There's a new trend emerging that deserves to be documented. Here we find ourselves – it is the summer of 2012 and the season of hip hop taking the lead in expanding support for LGBT equality.
Millennials represent the first generation that has never known a world without HIV and AIDS, and I fully believe that they will be the generation of leaders to finally and decisively turn the tide against this global pandemic.
In this week's sexual health roundup: there is new information on the origin of Tennessee's law that prevents schools from promoting "gateway" behaviors to sex at the same time that anecdotal information suggests teachers are censoring themselves because of it; a new poll shows that adults see the HPV vaccine differently than other STI treatment and prevention efforts and do not want to see parental consent for the vaccine waived; and a new tell-all book suggests that the Olympic village is a hotbed of sex, booze, and drugs.
The answer is not to promote contraception in order to reduce unsafe abortion, as the FP Summit did. The answer is to promote contraception to reduce unwanted pregnancy and provide safe abortion to every woman who finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy.
For the past 10 years I’ve been open about my HIV status and my drug use history. I can’t lie about these things anymore. I just don’t do that. Now, it’s quite possible that my honesty will cost me a US visa.
We will loudly advocate for the recognition of sex work as work, we will oppose the criminalization of sex work, and support the freedom of sex workers to self-organization and self-determination. In the absence of all these freedoms, HIV prevention policies, programs and efforts will remain ineffective.
For those of us trying to discern whether the rights of women will truly be at the center of this Family Planning Initiative, as promised by DFID and the Gates Foundation in response to our months of advocacy, there were moments of disquiet.
Steph Herold will be on to talk about her new project chronicling women’s abortion stories. Mississippi’s battle over the last abortion clinic ends on a strange note, for now, and the nation actually has a somewhat productive conversation about rape jokes.
