In Risk, Identity, and Love in the age of AIDS, Judith Levine describes the risk group theory. This theory included two distinct populations; the “high risk groups included gay men, Haitian immigrants, and intravenous drug users and their sex partners and babies. In the low risk or no risk groups were suburban teens, heterosexuals, white yuppies…” This was new and interesting information to me, how a group of people can be treated almost like a different species. The concept of risk groups becomes a little more complicated when you have inter-crossing between the groups. Levine uses the example of how a man who has sex with a teenage hustler in a downtown park, could have sex with a man from a random bar, and that man could then have sex with his suburban wife at home. This is a perfect example of how misleading this risk-group theory can be. In my opinion, it needs to become on the individual level, rather than the group level which can lead to rejecting certain types of people. A perfect example of this is how promiscuity is tied together with being gay. Besides how false that is, this societal belief leads people askew from actual AIDS preventative measures (e.g safe sex, not sharing needles and syringes).

Levine gave examples of homosexual youth coming out to their family, and getting a hostile response, often leaving them eating out of a dumpster. One in particular was Stephen Graham, who was banned from his family and church, and left in state institutions and friend’s houses. Being homeless doesn’t mean you get to do the most safe activities (e.g. prostitution, sex for drugs). I found an interesting CNN article about a homeless women in Atlanta (Crystal). She is HIV/AIDS positive like many homeless in downtown Atlanta, and is barely concerned with treating her disease, but more concerned with where she is going to sleep, eat, and stay clean. This leaves little time to avoid spreading her HIV/AIDS, sometimes having sex for drugs, and sharing needles. Elizabeth Landau states in the CNN article “Poverty, sex trafficking, food  insecurity and continued stigmas attached to the disease all help make Atlanta a center of the southeast epidemic. AID Atlanta, and the Jerusalem House are both organizations that provide clinics, housing, and education to people living with AIDS. These organizations both have the goals to reduce/prevent spreading infection, and to improve health of those with HIV/AIDS.

Sexual education at a young age can be very influential later on in life. There are two different types of sexual education, abstinence base and comprehensive. The abstinence approach to sex education primarily teaches youth not to have sex before marriage – preaching that it is best to ensure that they will avoid infection with HIV/AIDS, other STI’s, and pregnancy. This approach is a wrong approach in my opinion. It teaches kids to not have sex before marriage. The problem with that is this approach doesn’t teach kids how to have safe sex. It also leads to kids thinking that oral and anal sex are other options to explore, which isn’t exactly the most healthy mentality to have. Abstinence advocates also do not teach about condoms, because they feel it encourages sex. The comprehensive approach does not focus on teaching kids they should refrain from sex until marriage. instead, it explains the benefit of delaying sex until emotionally/physically ready. This approach makes sure the kids know how to protect themselves from infections and pregnancy.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/hiv-aids/DS00005/DSECTION=risk-factors

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/30/health/conditions/crystal-hiv-aids-atlanta/index.html

Reading “Rethinking Gender, Heterosexual Men, and Women’s Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS” helped open my eyes to really see both sides to the vulnerability of the contraction of HIV/AIDS for both male and female genders.

Since the evidence of women contracting HIV came to the public, there has been a growing movement of the vulnerability paradigm as the reason for so many women contracting the disease. Page two of the article states “an unsuspecting woman is infected not through her own behaviors but as a consequence of her partner’s wrongdoing.” This is basically saying it is hardly the woman’s fault for contracting AIDS. It talks of gender based violence, nonvolitional sex, and relationship power imbalances as causes for increased vulnerability to HIV in women. These situations and causes are verry real in the world, but at the same time, many women have plenty of choice in the practices they choose to use to ensure they do not contract and/or spread HIV. For example, the article talks about how researchers explained that sex workers, pregnant women, and migrant women were the vectors of this disease. being a sex worker is not the most respected profession, and many women are pushed into this field of work. However, many are not. They chose to sell their bodies for a profit, and being in this field, you are in danger of contracting every single thing out there.

 The article brings up great points, and I agree with many of them, but is this all that we want to say for the women of today? We are either saying that they are spreading the disease because of being sex workers or they do not have the power to tell their sexual partner to use a condom. We are making an entire half of the population sound pathetic. The truth is women today more than ever have the ability to say no to unprotected sex. Many just choose not to. To go back to Keith Boykin’s “10 Things you Didn’t know About the DL,” he says as point number 10 “stereotyping women as victims will not keep them safe,” and this is the truth! All we are doing is saying “yes, you as a woman are at risk of getting the disease alot more because you are weak.” To me that seems like more of acceptance and holding women down than trying to help them. There needs to be more empowerment among women. There needs to be not a vulnerability paradigm but an empowerment paradigm. Use those statistics in a way to not let women feel helpless, but to feel like it really is their choice and they do not have to be at risk for this horrible disease.

To slightly change the subject, I asked my roommate “Why isn’t there Men’s Studies?” and she correctly answered “because everything is men’s studies!” Now to think about this vulnerability paradigm and see how it makes all men look like they are the all powerful and at the same time do not choose to wear condoms is complete bologna. There are plenty of men who are raped and have been the person in the relationship with less power, but we do not bring them to the light like we do women’s vulnerability issues. If we are to really take a hold of trying to kill this epidemic, all sides must be accounted for. Women who are empowered and say no to unprotected sex, women who are in situations where there is a possibility of violence, women who knowingly choose the wrong practices, men who choose to wear a condom, men who are in vulnerable situations, men who knowingly choose the wrong practices, and everything in between. All are part of the epidemic. All must be cared for.

I’m on the soccer team. That’s how I identify myself to people. I don’t know why that became my first identity but before “I’m a Virginian, I’m a blond, I’m in ADPi, I’m a student, etc.,” that’s how I introduce myself. Everyone’s looking to belong to something; they’re looking to associate with a bigger group or identity. But when someone comes out of the closet, they’re no longer a frat bro or team member, they’re known for not being straight. When being interviewed, a 16 year old lesbian activist she said, “I love being queer… but sometimes I want to be Jenny, not Queer Jenny” (Levine 622). Why is that a different kind of sexuality automatically becomes the official new identity? This terrifies many adolescents attempting to identify their sexuality as LGBT.

When families, friends, and the community ostracize LGBT teens just coming out of the closet, it leads teens to be desperate to gain a support system. “Family hostility is in fact a leading cause of homelessness among teen youth” (Levine 622). Homeless teens are forced to extreme actions… if they’re not old enough, they can’t work, they can’t go anywhere. “Parent’s abandonment of overt rejection is partially responsible for the dramatic rise of teen male prostitution in the United States” (Levine 622). Any type of prostitution is dangerous for any kind of human, let alone teens with the lack of confidence from societal rejection.

Homeless homosexual teens are looking for a place to stay, eat, and any kind of comfort they can grab. Prostituting themselves becomes a easy way to have a temporary home for a night or two. They live day to day never looking at the future; losing respect for their souls and body in the meantime. These unsafe actions have a high risk of getting and transmitting sexually transmitted diseases and infections; among them, HIV.  There are groups attempting to reach out to “street kids” to teach them about the hazards of a risky sexual lifestyle and how to prevent the transmission of diseases.

Many people are just ignorant of STD’s are feel invincible. “It won’t happen to me… I won’t get a STD…” Why is that we feel invincible? In “Damaged Goods,” Nack reports a story of a 20 year old college student who received phone call from a former sexual partner informing her that he has an STD and that she should get checked (Nack 488). It can happen to anyone. The statistics make it clear: the CDC estimates that there are 19 million new infections every year in the United States (STD Trends, CDC). Everyone needs to open their eyes, get informed and practice healthy and risk-free sex. The CDC recommends to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases in order to prevent infertility, and even death. “Less than half of people who should be screened receive recommended STD screening services” (STD Trends, CDC).

In Carlos Del Rio Viral Cultures lecture, he talks about the realization of AIDS & HIV. In the 80’s there was a disease spreading and no one knew about it until years later and it’s too late. He identifies what a person with AIDS looked like in the 80’s as white, male, middle-class, and gay. In 2012, he identifies a person with AIDS as African American, male or female, poor, with possible mental health problems.  But really do STD’s have a particular image of a person to them? Sexually-active people are all at risk.

http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats10/trends.htm

Levine, Judith. “Community.” Sexuality and Public Policy. Print.

Nack, Adina. “Damaged Goods.” Sexual Health. Print.

In my previous blogs, I definitely had a skeptical attitude towards sexually transmitted diseases In fact, I even mentioned that the spread of HIV is over emphasized and that it is only transmitted 1/300 times for women and 1/1000 times in men. Although this is true, I think my confusion was why people would want to falsely exaggerate a problem. The suspicions I had about statistical manipulation are completely separate to the feelings I have about the spread of infections through rape.

My parents were born and raised in South Africa, so I’ve been there a couple times. I’ve walked into plenty of public bathrooms with a container saying “Take a free condom, help fight AIDS”. The old me would have assumed free condoms would be the answer to everything. Condoms would cut down the spread of numerous diseases. I’ve learned a lot about HIV/AIDS this year through multiple classes that integrated the material into the curriculum- so rather than focusing on the articles about transmission rates, I read more about HIV in Africa as that was unfamiliar to me. It was this year that I realized my view was too simplistic, there are too many stigmas associated with condoms- cultural and social. For instance, people may not carry condoms with them because of people assuming they are sexually active, fear that a partner will get upset because of trust issues, or men dictating condom use in a male dominated culture. Just because they are available doesn’t mean they will be used.

Regardless of all that, I still assumed that knowledge and availability were the only two factors involved in safe sex. Unfortunately I never accounted for rape. What caught my eye in Structural Violence, Poverty and the AIDS Pandemic by Mukherjee, there was a comment on rape being used as a political tool in war. Mukherjee mentions, “in Rwanda, the systemic sexual molestation, rape and mutilation of women and girls were an integral part of the Hutu plan to annihilate the Tutsi population”(381). The statistics continue that 70% of the women who were raped (that survived the genocide) had contracted HIV. In some cases, women were taken to HIV positive soldiers on purpose to be raped and infected. The difference between rape pre-1990 and in the present is the transmission of HIV to the victims [2].

The main thing I realized from these articles is how ignorant my generation in the US can be. The genocide in Rwanda happened while we were growing up, yet none of my friends knew much about the history for instance. Similarly, we know about HIV, but none of us really understand all the vantage points. Part of it is lack of awareness, but I think a huge factor is being in an environment where we don’t experience these situations nearly as often. I really liked reading Mukherjee’s article because you realize that HIV transmission isn’t so easily prevented. In many cases, African women don’t have a say in the use of condoms. In the case of rape or even multiple partners, the infection gets passed on and on. Surprisingly, there are so many other facets that affect the spread including poverty, drugs, and even men who get raped. I was just focused on women who were raped after reading this chilling quote by a refugee:

For 60 days, my body was used as a thoroughfare for all the hoodlums, militiamen and soldiers in the district… Those men completely destroyed me; they caused me so much pain. They raped me in front of my six children… Three years ago, I discovered I had HIV/AIDS. There is no doubt in my mind that I was infected during these rapes.

Quotes like this make me realize that so much in the world is preventable and wonder how things would change if people were properly educated. If rape didn’t exist, I believe that transmission rates of HIV would decreased dramatically too, with the biggest impact in Africa.

[1] Structural Violence, Poverty, and the AIDS Pandemic. Mukherjee

[2] http://unu.edu/publications/articles/rape-and-hiv-as-weapons-of-war.html

In Nack’s “Damaged Goods,” she speaks of those who have STDs and their psychological and physical state after being diagnosed. It is, in fact, a state of feeling “damaged.” The chapter discusses the “social acceptability of blaming individuals” for their contractions of the disease. My question is why is this okay? If society was more willing to be open and reach out to individuals to inform them of dangers and be a caring hand when an STD becomes a reality for some people, we would be in a much better, healthier place. Instead of letting the ongoing contraction of STDs happen, we need to stop them in their tracks.

The article says that hardly any talk of STD is talked about in the media. That is not completely true, but it may as well be. I remember watching episodes of Degrassi, and their was an outbreak of an STD at the school. The girl who contracted felt automatic shame and guilt, as well as a sense of loneliness. If this is what we are showing to today’s population, no wonder STDs are still so prevalent! There needs to be more shows and commercials about STDs and how to prevent contraction. Media is the most influential aspect of today’s world. The possibilities of stopping the wide spread are endless with the proper utilization of newspapers, blogs, we sites, TV shows, and music. If send out the proper preventative message instead of a message of the aftermath, there is no telling how many individuals can be saved from having to go through such a confidence-altering ordeal.

The article also said less than one third of physicians screen their patients consistently for STDs. The fact that someone take it upon themselves to make a doctor’s appointment, shouldn’t they be be able to receive comprehensive care for their physician? I attended the Georgia State NAACP Convention last month, and one of the speakers worked at the CDC. She went to her doctor for a check up and as the doctor was leaving, she asked her “Are you not going to test me for STDs or at least HIV?” The doctor replied, “you do not fit the criteria.” For the physician to say “criteria,” there is something wrong in our healthcare system. Just reading about HIV in class, we all should know that there is no criteria for this disease. It hits every age group, race, and economic status. The same goes for any other STD. Of course there are some characteristics that pinpoint certain groups to be more at risk, but that is not exclusive. If we are truly trying to crackdown on this epidemic then we need o stop making assumptions about people by how they look and how much money they make. We never know someone’s story until they tell it.

Individuals feel like they have damaged themselves by contracting an STD, but if society is not trying to help through media and healthcare, society is damaging the individual.

Judith Levine, in the chapter entitled “Community: Risk, Identity, and Love in the Age of AIDS,” introduced the concepts of sexual health, identity, and love and how they are impacted by the prevalence of AIDS and varying levels of AIDS education.  A main problem according to Levine, among many others, is considering sex to not be so harmful to minors. Many people are not comfortable with saying that sex is not a dangerous thing for minors to learn about and experience. In a previous blog, I explored the fact that many children are seemingly hidden from the idea of sex so as to avoid the many problems potentially associated with it. However, this type of fear and avoidance creates two paradigms of exacerbation in regards to the deficiency of societal sexual health.

On the one hand, we have the children that are told not to have sex, whether for religious reasons or other personal reasons, who actually abide by these sheltering restrictions. As a result, it is possible that these children will gain no type  of understanding or sex education. In a society where sex is the general undertone of much of the media and popular culture, lacking sexual education creates a layer of vulnerability. Not that sex is the general basis of life, but in a way, not knowing about sex when it is so prominent places children at a particular social disadvantage. On a more serious note, if a child is to eventually engage in sexual activity, lacking sexual education likely means lacking an understanding of safe sex. So the protective barriers that were established to prevent the child from dealing with sex could in turn put them at a greater risk if they were to break these rules later down the line.

In somewhat of the same fashion, there are then the children that see the rules regarding sex, know the rules, and chose to break the rules. This is one of the outlined risks of college students that decide to experiment and take more risks once they arrive to college and experience independence for the first time. In the act of exploration and rebellion, these individuals likely take risks that would otherwise have been avoided had they not had the same thirst for sex.

This may seem like a very radical approach. The point is not to say that all adolescents that are withheld from sex and sexual education will eventually get pregnant or contract a sexually transmitted disease or infection. Rather the idea is that educating young adolescents about sex will likely lead to higher usage rates of protection and more effective decision making skills in regards to sex. Afterall, people tend to make healthier decisions regarding pleasure when the risks are known as well.

“But what about AIDS?” Levine notes this as being the main question asked once the notion of sex not being harmful to minors is introduced. Yet is this not even more reason to educate children and adolescents about sex. With the prevalence of AIDS and other STDs remaining steady if not increasing, the answer is seemingly not to withhold information, but to encourage understanding. Education is not synonymous with intercourse, but potentially is reason for better decision-making. Why prevent young individuals from being aware?

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/25/when-gods-will-rape-and-pregnancy-collide/?iref=allsearch

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/us/ex-gay-men-fight-view-that-homosexuality-cant-be-changed.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&hp