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Last month’s Comment column (‘How
we have failed gay men’ PN November) overestimates the
possible impact of HIV prevention work and misunderstands what it’s
intended to do.
No single health promotion intervention can stop HIV. HIV prevention
isn’t trying to be the “safer sex police”, nor
should it be - it has to engage with the audience, not harangue,
criticise, mislead or frighten, which doesn’t work.
It is misleading to equate increases in prevalence of STIs with
increased ‘unsafe’ sex. The partners involved in unprotected
sex are more likely to be of the same HIV status, and STI transmission
doesn’t even necessarily mean that unprotected intercourse
has taken place.
Since 1996, all CHAPS campaigns have been carefully designed to
be relevant to gay men with HIV, and research into ‘user satisfaction’
shows us this works.
Positive men’s needs are not simply ‘bolted on’;
we talk to HIV positive gay men using the same language as for negative
men, because only the context is different. None of us suddenly
starts speaking another language because of an HIV diagnosis. Blaming
positive men who have sex, and exaggerating the prevalence of and
consequences of STIs, are not useful tools in promoting good sexual
health, nor of reducing new infections.
It’s great that Positive Nation is engaging with the sexual
health and HIV prevention needs of HIV positive gay men, but it
is equally important that these issues for all HIV positive people,
including Africans, are also addressed.
Will Nutland, Jack Summerside, Terrence Higgins
Trust, London WC1
America the understanding
I’d like to counter the argument that the USA is always hostile
to HIV positive travellers. Two years ago I had a torrid love affair
in Miami. Lasting all of three months, it ended with my lover stealing
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