When the slogan of this year Pride was announced, “Paint the Town Ruby Red”, the hope for a meaningfull event vanished in turpentine. But I was wrong (it does happen) and here are a few examples why.

Rating 3.00 out of 5

As a volunteer for a gay men’s organisation I am sometimes involved in HIV prevention work in gay venues in central London. The organisation I work for develops posters, adverts and booklets to promote HIV prevention messages targeting a specific audience.
Recently, I was helping pre-testing our latest booklet to which I had also contributed. Therefore I knew what the booklet was about, which is usually not the case since editorial and testing teams are different. Over a period of two hours I interviewed ten people who agreed, some after a …

In a recent posting I suggested that the possibility to show your HIV status online proves “how much has been accomplished in stamping out stigma”. A reader objected that “Actually, no. This is a move to culturally pressured disclosure so that people with HIV can be further minoritized and excluded, and presumed HIV-negative people can couple with potentially dangerous self-satisfaction.”
A search on the Fridae.com website which allows for publicly showing one’s HIV status returns 280 profiles (110 of them Caucasian) stating being HIV negative at the last test (a period …

Watch this provocative TED talk and read the accompanying article at CNN.

The Compassionate Conundrum by Elizabeth Pisani

Rating 3.00 out of 5

In February 2007, a Welsh man was diagnosed with HIV at the Cardiff Royal Infirmary in Wales. So far, he was one amongst the 2500+ new HIV diagnoses in the UK that year. But he became the subject of scientific investigation when he reported 62 sexual encounters in the previous 6 months.
Of his first 9 sexual partners contacted by a team of researchers from the Cardiff Royal Infirmary interested in the transmission of HIV through sexual network, 5 turned out to be HIV positive. This did not mean that he …