to report a rape, they don't want to feel less of a man, don't want to be regarded as gay."
As a gay man in Uganda, I am used to the taunts, the slurs and
the daily harassment of neighbors and friends.
.
But if a new bill proposed in my country becomes law, I am gonna be put away for life, or worse, put to death for having sex with another man.
Right now, going to cinema halls and other social places is a taboo since we fear our lives to be attacked by hooligans . We are ostracized by relatives. But if this bill passes, it will become impossible for me to live here at all. And that part hurts the most. Because imagine a place where you have grown from with all your friends around, then you are forced to relocae because you are gay. That's absurd.
Religious leaders -- Muslim and Christian -- in a country where a July poll found 95 percent opposed to legalizing homosexuality.
So that's Uganda in brief with it's bill proposing to pass it as a law.
The battle against AIDS will include a push to overturn laws that criminalize homosexuality in 85 nations, said the head of the coalition of United Nations agencies formed to fight the disease.
Michel Sidibe of Mali, the executive director of UNAIDS, said transmission of the HIV virus that causes AIDS can be up to 10 times greater in countries with repressive laws against homosexuality compared to more open societies. Laws that criminalize homosexuality make it less likely that gays and lesbians will seek treatment, so fighting AIDS can become a “force for social transformation,” he said.
“We cannot accept the tyranny of the majority,” Sidibe told reporters in New York yesterday. “We must insist that the rights of minorities are upheld. If we don’t, the epidemic will grow again.”
The global economic crisis and “growing conservatism” in some countries have combined to stall movement toward overturning colonial-era laws against homosexuality, Sidibe said. The trend, demonstrated by an anti-homosexuality law being debated in Uganda’s parliament, is “very scary,” he said.
Hate has no place in the house of God. No one should be excluded from our love, our compassion or our concern because of race or gender, faith or ethnicity -- or because of their sexual orientation. Nor should anyone be excluded from health care on any of these grounds. In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights. We knew this was wrong. Thankfully, the world supported us in our struggle for freedom and dignity.
It is time to stand up against another wrong.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are part of so many families. They are part of the human family. They are part of God's family. And of course they are part of the African family. But a wave of hate is spreading across my beloved continent. People are again being denied their fundamental rights and freedoms. Men have been falsely charged and imprisoned in Senegal, and health services for these men and their community have suffered. In Malawi, men have been jailed and humiliated for expressing their partnerships with other men. Just this month, mobs in Mtwapa Township, Kenya, attacked men they suspected of being gay. Kenyan religious leaders, I am ashamed to say, threatened an HIV clinic there for providing counseling services to all members of that community, because the clerics wanted gay men excluded.
Uganda's parliament is debating legislation that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment, and more discriminatory legislation has been debated in Rwanda and Burundi.
These are terrible backward steps for human rights in Africa.
Our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters across Africa are living in fear.
And they are living in hiding -- away from care, away from the protection the state should offer to every citizen and away from health care in the AIDS era, when all of us, especially Africans, need access to essential HIV services. That this pandering to intolerance is being done by politicians looking for scapegoats for their failures is not surprising. But it is a great wrong. An even larger offense is that it is being done in the name of God. Show me where Christ said "Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones." Gay people, too, are made in my God's image. I would never worship a homophobic God.
"But they are sinners," I can hear the preachers and politicians say. "They are choosing a life of sin for which they must be punished." My scientist and medical friends have shared with me a reality that so many gay people have confirmed, I now know it in my heart to be true. No one chooses to be gay. Sexual orientation, like skin color, is another feature of our diversity as a human family. Isn't it amazing that we are all made in God's image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people? Does God love his dark- or his light-skinned children less? The brave more than the timid? And does any of us know the mind of God so well that we can decide for him who is included, and who is excluded, from the circle of his love?
The wave of hate must stop. Politicians who profit from exploiting this hate, from fanning it, must not be tempted by this easy way to profit from fear and misunderstanding. And my fellow clerics, of all faiths, must stand up for the principles of universal dignity and fellowship. Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice.
The writer is archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.
Although studies in Africa have shown that circumcision can lower the spread of HIV among heterosexuals, it may not do much to prevent infections among gay and bisexual men in Western countries, a new study suggests.
A number of studies in African nations have found that circumcised heterosexual men were up to 60 percent less likely than uncircumcised men to contract HIV during the study periods.
But it is unclear whether circumcision could have an impact on HIV transmission in the U.S. or other Western countries, where much of the transmission is among men who have sex with men. There has so far been no good evidence that circumcision lowers HIV risk among these men.
In the new study, researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) looked at HIV infection rates among nearly 4,900 men in the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands who took part in a clinical trial of an HIV vaccine.
They found that circumcised and uncircumcised men showed no difference in the risk of HIV infection over three years.
Moreover, while having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive partner increased a man's risk of infection, there was no evidence that circumcision altered that risk.
An IRMA minion was perusing the internet over the weekend and came upon a product called The Lube Launcher on the adam4adam website - designed for anal sex.
There is a lot of research going on to develop a safe and acceptable applicator - seems like researchers might want to check this out (and other similar ones).
Get better accuracy and use out of your favorite lubricant with the Lube Launcher!
A good lubricant is effective when you wish to make penetration easier and, ultimately, more enjoyable for you and your partner. However, applying lubricant to key areas can sometimes be a messy affair. With this handy lube launcher, you are able to apply your favorite lube with much more accuracy. Simply place the lube launcher into your favorite lube and pull on the ring. With a full launcher place it near the anal opening of your partner and push on the ring. Each lube launcher comes with two additional launcher casings.
Other similar products you can find there: The Aneros Marksman Lube Shooters, The Grease Gun, Water-Based Anal Lube Shooters.
Health organizations launch citywide campaign to mark National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day and increase awareness, availability of female condoms
Both women and men engage in anal sex and the female condom is a great prevention tool to keep both partners safe and satisfied.
CHICAGO, IL (3/8/10) – An ubiquitous nugget of pop culture advice (“Put a ring on it!”) is the tagline of a new public awareness campaign launched today by a coalition of health organizations that aims to increase the use of a new-and-improved female condom among both women and men.
Timed to coincide with the observance of National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (March 10), the initiative is the brainchild of the Chicago Female Condom Campaign, a coalition of HIV/AIDS, reproductive justice, women’s health, and gay men’s health organizations that is working to boost awareness, accessibility and availability of female condoms.
The female condom is currently the only barrier method that can be controlled by the receptive partner, allowing both women and men to take control of their health in preventing unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
This kind of prevention option is urgently needed to keep Chicagoans healthy as numbers for STIs continue to rise. Cook County ranks first, second, and third nationwide for gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis, respectively, and reported approximately 1,500 new HIV cases in 2008, state health figures show.
African Americans comprise just 15 percent of the Illinois population yet account for 54 percent of the state’s total HIV infections, according to state health data. Just as gay men of color bear the brunt of the HIV epidemic, African-American women are disproportionately impacted by HIV, accounting for 68 percent of all Illinois women diagnosed with HIV in 2008, while Latinas account for 10 percent.
“For many women and men, condom negotiation in the bedroom isn’t an option,” said AIDS Foundation of Chicago policy manager Jessica Terlikowski, who leads the female condom campaign. “The campaign is working to ensure that Chicagoans know about this highly effective safer sex tool and that service providers are equipped with the skills and knowledge to effectively promote it. The way we see it, five little words could save your life: Put a ring on it!”
The female condom is lubricated, and shaped like an open-ended tube, with a removable inner ring and an attached outer ring. The inner ring stays anchored to the cervix during vaginal sex. When used for anal sex, the inner ring can be left in, or taken out, depending on individual preference. The outer ring then covers the surface area around the vaginal or anal opening, providing increased protection against STIs that are spread by skin-to-skin contact. These unique features gave birth to the campaign’s hip tagline.
Like male condoms, there has been no research on the effectiveness of female condoms for anal sex. The Chicago Female Condom Campaign, however, as well as many leading public health organizations, confidently promotes the use of female condoms for safer anal sex.
“In a way, it’s unfortunate that it is called the female condom since it is really a tool for the receptive partner, and is a great prevention option during anal sex for both women and men,” said advocate Zoe Lehman of the Chicago Women’s AIDS Project, a founding organization of the campaign.
“Both women and men engage in anal sex and the female condom is a great prevention tool to keep both partners safe and satisfied.”
The Chicago Female Condom Campaign is spreading its “Put a ring on it!” message through its website, ringonit.org, a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account (twitter.com/ChiFemaleCondom). The campaign has also produced stylish palm cards, a “411 on Female Condoms” brochure with easy-to-read diagrams, and a tip sheet for health care providers on how to talk to patients about female condoms, all of which can be ordered for FREE through ringonit.org.
In May 1993, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first generation of the female condom, known as FC1 (Female Condom 1). The current, second-generation version known as FC2, was approved by the FDA in February 2009, and is made of a more affordable, hypo-allergenic synthetic rubber (instead of latex), making it a viable option for people with latex allergies. FC2 is also 30 percent cheaper than FC1.
The campaign has partnered with agencies across the city to distribute female condoms for free, and is currently reaching out to public health clinics, health care providers, family planning centers, and other community-based organizations to encourage bulk purchasing. Female condoms can be purchased in bulk through the campaign, at a cost of $.75 each, an incentive that campaign organizers hope will spur greater availability of the product.
“Female condoms provide a sense of power for women because they are able to choose to protect themselves. You don’t need to leave it to the guy,” said Dolores Benton, female condom enthusiast, and case manager for the Pediatric AIDS Chicago Prevention Initiative, a member organization of the campaign. “It’s not difficult to put it in. It’s a piece of cake.”
In the meantime, the Chicago Female Condom Campaign continues to take its message on the road. Through in-person trainings, campaign members equip service providers with the skills to positively promote female condoms, including knowledge of the correct ways to use them and where to access them.
Fox News (Chicago) coverage:
Three in-person trainings are scheduled to take place this week.
The 411 on Female Condoms: Training for Case Managers and Prevention Educators
Wednesday, March 10 from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
AIDS Foundation of Chicago, 200 W. Jackson Blvd., Suite 2200, Chicago, IL
Protect Your Success
Wednesday, March 10 from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Young Women's Leadership Charter School, 2641 S. Calumet Blvd., Chicago, IL
How 2 Get Down Political Education Training
Friday, March 12 at 12:30 p.m.
Lincoln Library, 326 S. 7th St., Springfield, IL
Condom Hunt & Demonstration
Friday, March 10 from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m.
1823 W. 17th Street, Chicago, IL
The Chicago Female Condom Campaign is a coalition of HIV/AIDS, reproductive justice, women’s health, and gay men’s health organizations dedicated to increasing access, affordability, availability, awareness, and utilization of female condoms.
When people say they "had sex", what transpired is anyone's guess. A new study from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University found that no uniform consensus existed when a representative sample of 18- to 96-year-olds was asked what the term meant to them.
Is oral sex considered sex? It wasn't to around 30 percent of the study participants. How about anal sex? For around 20 percent of the participants, no.
A surprising number of older men did not consider penile-vaginal intercourse to be sex. More than idle gossip, the answers to questions about sex can inform - or misinform - research, medical advice and health education efforts.
Check out the new issue brief from amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, and Treatment Action Group (TAG) on the need to increase investment in AIDS and health research in FY11 and beyond. IRMA members will find that this is an excellent advocacy tool.
- Inflation adjusted AIDS research and NIH funding over time
- Some of the extraordinary accomplishments of AIDS research
- The broad benefits of AIDS research in addressing other diseases
- Scientific opportunities on the horizon
- The costs of failing to adequately invest in AIDS and health research
Dr. Salim Abdool Karim (pictured) of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) will give the keynote speech, guiding participants through an overview of HIV prevention research science and advocacy.
