Forget the soapbox and hand them a mirror? Or, why negs can bareback guilt free.

[Iggy]

There's an interesting study that came out from UCLA that indicates that having someone assess their own behavior is an effective way to reduce high risk sexual activities.  It indicates that exploring one's own behaviors is a cheap and effective way to get a person to realize if something they are doing is unhealthy (or at least something that causes them guilt) and if so, then provides them the impetus to change.

The study (linked below) has left me with mixed feelings.

I do applaud the overall idea of the study and have always felt that many anti-drug and anti-unsafe sex campaigns have failed because they focus on trying to be clever in how they shame or guilt a person about the respective subject matter vs. getting someone to honestly want to change  because they recognize that the activity is unhealthy or bad for them.  In other words telling someone to change is like telling a car to move - it  won't happen without an internal ignition.

However my issue with the study is that considering the behavior that is the subject of the questions for  the self assessment (sexual activities that can lead to HIV transmission)  I have questions as to why the focus is on HIV positive people. While I recognize that a long term study on neg people may have problems in guaranteeing that the subject pool remains neg for the entire study, it still seems that it would have been more worthwhile in studying if they could get neg people to use a condom every time to protect themselves - after all, they are the ones who are getting infected

I guess the whole thing bothers me as it is sort of reinforcing the idea that stopping HIV infections is the burden of the poz community and getting them to change their behavior vs. getting neg people to recognize that only they can prevent themselves from getting infected from an unsafe sex encounter.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=76189

[aztecan]

Hey Iggy,

I have to agree with you. So many of the "messages" regarding safer sex are aimed at the already infected and ignore the responsibility of both parties involved.

It is not unlike the barebacking clubs that are hell bent on all positive people behaving themselves so the barebackers don't have to shoulder any of the responsibility of protecting themselves.

Considering many of those who are being infected are catching the bug from people who don't know they have it, the idea is ludicrous and establishes a double standard.

HUGS,

Mark

[Queen Tokelove]

I feel you on both points, Iggy. I really don't see much hiv commercials where I am.I understand the point of them but in some ways it makes us poz people like the villians. I mean I know there are people out there that choose to spread it but what happened to people being responsible for their own actions? Then there are those that think they are invincible and it can never happen to them or just likes playing russian roulette..I really don't know the numbers here but where I am, it seems to be running wild in the younger generation and much of the black community tries to keep it on the low.

The drug commercials really burn my butt as you well know. I have yet to see one made where someone is hitting meth, smoking crack or sticking a needle in their arm. They always seem to be aimed at pot. I don't believe weed is a gateway drug as they say. I know people that had started using other drugs and never smoked weed. But it's ok to allow medicinal weed because those folks minds are already gone due Alzheimers or glucoma because they are already damn near blind, it just sounds ass backwards to me. What they should do is legalize weed but that's a whole different discussion....