Emily Metzner's blog

New Frontiers in Harm Reduction. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Unfortunately, after attending this "symposia," I was making the same complaints I've been making throughout this conference. Perhaps I've made some poor choices, but I've been underwhelmed by the depth and creativity of presentations. Some of the valuable chestnuts I've "learned" here: Prevention is good. Stigma is bad. Harm reduction is good. Punishing injection drug users is bad. Hmm. It really...um...makes you think?

But I left this symposia (I still can't figure out why we use the plural here) on Harm Reduction a little bit more angry. Two of the speakers basically stood up and said, My program is great, My organization is doing something really new and important, I work really hard, Here's a photo of us working. Yes, she actually shared a photo of her staff sitting around a table in her 12-minute presentation.

She made what felt to me a stark distinction between harm reduction and prevention. I don't understand the value in this. Isn't prevention based on the principles of harm reduction? Isn't harm reduction... prevention?  read more »

Tsitsi Masvawure of South Africa emphasized that, contrary to what we often see through media representation, the sexuality of young African women is not always subordinate, disinterested or reluctant; that acknowledging that some women actively seek out sex, HIV infection must be looked at in the context of pleasure, rather than danger.

Speakers on the panel, called Reproductive Health: Sexuality, Fertility and Desire, lamented that current prevention programs for women tend to focus on women as victims rather than as agents of their own pleasure. Wendy Knerr, of the Pleasure Project (U.K.), noted that current sex education is fear-based and sex-negative. The Pleasure Project is working to promote sexual health rights through the context of pleasure, and to make sex education more sex positive. Among other programs, the PP works with erotic filmmakers to help them include male and female condoms visibly in their films.  read more »

It seems like the most straightforward of definitions.  We’re not talking about whether a man identifies as bisexual, gay, straight, etc., just men who have sex with men. 

But this question arose for me today at the MSM pre-conference.  I attended a session wherein results of a survey among MSM in Britain were presented.  Among criteria that had to have been met to have been included in the survey data, a man had to answer “yes” to one of the following two questions:  Have you had sex with a man in the last year? and/or Have you ever had sex with a man?  If the answer to one or both was “yes,”the data was admissible.  If the answer was “no” to both, the participant was excluded. 

Important to note that another criterion was that aparticipant be 18 years of age or older. Most of the participants hooked into the survey through the website Gaydar.  Others, to a significantly lesser extent, were found through clinics and community organizations.  read more »

Believe it or not, I had a difficult time finding much coverage online about the fact that this recent UN report, while calling the AIDS epidemic "stable" in Latin America, notes that the worst epidemics are in Brazil and in Mexico, attributing this largely to "hidden epidemics." From the fact sheet (link below): "Hidden epidemics of HIV among men who have sex with men are happening in several Central America countries—in Mexico more than half (57%) of the HIV diagnoses to date in the country have been attributed to unprotected sex between men." (emphasis added)

If anyone has information on a good article about this, please share?

http://data.unaids.org/pub/GlobalReport/2008/080715_fs_latinamerica_en.pdf

 

After spending the morning trying to navigate the Merced, the city’s enormous market crowded with venders selling just about everything (as well as a few dogs tearing into large scraps from the butchers and a kitten curled up in a pile of mangos), I walked along a street named Emiliano Zapata, eating watermelon doused in lime juice, salt and chili powder. I was headed for the Zocalo, wondering what my first blog before the conference might be about. I could go into how looking through the conference programme and the schedule I’ve sketched out, often dictating I attend five events at once, is overwhelmingly exciting but, at the same time, also occasionally prompts me to say, “That’s it?!”

Anxious about my first contribution, I approached the Palacio Nacional, and thought, Well, I just hope the blog doesn’t sound too much like travel writing. (It already does.)

Back on the street after marveling at the Diego Rivera murals in the Palacio, a man tapped me on the shoulder. He had helped me on the security line inside. He told me he is a painter and Rivera is his idol. For purposes of this blog, I will call him Miguel.  read more »