Treatment as a means to prevent HIV infection has hit the media following a declaration by Brian Williams, professor of epidemiology at the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis in Stellenbosch, at the AAAS in San Diego.
Whilst the HIV epidemic has shown some signs of stabilisation in the recent years, more than 7,000 people are still infected every day with the virus that causes AIDS.
Despite interesting results of a vaccine trial in Thailand, prevention is still limited to a small number of options many of which are not …

Lost Decade Gays

It used to be simple: there were the Gay ones and the Rest (though the Rest would have said that “there was us and the Gay guy next door”). But starting at the end of the “sleepy 50s” to climax by the end of the “Glorious 30s” (1945-1975), a sexual revolution had happened and had revealed a world of sexualities.
It was no coincidence that the “Lost Decade” (1980-1990) inaugurated by the abandon of state-led development policies in favour of Neo-liberalism was also the starting point of the tragic …

It’s for gay, bi, curious and it’s daft. It is an iPhone “quick, convenient, and discreet” application to find a date. So they say.
Thus the other day, whilst trying to have a drink and a conversation in a busy bar of Soho, I could not but notice the unusual behaviour of my friend: looking at his iPhone, then around the room, back to his iPhone and then scouting the room again. What was he up to? Sending SMS to a potential date? Better ask than talking to myself.
It turned up …

In an article posted on LifeLube, Charles Stephens wonders what oral prevention and rectal microbicides, amongst others, might mean for HIV prevention and pleasure, risk and taboo.
As “condom-centric” prevention interventions are failing (the intervention, not the condom), hope and expectations are high that other prevention strategies such as PrEP and microbicides could succeed where condoms are failing. However, discussion and debate are rife around these interventions and they are important because we need to think ahead about how they will affect our sexual behaviour.
The problem is “how” to think these …

Gone are the days of gloom and doom HIV prevention and condom promotion. Largely, AIDS does not kill anymore in the developed world unless you are one of the vulnerable people that would-be-clever ads hardly ever reach.
So what about a change in perspective, what about the fun side of sex and what about using it to promote condoms? We know that people enjoy sex but we also know that condoms are sometimes a barrier to the funny side of sex. Part of this comes from the association of sex, HIV …