Sexually Explicit Media Analyzed as a Means for Preventive Education

via Huffington Post, by John-Manuel Andriote

Public health officials recommended early in the AIDS epidemic that HIV-prevention education be targeted and explicit, using language and images familiar to those it is intended to reach. Controversy has swirled ever since over what, exactly, is meant by "explicit" prevention education and who should pay for it.

Prevention educators recognized early on the potential of sexually explicit media (also known as porn) to provide instruction in the mechanics of safe sex and, they hoped, increase the use of condoms and practice of safe sex among gay and bisexual men.

In the late 1980s, Boston's AIDS Action Committee attempted to produce a safe sex film featuring porn star Al Parker. Cindy Patton, who today teaches sociology at Simon Fraser University, in Vancouver, worked on the project. Writing about it in her 1996 book Fatal Advice: How Safe Sex Education Went Wrong, Patton explained that the video wasn't intended to "eroticize" safe sex, but rather "to retrieve already and always safe activities" gay men might do together that seemed to have been lost in the shuffle as everyone focused singlemindedly on eliminating unprotected anal sex.

"Porn videos," wrote Patton, "are useful if they suggest positive attitudes about gay male sexuality because that helps create and sustain a social environment in which safe sex is practiced because it is viewed as a positive aspect of gay male sexuality." The group at AIDS Action Committee reasoned that gay men would practice safe sex if they were persuaded to view it as something positive rather than as a kind of punishment for being gay -- as many men seemed to see it.

Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that "men who have sex with men" (MSM) comprise only 2 percent of the American population, we consume as much as 50 percent of the porn produced and sold in this country, annually spending as much as $6.5 billion on it.

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[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

Oprah Misses the Mark on HIV/AIDS

From the Huffington Post, by Kellee Terrell

Oprah Winfrey devoted the Oct. 7 episode of her talk show to HIV/AIDS. But instead of it being about anything substantial, eye-opening or educational, Oprah decided to focus on issues that distort the epidemic.

"Why She Sued Her Husband for 12 Million and Won" opened with beautiful, educated Bridget, who had met and married the love of her life. It was a fairytale-- until the day that, 10 years ago, she found out that she was HIV positive. Later, she learned that her husband was HIV positive, too. And that he had slept with men without using condoms. And that he was the one who had given her HIV. She later sued her husband for $12 million and won.

Yes, it's the "woman as innocent victim duped by the sinister gay down-low brother" narrative again.

To be clear, I don't want to belittle or devalue Bridget's experiences, because what happened to her is horrible. Putting your trust (and your health) in the hands of a spouse, only to be lied to and later diagnosed with HIV, is devastating. And I admit that it's hard to create and implement condom negotiation strategies geared for married women and women who believe they are in monogamous relationships.

But why does the down low continue to dominate most media stories about HIV in America, when study after study shows that closeted gay men having unprotected sex with both men and women is not fueling the epidemic?

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Right-Wingers Give Limbaugh's Anal Sex References A Pass

via Huffington Post, by Terry Krepel

Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell is, to put it succinctly, not a fan of anal sex:

-- In 2006, he complained that at a Comedy Central roast for William Shatner, "the audience was buried in man-on-man anal-sex and oral-sex jokes."

-- In 2008, he was offended that the ABC show "Ugly Betty" includes "catty references" to, among other things, "anal sex."

-- On March 13, he bashed "Family Guy": "This Jesus-bashing is offensive, but it isn't so surprising - it's a 'Family Guy' staple. Now add the allusions to anal penetration and we're on another trip down Grossout Lane."

WorldNetDaily feels much the same way on the issue. It has criticized Wikipedia for including a "photo of two nude men having anal sex on a bed," bashed Spencer Gifts for carrying "pornaments" that "graphically depict anal intercourse between a snowman and a bare-breasted 'snowwoman,'" disapproved of the Wal-Mart website selling a book that "gives explicit instructions for engaging in oral or anal sexual acts," and denounced the movie "Brokeback Mountain" for depicting characters who "awkwardly and violently engage in anal sex." WND founder and editor Joseph Farah even asks: "Isn't it time to make anal sex taboo, again?"

Bozell and WND have thus clearly established their opposition to references to anal sex in the media and popular culture. So why do they give Rush Limbaugh a pass for making those very same "allusions to anal penetration"?

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