I had a thought last night when I went to a local gay bar in my area. When I walked in there was a table set up by the local health department with STD and other infectious disease pamphlets and representatives there if there were questions. I thought this was interesting and asked if this is normal. Apparently they are there every weekend. On the surface this seems great but I have mixed emotions! A little background, I have a MPH and participated as a surveyor in the behavioral surveillance system with the CDC that 2 years ago researched MSM. This is where the statistics about 1/5 gay males have HIV (a little misleading since it only sampled urban areas, and I lived in DC and the HIV rate is as high as Africa). I have been to many straight bars and have never seen a table with STD information especially one that is out every weekend. It seems like having a table only at a gay bar just perpetuates the idea that gay people engage in more risky sexual behaviors, and straight sex never results in an STD. If I were to bring my straight friends to this bar or even hypothetically a family member, and the first thing they see is an STD prevention table, this might corroborate their ideas or stereotypes they have about gay men and STDs. Its hard for me to reconcile my passion for education, but not further stereotyping our community in the process. Just a thought I had that I needed to share....
Do you know that they only go to the gay bar and not any straight bars?? Also: better that they educate people and go along with stereotypes, than not going along with stereotypes and not educating people.
There's probably two ways of looking at it: yes, they're handing out safe sex info and condoms at a gay bar, which seems to be playing into stereotypes of gay promiscuity and risky sex... but on the other hand, you could look at it as evidence that the gay community will be more likely to use condoms because they are well-educated on the issues and condoms are freely available.
A few thoughts of my own. * The HIV infection rate is still higher among gay males thanamong straights, and it's been increasing as of late. Given this, it makes sense to target gay males, especially in a spot where unsafe sex might be on the horizon (a bar). * Perhaps having a safe sex table at a gsy bar actually sends the message that gays care about STD infections and their sex partners, unlike our straight brethren. * The "what will people think" argument is always a flimsy one. They're there to prevent disease transmission and perhaps save some lives - who cares what the straights might think? Lex
Blair, EC's social work / mental health expert, was telling me that he applied several years back for a position funded by the Toronto health department where he would have been distributing condoms and safer sex information in bathhouses and bars in an area. The logic, I think, is that gay bars and bathhouses do, disproportionately, attract a clientele that is looking for hookups, and tends to have multiple partners more so than the population at large. So in that way, it makes sense that they are targeting the areas where people are most likely to be promiscuous. While it's true that HIV is prevalent among heterosexuals, and in some parts of the country, infections are growing at faster rates than among gay populations, there has been a recent uptick in infection rates among gay teens and young adults according to the last set of statistics that I looked at. And that's born out by the number of teens and young adults I know who bareback. (I think we can thank the makers of bareback twink porn for that.) So perhaps the health department is simply trying to bring infection rates back in check.
Interesting. I've read a few times over the years that straight black females are the 'highest' category..... Actually, i think you can just thank how annoying it is having sex with a condom on.
