The copyright was at the bottom of the post and was linking to the picture on your former Flickr account. The caption was that of the picture @flickr.

Now, I have absolutely no doubt that the girls are what you say they are.

Not sure I follow you regarding people thinking of doing this as I don't recall a campaign promoting "comdomised bareback" but I may be missing something here... For sure condoms have been promoted as being fun and not detrimental to the sexual experience but not as far as being "nearly as good as bareback" as an appealing factor. Please let me know!

The Sagami video is about love and care, the Sagami ad in Thai is about sexual experience, roughly translating as "the thinnest, the more fun" with a pun.

[polldaddy 3493833 http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/3493833/ polldaddy]

... and of course, monotheism and christianity are "African Traditions"...

Nonsense! Women are only more affected by HIV than men in Sub-Saharan Africa. Elsewhere, HIV affects largely men who have sex with men and IDU. If it was true that the pill was increasing the risk of infection to a point that women are more at risk, then women in the develop world would be the most affected. The article referenced above refers "HIV Disease Progression" not HIV aquisition. The research show that the pill may affect when a women needs ARV, not if she will or not become infected. Always go back to the sources.

Indeed... But see the follow up posting http://bit.ly/dc8kvM

Daniel,

You may be interested by this other article which addresses some of the issues you raise.
http://rapidshare.com/files/369870390/Gonococcal_...

Dear Daniel,

The point the authors wanted to make is that it is possible to do contact tracing and by doing so identifying new infections and potentially prevent further infections. Obviously the data set is much richer and it is a bit desapointing that they are not sharing more!

I agree with you that it would be so much more interesting, and useful, to know more bout who's who in this network. I am particularly interested in the "online connection". But let's not forget that this network is located in a small area, and the demographics show clearly that it's members are familiar with each other or move in the same spheres (they are mostly in the managerial sector or student, Whites, and locals).

We may hear more about this research in the future...

Hi Nico,

Thanks for keeping the debate alive. You asked if I see a binary approach to HIV prevention putting condom-based prevention against harm reduction. The short answer is no. There is no binary but a continuum with condom as a starting point.

What may explain that we are sometimes talking pass each other is that there are different levels to approach the debate. Though I am very much interested in grass-root activism, the original post was aimed at policy and decision makers. The difference is between what institutions and society should aim at and what happens in the real world. I will accept that this is not an immediate concern for grass root activists.

Let me now ask you, how do you answer the guy who tells you “You're an asshole for talking to guys about barebacking in that way. If guys would just put on a condom on before they fuck we wouldn't be in this mess". Do you understand, and accept, where he comes from? If you have the time, have a look at the comments posted in response to Jan’s articles about oral sex and harm reduction on Fridae.

What is important to keep in mind is that there are a lot of guys out there who are using condoms and have been using them consistently for some time. But suddenly, a different set of messages comes out of the “HIV prevention hat”. Some people react aggressively because they don’t understand the need for these messages, some are confused because they are faced with what they understand as mixed messages, some are curious and start wondering what all the fuss about condoms is about, and some feel vindicated for not using condoms (this is a non-continuous continuum and I can’t cover all the possibilities, but I am sure you will get the gist). Anyway, at the end of the day, there is some confusion, a confusion that some (not you, I believe) deny strongly, saying that people are clever enough to know the difference. If that were true, there would not be so much debate around this issue. Ignoring the clearly visible confusion (that you have yourself experienced and that I am sure you are aware of) is a dangerous form of denial.

Existing condom-based prevention intervention failing, how are we to send a clear message without mudding even more the water debating these? In short: we need to be clear in what we say and start from the start of the prevention continuum, i.e. condom. As an aside, did you ever noticed or wondered why in the official literature HIV is always described as “the virus that causes AIDS”? Look at the front page of the Avert web site for example. Don’t we all know that HIV is the virus that causes AIDS? I let you ponder about that...

Read more in part 2 ...