Translatina, a documentary on the lives of trans women in Latin America, will see its D.C. debut next week at the Pan American Health Organization. The film tackles a host of issues affecting the community—from sex work to sexual assault to homelessness to HIV to  police brutality: "We hit them, with no shame, because they are men," one police officer says in the film. "They are transvestites. They are homosexuals." Screening details after the jump.

Thursday, July 29 2010, 6 p.m.
Pan American Health Organization
525 23rd St. NW

RSVP to sida@paho.org.

* The New Gay is looking for stories of people affected by a lack of ENDA. "Fired from your job for being gay, lesbian, bi or trans? Do you feel that no one cares about your lack of livelihood born from our governments systematic betrayal of its own people? Now you can do something about it," TNG writes. File your stories here.

* Fugitivus on sex work:

Theoretically, I don’t have a problem with sex work. I don’t think there’s anything inherently, fundamentally wrongdirtybad with sex as a job, or sex for pay. But that’s based on a concept of sex work in a vacuum, and we don’t live in a vacuum. We live in a patriarchy. And sex work situated within a patriarchal world is inevitably swimming in a pool of wrongdirtybad, and anything tagged with the wrongdirtybad brush becomes fair game for serious violations of humanity.

On the one hand, since my ideal vision of the world doesn’t differentiate sex work from any other kind of work, it seems like that should be the thing I’m working toward. I “should” be the kind of feminist that is all on board for decriminalization or legalization, or normalizing the sex trades so they’re not a dirty stigmatized mess — and often I feel bad that I’m not more so. On the other hand, I work in a profession where I frequently see young girls who have been trafficked and exploited, and/or mothers who have had to prostitute themselves in order to feed their children, and their desperation has usually caused them to be exploited as well. Some of the abuses I see surrounding exploited sex work are so heinous that it’s very difficult not to come away with a “SHUT IT ALL DOWN” view of sex work. And yet, I know it’s not something that can be shut down, not now, not ever. I often just don’t feel like my brain is large enough to find a way to integrate some of the worst horrors I’ve ever seen with a utopic vision of positive, healthy sexuality. I don’t know how to overcome my revulsion of abuse long enough to separate the tools (which are not inherently abusive) from the abusive people who are handling them. At some point, they just seem practically, realistically fused together, even if conceptually I know they aren’t.

* Speaking of: Last month, D.C. police busted six people for solicitation [PDF] at 2121 P St. NW.

* Westboro Baptist Church turns its attentions to Lady Gaga.

*Metro Weekly takes a local angle on Chinese counterfeit condoms lubricated with vegetable oil, featuring FUK!T Campaign leader Dan O'Neill:

''When you have counterfeited items, like your Louis Vuitton bags and what have you, at the end of the day, that's not great. But here, when one's life is put at risk,'' [O'Neill] says. ''This has real implications in that it undermines the public's trust in these products.

''What we don't want, or what would be terrible, is if people are just trying to get a deal and at the end of the day they just totally abandon their trust in using condoms altogether, thinking, 'Why bother?'''

* Thomas MacAulay Millar on the problem with seeing sexual assailants and domestic abusers as "monsters":

I’m fine with saying that one who does monstrous things is a monster, and the data tells me that this is true. But there is a danger there, that by calling rapists monsters we may convince people that we should be able to see them. We can’t. They look like everyone else. They certainly will give some behavioral clues, but those are subtle. The rapists fit in. If they didn’t, we would all know who they are, and all their targets would avoid them.

. . . Monsters, and not monsters. Regular people that are nice to children and small animals, tip well and bring attention to important causes may also be misogynists, rapists, abusers, racists . . . all the wrong that people are capable of is not concentrated among people who look like they mean to do harm. The people who do the most harm do it, in part, because they can walk among us and not look like monsters. Monsters don’t look like monsters. They look like the rest of us.

* Monsters, and not monsters: Lloyd Mack Royal—also known as "Blyss," "B," and "Furious"—has been sentenced to 37 years in prison for human trafficking of minors in Maryland. Testimony in Royal's trial asserted that he profited off of coercing minor girls into prostitution; threatened those girls verbally and with a gun; hit them; transported them between Maryland and D.C. for the purposes of prostitution; gave them illegal drugs; raped them; forced them to lie about their ages; forced them to sell drugs; and "forced them to kiss his pinky ring."

* Emily Nagoski on sexual fluidity and LUGS.

* Via the GW Hatchet, the GW Medical Center has received a $3 million grant for HIV/AIDS research courtesy of The National Institutes of Health.

* Evil Angel general manager Christian Mann weighs in on the Stagliano trial in the comments:

What could be more absurd? That would be the U.S. government, represented by the real Fetish Fanatics (AKA the DOJ) spending taxpayers’ dollars to clog the judiciary and bring such a case to trial in 2010. My elation at having my boss (and friend) exonerated is tainted by one small regret: I quietly hoped we would have a chance to bring milk enemas and squirting orgasms to the U.S. Supreme Court and douche the archaic obscenity laws from the Criminal Code once and for all.

Photo via George Eastman House

D.C.'s Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA) has released its questionnaire for the D.C. mayoral race, quizzing candidates on their thoughts on everything from the D.C. police department's Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit to  "water-based lubricant."

The document surveys the candidates on 26 questions in six categories: marriage, public health, public safety, human rights, education, and business. Some of the queries are pretty pointed: Just try giving the incorrect answer to "Will you support legislation to curb abuses by NIMBYs who are now allowed to file an endless series of baseless complaints to harass or extort bars and restaurants?" or "Will you rein in police officials who respond to legitimate crime concerns with unsustainable, media-centric quick fixes that infringe constitutionally protected civil liberties?" Come on. That's practically a cheat sheet!

Another question of note: Question 26 follows up on the GLAA's push to legalize prostitution earlier this year: "What are your thoughts regarding GLAA’s proposal . . . to mitigate the problems associated with prostitution by legalizing and regulating it? What will you do to provide alternatives to survival sex for at-risk populations like homeless youth and transgenders?"

Participating candidates must file answers to the GLAA by Aug. 17.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

GLAA Forum points to the Whitman-Walker Clinic's new TV spots. The twin ads target the health clinic's two main demographics separately—LGBT patients (in the above ad) and HIV-positive patients (in the ad after the jump). I wonder if reaching out to D.C.'s HIV-positive residents requires distancing Whitman-Walker's AIDS care piece from its LGBT health piece. And the soundtrack's a little ominous, no?

[youtube:v=ClbnLQI0wlM]

In light of the CDC's latest report on the HIV epidemic in D.C., a reader suggests that local gay men participate in Hope Takes Action, an effort to recruit men for clinical trials of a possible HIV vaccine. The study is looking for HIV-negative, circumcised men who have sex with men and who live close to one of the study locations. The closest site to D.C. is at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. One vague note on that whole circumcision thing: "Participants must be circumcised because of safety information learned in a previous vaccine study."

* Nancy Schwartzman talks about having her rape debated on camera for a potential new "feminist" series:

I was told that the 30 second trailer of my film would be used to “kick off” the conversation and we’d go around one by one, with some guidance from the moderator, and discuss the multidimensional and complicated topic of rape. We’d use smart, snarky analysis of a real—not imagined, not whined about, not exaggerated, not falsely claimed—problem.

Instead, egged on by the producer, participants—not the moderators—were encouraged to take what they saw in the trailer and the one sentence synopsis of my rape (she consented to vaginal sex, and then was raped anally) and debate. It didn’t occur to me that a producer would structure a conversation around my film when no one had seen it, nor was it ever articulated that my body parts and my rape would be at the center of this debate.

* Want more on Olivia Munn and What She All Means? Sady's got it.

* BuzzFeed unearths Rachel Maddow's yearbook photo, where she appears with long blond hair, pearls, and no glasses. Maddow can now rest easy knowing that some dude on the Internet would "tap that!"

* D.C. attorney Bruce Stovell is suing LeBron James and James' mother Gloria "seeking to prove that he is the father" of the NBA player. Stovell claims he impregnated Gloria at a D.C. bar in 1984, then urged her to ensure that the fetus "plays basketball." He's also looking for $4 million in damages.

* New vaginal gel may help combat HIV.

Why did the report omit the T in GLBT? “The short answer is that we didn’t have any data to report,” says Christopher Dyer, Director for the Mayor's Office of GLBT affairs. "[Trans-specific health] is a brand new field of research at the government level."

The District's transgender community has become a lot more visible in recent years. In 2005, the DC Trans Coalition formed to advocate for trans issues in the District; in 2007, Capital Trans Pride was added to the roster of the city's LGBT pride celebrations. But scientific data moves at a slower pace than public consciousness does.

The new LGB health report relies on data from the CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), which tracks “health conditions and risk behaviors in the United States” via random phone surveys. The BRFSS surveys included in the LGB Health Report were completed in 2005 and 2007, when respondents' sexual orientation was on the CDC's radar—but gender identity wasn't. "There just weren’t questions asked about gender identity anywhere in the country in those years," Dyer says. “We need to add a question about gender identity."

In order to get transgender health data into upcoming BRFSS-based reports, Dyer says the CDC will first have to approve the gender identity question for the District survey. D.C. will have its next opportunity to request the question in January 2011. If it's approved, the random survey will then have to hit upon enough local transgender people for the results to be statistically significant. “The CDC has a requirement that you get 100 responses or more before you can do any kind of comparative analysis,” Dyer says. “There is no baseline data yet on the transgender population in this country, and it might take two to three years to get enough responses to even begin the analysis. It conceivably could be until 2013 or 2014.”

That's a long time to wait for accurate health information on the local transgender community, which often suffers from health disparities—like an increased risk for HIV. Yesterday, District trans activists took issue with the exclusion of trans data from the LGB report, and penned a letter to the Mayor's Office saying so. "[T]he goal of the report was to 'present data and prompt discussion' about how to improve the overall 'health outcomes in the GLBT community living in the District of Columbia,'" the DC Trans Coalition wrote in a press release. So DCTC was "alarmed" by "the report’s very obvious omission of existing research on D.C. trans communities."

The press release faulted the Mayor's Office for failing to look past the BRFSS-specific data to include information from other surveys that do include trans residents—like the District's 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Survey and its 2000 Washington Transgender Needs Assessment Survey. Since the results of the 2009 YRBS haven't yet been released, the ten-year-old Needs Assessment Survey provides the latest publicly-available data on the community. But according to the DCTC, "Acknowledging that the existing survey tools only provide a partial snapshot of the current health of local transgender communities in the report would have added much needed transparency."

The DCTC asked the Mayor's Office to wrangle up funding for a new comprehensive transgender needs assessment to supplement the 2000 report, to draw up a trans health report based on data available now, to add questions that include gender identity to all survey tools, and to show a "commitment to true inclusion." Dyer says he’s currently “exploring other options” for gathering transgender data that works with the population’s small sample size. "I'm personally committed to including transgender health data and making the report as good as possible," says Dyer. “When we do produce the transgender report, we want to make sure it’s the best data possible.”

I want to recruit the best possible person for the position. It has to be someone who understands the virus and who understands how to work with people. There are many communities concerned about HIV/AIDS. And there has been a lot of volatility over the years. We want someone who is willing to go out in the community and recruit others with the same kind of commitment. And then try to understand what resources have been lacking and the extent to which we could fix that. One thing I won’t do is over promise to people because you lose your credibility. You may have attracted someone because you made certain promises. It’s devastating to say ‘I know we promised you this but I’m sorry we can’t deliver'. You wind up with a soured relationship.

Is Gray suggesting that the District couldn't deliver on its promises to its last HIV/AIDS director? A recent op-ed in the Washington Blade posits that Hader received "little support" from the District, and that her "hands were tied" by a "local government that lacked the funds and the vision to realize the full potential of a more integrated, multi-agency approach needed to address this public health emergency." It's certainly going to be difficult to sugarcoat D.C.'s HIV/AIDS crisis for potential candidates. Without promises of additional resources, will the District be able to snag a director that's nearly as effective as Hader?

This week, the District Mayor's Office of GLBT Affairs released the "LGB Health 2010 Report," an examination of everything from smoking habits to sexual behavior in the gay community. This is the District's first report to address the health of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals in the District. But as the report's title makes clear, the transgender community has yet again been excluded from the official conversation on health. Also underrepresented here: African-American men and women under the LGB umbrella.

The methodology of the [study] itself raises questions about the reliability of the data and how it represents the true health of the LGB community, as reflected by the limited number of responses from African American LGBT people. The survey's findings rely on an identity-based rather than a behavioral questionnaire, which may exclude men who have sex with other men (MSM) but do not identify as gay.

And, as always: "the absence of information on transgender health underscores the pressing need for better data on the transgender community in the District," the DC Center writes.

That's a problem, especially considering that the latest local data available—the DOH-funded 2000 Transgender Needs Assessment Survey—reveals staggering infection rates among trans women. Here's a rundown of that survey's findings:

The decade-old report surveyed 252 District transgender men and women on a variety of factors, including their HIV status. Of locals surveyed, 32 percent of trans women reported being HIV-positive, compared to 3 percent of trans men. (Twenty-two percent of those surveyed were unaware of their status).

More info on how HIV affects the community: Eighty-one percent of the HIV-positive trans men and women surveyed were black. And two-thirds of HIV-positive trans citizens "believe they became infected through unprotected sex with men." A "history of sexual assault, a history of sex work, and unemployment" also contributed to HIV rates in the community.

Also a contributing factor? The lack of public education and concern on how the epidemic affects the trans community. In 2008, Darby Hickey wrote of the invisibility of transgender people in the HIV conversation: "The communities hit hardest are African-American men and women, Lations, and gay and bisexual men of all races. Within these carefully drawn categories, some based on behavioral risk factor and others on racial, gender and sexual classifications, one community heavily affected by the epidemic remains invisible in the eyes of officialdom a quarter century since the first reports of the disease: transgender people."

The failure of mainstream studies to single out trans men and women in its numbers compounds the problem of getting testing, prevention, and treatment resources to that community. "There are no official reports because most agencies do not recognize trans people's existence at all," says Sadie-Ryanne Baker of the DC Trans Coalition. "They usually fold trans women in the 'men who have sex w/ men' category (even ones like me who sleep with women!) which means we have no independent numbers to analyze for trans folks. It also means that most trans folks don't even get tested or get safe sex supplies because all the forms force them to lie about their identity."

*D.C.'s AIDS rate is higher than that of any U.S. state. Our AIDS rate is approximately 10 times that of the U.S. in general.

* D.C.'s AIDS rate is higher than these major cities: Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Detroit, and Chicago.

* From 2004 to 2008, 3,312 new AIDS cases were diagnosed in D.C. African-Americans accounted for 86 percent of those cases.

* New AIDS cases are decreasing: From 2004 to 2007, newly-diagnosed AIDS cases decreased from 164 to 137 cases. From 2007 to 2008, they decreased from 137 to 107 cases.

* In 2008, 4.7 percent of African-Americans in D.C. were HIV-positive. "The burden of disease among blacks/African Americans in DC is especially high," the CDC reports. "In 2008, blacks/African Americans represented 55% of DC's population, but accounted for 78% of those living with HIV infection and 86% of newly diagnosed AIDS cases."

* The risk to African-American women is extreme: Of new AIDS cases diagnosed in D.C., 94 percent of women diagnosed were African-American, compared to 82 percent of men.

* HIV testing is increasing: From 2005 to 2007, surveys showed that the percentage of D.C. citizens who had been tested for HIV in the past year rose from 15 percent to 19 percent. But the surveying method has a serious flaw: It only includes adults with landlines, not those who only have cell phones.

* More people in D.C. are testing positive for HIV: From 2004 to 2008, the "number of persons testing positive" for HIV in D.C. increased by 353 percent, from 246 in 2004 to 1,115 in 2008.

* Free HIV tests are significantly more available: From 2004 to 2008, "publicly funded HIV tests" increased by 335 percent. Free tests increased by 415 percent for African-Americans.

* How the D.C. Department of Health's anti-HIV initiatives may be working: "Although the causes of the improvement in these indicators are unknown and cannot be linked to any specific intervention, they suggest improvements in the delivery of HIV testing and linkage to care services in DC," the CDC reports. These efforts include "enhanced collaborations, working with D.C. residents as spokespersons for local marketing campaigns and creating toolkits for health-care providers to expand HIV testing and linkage to care."

* Where to go from here: The CDC recommends that "ongoing and increased HIV testing and efforts to ensure linkage to care are warranted." I'd say so.

* Seventy-five-year-old Mamie "Peanut" Johnson, the "first and only woman to pitch in the Negro American League," is set to be commemorated with her own field in Northeast D.C.

* The National Area Woman's Foundation doles out some advice to the new cast of "Real Housewives of D.C." "Since I moved to Washington, D.C., I have been incredibly impressed by the number of intelligent, genuine, caring, friendly and strong women I’ve met," writes Mariah Craven. "Those women will not be on the 'Real Housewives of DC.'”

* The Washington Blade factors heavily into the Village Voice's story on the "death rattle" of gay print media:

Making things even harder for gay media—new and old—is the not-unpleasant problem of continuous and thorough examination of LGBT issues in big media like The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Voice. Their coverage threatens to make already-threatened gay community weeklies, with their much more limited resources, redundant. Consider this: The photo that caught notorious professional homophobe George Alan Rekers with a male escort at an airport two months ago wasn’t taken for a gay paper, but for the Voice’s sister paper, Miami New Times.

It's true that LGBT news has gone mainstream, but it's a bit odd for the Voice to lump itself and Miami New Times together with such "big media" dailies as The New York Times and the Washington Post. The Miami New Times, like the gay papers that the Voice declares as dying, is a weekly with limited resources and an equally uncertain future.

* Metro Weekly profiles a "model blood donor" who is ineligible to donate because he has sex with men. Says Lee Storrow: "I think it's powerful that I am someone who … would have been a lifetime donor—and could potentially be a lifetime donor—but isn't eligible because of this policy.''

* LGBT activist Peter Rosenstein on why he's not voting for Adrian Fenty:

Candidate Fenty promised support for marriage equality but Mayor Fenty never spoke up for it. He didn’t testify for it or allow his director of the Office of GLBT Affairs to do so. Compare that to the advocacy of mayors like Gavin Newsom and now even Michael Bloomberg and it really comes up short. He did sign a veto-proof bill and held a signing ceremony to be in on the celebration. He did sign a veto-proof bill and held a signing ceremony to be in on the celebration.

Candidate Fenty promised to fight against hate crimes. Mayor Fenty never even managed to get the words hate crimes out of his mouth. He refused to meet with the community at-large even though these crimes have been increasing. Candidate Fenty promised to hold a GLBT Economic Summit. Mayor Fenty refused to make this an event of the mayor’s office and has never found time to attend one. Candidate Fenty promised to take the message of fighting HIV/AIDS to the community, including the faith community. Mayor Fenty has never spoken to a faith-based group about HIV/AIDS.

Rick Rosendall's take: "This is too long, too one-sided, and too much about Peter Rosenstein."

Sunday, June 27th marks the 16th annual National HIV Testing Day, but this year, D.C.'s Whitman-Walker Clinic will be celebrating the occasion all week long. The extra effort is necessary in a town like D.C., where 3 to 5 percent of the population is estimated to have HIV. "Everyone should know their HIV status for themselves and their partners and their families," Dr. Raymond Martins, the clinic's chief medical officer, said in a statement. "[But] this year, we want to encourage people to not just get tested themselves but to pass along the message of HIV testing and prevention to those around them. Talking about this epidemic is one of the best tools we have to fight it."

Starting tomorrow, the clinic will offer free walk-in rapid testing in spots around the city. The test takes about 20 minutes; schedule is after the jump.

Friday, June 25:

· Elizabeth Taylor Medical Center, 1701 14th St., NW, and Max Robinson Center, 2301 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., SE, 9:00 am-5:00 pm.

· Greater Baden Medical Services, 5001 Silver Hill Rd., 2nd Floor, Suitland, Maryland, 10:00 am-3:00 pm.

Saturday, June 26:

· Benning Neighborhood Library, 3935 Benning Rd., NE, 11:00 am-3:00 pm.

· Giant, 1050 Brentwood Rd, NE, 11:00 am-5:00 pm.

Sunday, June 27:

· “God’s People are Getting Tested” Initiative, Christ Lutheran Church, 16th & Gallatin Streets, NW, 12:00-3:00 pm.

· MLK Memorial Library, 901 G St., NW, 1:00-4:00 pm

Monday, June 28:

· Elizabeth Taylor Medical Center, 1701 14th St., NW, 9:00 am-7:00 pm, and Max Robinson Center, 2301 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., SE, 9:00 am-5:00 pm.

· Greater Baden Medical Services, 3028 Brightseat Rd., Glenarden, Maryland, 10:00 am-3:00 pm.

Tuesday, June 29:

· Elizabeth Taylor Medical Center, 1701 14th St., NW, and Max Robinson Center, 2301 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., SE, 9:00 am-5:00 pm.

· Greater Baden Medical Services, 3028 Brightseat Rd., Glenarden, Maryland, 10:00 am-3:00 pm.

· Gay Men’s Health & Wellness/STD Clinic, Elizabeth Taylor Medical Center, 1701 14th St., NW, 6:00 pm.

Photo via Trygve.u, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

The Informer paraphrases West-Ojo: "During a time when the nation and popular culture appear to accept open relationships or 'hook ups,' West-Ojo said Black women in the District must be more conservative." West-Ojo added: "Everybody can have these open relationships, but it's not a safe environment to have those kinds of relationships in D.C."

Photo via Trygve.u, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

TWC is marking the occasion with an open house this Thursday; press release after the jump.

WHO: Patricia Nalls, Founder and Executive Director, TWC; Community and government leaders; TWC Board of directors, staff, donors and supporters; More than 100 members of the community, including TWC clients

WHAT: After 10 years in Ward 1, TWC headquarters has moved to Ward 5 and will celebrate with an Open House. The Open House will give government leaders, current and prospective donors, and community members, an opportunity to visit the facility and learn about available services.  While the TWC is now headquartered in Ward 5, the organization will continue to service all residents of the District in need of the various services offered.

WHEN: Thursday, May 20, 2010, 4:00 – 7:00 p.m. (brief speaking program to begin at 5:30 p.m.)

WHERE: 1331 Rhode Island Avenue, NE (Brentwood Village Shopping Center)

Yesterday, City Paper's Housing Complex reported that the self-organized offspring of the TED conference series will hit the George Washington University on May 20. "TEDx Potomac" will feature presentations from locals like CakeLove creator Warren Brown, show bartender Moe Harris, and Affinity Lab founder Berit Oskey. Also on the roster is the woman at the center of the District's sexual health: Dr. Shannon Hader, director of D.C.'s HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, STD and TB Administration (HAHSTA). From the TEDx website:

Dr. Shannon Hader is the director of the HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, STD and TB Administration within the DC Department of Health. As a public health doctor with a long-standing commitment to the HIV/AIDS response and a career focus on translating information to action, she has worked in a diversity of challenging situations, from rural Mississippi to rural Russia, and has emphasized accountability, scale, and impact to build sustainable responses from Washington, DC to Zimbabwe.

Shannon is known for boldness, transparency, and working across organizational boundaries to foster innovative partnerships and collaborations. She has worked clinically caring for children and adults in the United States and abroad, in Brazil, China, Jamaica, and Zimbabwe.

She completed her undergraduate degree at Stanford University, medical school at Columbia University, residencies in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at Duke University, and fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Emory University Hospital. Shannon is currently adjunct clinical faculty at Emory University, and was a 2007 Katherine Houghton Hepburn Fellow at Bryn Mawr College.

I have a call out to HAHSTA for more details on the content of Hader's presentation; TEDx Potomac's 400 seats are already sold out, but ticketless parties can watch a simulcast here.

UPDATE: TEDx writes in with some details. Hader's presentation is called "Challenging Conventional Wisdom: The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth?" Here's the description: "In discussing Washington’s HIV epidemic, Hader will present data that explodes some long-held myths about the composition of the city’s HIV-positive population."

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Starting in, oh, a minute, local anti-AIDS-and-homelessness outfit Housing Works will be throwing a rally against HIV and AIDS at D.C.'s Anacostia Park. "Positively Uplifting: Rally, Music, and Barbecue" will feature just that: "inspiring music, spoken word artists, and powerful speakers all envisioning an end to HIV/AIDS by addressing the factors that contribute to its surge." The rally will last from noon to four at Anacostia Drive and Nicholson Street SE; full press release after the jump.

Hundreds of AIDS activists from around the country will convene in Washington, D.C. from Sunday, April 18 through Wednesday, April 21 for the fifth anniversary of the pioneering organization the Campaign To End AIDS. Founded in 2005, C2EA is a national grassroots AIDS coalition led by people living with HIV/AIDS that advocates both locally and nationally for elected officials to exert the political will necessary to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

A diverse coalition that welcomes all people living with HIV/AIDS and their supporters, the majority of C2EA members are black and Latino, which has made the movement particularly effective at highlighting how the disease disproportionately affects poor people of color.

D.C. Fights Back, the D.C. chapter of C2EA, has kept relentless pressure on the District’s leadership to address the devastating impact of HIV in the nation’s capital. Multiple protests over the waiting list for housing for poor people with HIV in the District embarrassed officials into addressing bureaucratic housing hurdles — although C2EA is still fighting to resolve the issue.

One D.C. Fights Back member, J’Mia Edwards is featured in a new documentary that will debut at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26, The Other City. Edwards spent years on a waiting list for housing. “I’m tired of seeing this person or that person for answers. I’m afraid of getting sick,” Edwards said at a press conference last year with New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler. Edwards has since found housing and a job.

“We’ve had some great successes—both personal and political,” said Larry Bryant, a C2EA member from the D.C. area. “Our summit will be about celebrating those successes and plotting our strategy for the next five years. Those of us who are living with HIV have got to keep the pressure on our leaders in order to end the epidemic.”

C2EA members will spend most of the week meeting in small and large groups, establishing both national and local goals. The four-day gathering will culminate in a ‘Positively Uplifting’ rally and barbecue in Anacostia Park from 12 PM to 4 PM on Tuesday, April 20, and visits with elected officials on Wednesday, April 21.

‘Positively Uplifting’: Rally, Music, and Barbecue
April 20, 2010 from 12p-4pm
Anacostia Park at Anacostia Drive and Nicholson Street SE
Washington DC

The event will have inspiring music, spoken word artists, and powerful speakers all envisioning an end to HIV/AIDS by addressing the factors that contribute to its surge. Local organizations such as Us Helping Us and The Blair Underwood Clinic will provide free testing. The Grassroots Team, Food and Friends, Silent Partners and other community partners will be doing outreach and activities with the crowd.

C2EA has a 5,000-person member list, and active members in all 50 states. C2EA also has global partners in South Africa, China, and South America. Find out more at www.C2EA.org.

Housing Works, a 501c(3), is the fiscal agent for C2EA. For more information on Housing Works, visit www.housingworks.org

This week, The Daily Beast takes on the female condom's new marketing strategy, which has attempted to combat the prophylactic's reputation as a noisy, expensive, and awkward option (you heard it here first!). Reporter Joyce C. Tang doesn't find any regular women—women who do not work as female condom advocates—who have actually tried the unconventional condom. But she does point to some customer reviews on Amazon.com, which reveal one potential fan group for the prophylactic: "men with huge penises."

The female condom is being aggressively marketed as an empowering option for women who want to take charge of their own STD and pregnancy prevention (One Amazon reviewer calls it "the best protectant any women can use without worrying about 'him'!!!!!!!!"). But on Amazon, the female condom is also being hailed as a quick fix for the man who cannot comfortably wear a condom, for he is too huge. A sampling:

It is an excellent condom for those men with huge penises
These condoms are extremely excellent for those gentlemen with huge penises. Trust me, my better half has trouble finding condoms that fit, they are to tight on him. So we use the reality female condoms because they have a superb fit not tight, not loose, just perfect. Thank You! Rocio

Best condom by far! Much stronger yet far more sensitive. Not damaged by hot car glove compartment temperatures. I'm allergic to latex but not to this. OK for use with oil based lubricants for underwater fun. Does not degrade with age. Can be put in place hours in advance for completely spontaneous love making. Does not strangle a large diameter penis. Whether you are straight, bi, or gay – try it! You will like it!!

So worth the extra money!

My boy is little bigger then average and uncircumcised, so wearing normal condoms didn't do anything but make his penis flaccid. So when I read reviews about how a female condom may help out I had to try some. Let me tell you THEY WORKED WONDERS! He was able to stay hard for a long time and it felt like there wasn't a barrier down there at all. Using the female condoms can be awkward at first, but they feel and work so much better then male condoms.

But beware: While the condom neglects to "strangle a large diameter penis," it is also reportedly uncomfortable for men with penises of a certain length:

Not fit for all...

Female condoms are wonderful and I fully endorse them, HOWEVER: Depending on your partner's "length", it is possible for the condom to be pushed up inside the female, rendering it useless.

And, of course, the condom's superior fit for men with thick penises does not necessarily translate to a comfortable fit in all vaginas (and all anuses):

DO NOT BUY! very uncomfortable for my girlfriend

I wanted to try an alternative to traditional condoms and was hopeful that this product would be a good replacement. However the plastic ring was terribley uncomfortable for my girlfriend and we took it out immediately. I'm going to keep looking for an alternative but I do NOT reccommend these. Learn from my mistakes; save your time, money and an awkward bed conversation.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

It's all female condom all the time this week on the Sexist. Female condom in a rubber vagina! Female condom in the anus! But despite the exhaustive orifice coverage (do not insert the female condom into your mouth!), questions remain. Like, what does illustrious ladyblogger Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown think about putting the female condom into her vagina? And so on. In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, join Sady and I as we wipe off our female-condom-pre-lubed hands (pictured), prep our vaginas for FC2 landing, and get down to ladybusiness.

AMANDA: Sorry I'm late: I was inserting my female condom in anticipation of having sex up to eight hours from now.

SADY: Amanda, you know how much I value our friendship. Which is why I want you to understand something. PLEASE NEVER SAY THE PHRASE "I WAS INSERTING MY FEMALE CONDOM" EVER EVER AGAIN.

AMANDA: Deal. But the next 30 minutes of this female condom chat are going to be excruciating for me.

SADY: It's hard for me to think of "female condom chats" WITHOUT thinking "excruciating." I know I am judgey and a poor former condom merchant and/or safe sex advocate for feeling this way.

AMANDA: Hey Sady, we're just two ladies hanging out talking frankly about our vaginas. The most natural thing for two women to talk about! (Actually we have talked a lot about vaginas, I am realizing, in this series).

SADY: Well, I guess we... have them in common? Okay, let's talk about something that is NOT vaginas. Let's talk about dicks. Because here's how I feel about dicks.

AMANDA: I'm listening.

SADY: HERE'S HOW I FEEL ABOUT DICKS! Dicks don't get pregnant. Dicks don't get their periods. Dicks don't get ANYTHING except boners, and also occasionally hilarious Hits in the Crotch on old episodes of America's Funniest Home Videos.

AMANDA: Haha, yeah!

[youtube:v=0zGLas2q31E]

SADY: Dicks have like one responsibility in the world, which is to put condoms on themselves when they are having the penetrative intercourse. AND NOW THEY'VE PUT THAT ONE ON US TOO?

AMANDA: Yes they have! And women around the world are as skeptical as you are. The thing about the female condom is that it's really great for women who can't force their male partners / clients whatever to use the male condom, and so they need a first line of defense.

SADY: Yeah. Fair enough.

AMANDA: For women who don't have that very terrible problem, though, I'm not seeing it really catching on? However, I have this idea that I would like to sell to the female condom manufacturers, which is that they give a grant to porn manufacturers who will work to eroticize the female condom in their work. So then one day like 10 years from now, old people will be like, "what are these 'money shots' and 'bikini waxes' and 'female condoms' the young kids are using nowadays?" And then there will finally be gender equity in condom sales.

SADY: Wow. Porn truly does solve everything! But can we go back to that "you won't put on a condom and we need a barrier/STD-preventing method" thing?

AMANDA: Sure.

SADY: Because here's my theory: You, A Dude, want to sleep with me. I, A Lady, am not sure if we are monogamous and/or STD free. You are like, "but baby, why can't YOU put this bag up your bits?" I am like, "this is the quickest I have ever lost interest in a sexual encounter. See you later, dude!" Like: If you are not responsible enough to wear the condom, you're not responsible enough to be having sex with me, basically.

AMANDA: Yeah. I have never heard of a man who would prefer the lady coat her vagina with a bag? But I did speak to one man who has sex with men who has used the female condom, and he had this to say about it: "When I’ve been a top—the insertive partner—what I’ve liked about the bottom wearing the device is that my penis wasn’t wrapped in plastic.” So, there's that.

SADY: I mean, okay. Sure. I get that. Did your interview subject mention the fit issues? I mean, I hear it fits well, but the thing I have always admired about condoms — the skinny jeans of the birth control world — is that they are so specifically tailored. Does the female condom, according to your journalistic research, share this virtue?

AMANDA: OK, so I'm not going to repeat the phrase that must never be repeated.

SADY: OH JEEZ.

AMANDA: But I did shminshmert the shmemale shcondom the other day, when I was, you know, just hanging out and bein' a lady, and it does, like shconform to the insides of your shvagina.

[youtube:v=mnyC_v0-DQ4]
How to shminshmert the female condom

SADY: Okay, so here's the thing: you like put it in and then hang out, though? Like, actually that might be a virtue! Because you don't have to go through that "oh crap where are the condoms rummage rummage rummage HANG ON additional rummaging" deal.

AMANDA: Well, you don't have to hang out, but you can hang out. (Up to eight hours before intercourse!) I mean, personally, I never really stopped feeling it so I wouldn't exactly suggest it. But maybe you get used to it. The thing is, nobody like, actually prefers sex with a condom, but it's a necessity in a lot of sexual situations, and it's conceivable that some couples might prefer the female condom. I just think it's really difficult to get that trend to pick up enough speed that those specific people a) actually try the condom and b) feel comfortable using it.

SADY: Oh, sure. And let me respond to your very serious and useful and responsible point with this: I am one of those people who occasionally gets all "OH WHAT THE CRAP WHERE ARE MY GLASSES," and looks for them for about fifteen minutes, and then looks at A MIRROR, and is like, "oh." I have looked for my headphones whilst wearing my headphones. If I ever shminsmerted the shmemale shmondom, basically it would be in there for life, is what I'm saying. I would seriously forget about it.

AMANDA: Yeah, the other thing is, like, peeing? You will have to pee at some point.

SADY: Oh, yeah, THAT.

AMANDA: Because it's really a full-coverage device, so I imagine it would get some pee on it? Perhaps there is some sort of accessory you can buy that aids in that process.

SADY: God. Somehow this ends with people getting like a female condom and one of those Shenis things you pee through and vajazzling ALL OF IT and... So yeah, I think we've established that I am one of those backward ladies that is like, "a FEMALE condom? Never!" Although, yeah, new barrier methods are good. That's undeniably true. And now, based on my reactions, I can see what it would be like to be one of those "I hate condoms" dudes. I HAVE BECOME THE THING I HATED.

AMANDA: And now I know what it's like to walk around with a condom in my vagina. Minimum rustling, I must say!

SADY: Okay, like, I have to say... Nobody is making these dudes put the condoms on over their lunch breaks so that they can come and have sexy dates with us later.

AMANDA: That's the weirdest thing about the female condom promotion, to me: They say that because you can pre-insert it, it "doesn't interrupt lovemaking." But it interrupts, like, other shit? Like my lunch break, or my peeing schedule, or what have you.

SADY: Yeah. I mean, I think your idea for a line of Female Condom-Centric Porn is actually a good one. Because right now this is like the least erotic idea in the world. But... dude condoms weren't initially perceived as a great idea, EITHER?

AMANDA: Right.

SADY: Like, I read this old issue of I think Cosmo from the sixties or seventies once, for a feminist media project, and it had this "revolutionary" article about all the different kinds of birth control there were. And condoms were mentioned. And the article, AS I RECALL (I am not quoting) was like, "I know you think these are for prostitutes, but you can use them too," and also they interviewed a guy who had tried this Strange New Birth Control Method, and he was like, "OMG so unnatural! Like having sex with a garbage bag!" And now it's just like... condoms, you know? They're at Duane Reade, they're understood to be commonplace, and nobody wants to hear you whine about them. Like I said: The very NOTION of a condom that I myself might wear has somehow transformed me into a person who thinks like a gross-ish dude.

AMANDA: Yes. And either you'll look back on this moment 30 years from now and say, "That is the moment I officially became an old person who is resistant to change," or, "That is the moment I officially became an old person because I even know what a female condom is, and no young people have ever heard of that shit, in the Future." Time will tell!

SADY: Right. When we're all wearing our Holo-Helmets and having Virtual Sex on our Google Entire Fake Universe Dates, the female condom, and indeed the male one, will be unnecessary. I for one look forward to that day.

As the District launches a new campaign encouraging women to put female condoms into their vaginas, some activists are focused on getting the device into a different orifice. Michael Petrelis, 51, has been promoting the use of the female condom among gay men since the 90's. “When I first learned about the device, I thought the only barrier prevention involved covering the dick,” says Petrelis. Then he found out there was a way to cover his partner's anus instead. “The female condom put the bottom in charge, in control, and that was such a good thing. And when I’ve been a top—the insertive partner—what I’ve liked about the bottom wearing the device is that my penis wasn’t wrapped in plastic.”

The female condom was approved by the FDA for use in the vagina in 1993. The regulatory body has yet to deem the device safe and effective for use in anal sex, but that hasn't stopped Peterlis and other public health advocates from noting the device's anal benefits:

For one, the female condom can adhere to the lining of the anus and provide a roomier experience than the male condom. It also opens up the field for a wider range of sexual accessories: “With the penile device you have to use the water based lubricants. You can’t use Crisco,” says Petrelis. The female condom also allows receptive partners to protect themselves against HIV with partners who refuse to use a male condom. The only thing that’s not sexy about the female condom? The name. “I mean, when you say female condom, I don’t think a gay guy is going to listen, because it’s for a woman. It says ‘female.’ I think it can be a turn-off to gay men,” says Petrelis.

Some female condom activists have pushed to re-brand the device with a more inclusive title, like the "receptive partner condom" or the “reality condom.” But the female condom's branding limitations go beyond the name. Some activists are reluctant to promote an item that hasn't received the FDA's official stamp. That's why Community Education Group, one of the five nonprofits distributing female condoms around D.C., is currently only engaged in promoting the device among heterosexual men (and women). "We haven't received permission to publicly promote the condom [for anal sex] because it’s not FDA approved for that," says the Group's Hilary Viens. "Even though we do know it can be effective, that's not something that we can really state yet."

Other female condom promoters are concerned that a focus on gay men might alienate the female condom's main target audience. "Eventually, we want the female condom to be accepted as a tool for women having sex with men, men having sex with men, women having anal sex,” says Zoe Lehman, who promotes female condom use through the Chicago Women’s AIDS Project. Last week, Lehman helped launched Web-based initiative ringonit.org, which takes its tagline—“Put a ring on it!”—from Beyonce’s Grammy-winning single “Single Ladies.” The Web site announces up-front that female condoms "are a great safer sex option that can be used by both women and men for vaginal and anal sex." But Lehman has encountered some reluctance to promote the device for all its potential uses. “Unfortunately, there are some places in this country that are still uncomfortable with anal sex," she says. "People get very uncomfortable about that, and it’s already going to be difficult to sell to the general public." The media has also tended to shy away from anal;  Petrelis was miffed that the Washington Post's recent story on female condoms failed to mention the device's use among gay men.

Pitching the condom to gay men will require promoters to get real comfortable with anal sex: Using the female condom anally requires some slight modifications to the device. Anal instructions are not currently included in the female condom's packaging, but the D.C. Department of Health posts online guidelines for how to insert the device. In short, you can either insert the condom by draping it over the penis, or sticking it directly into the anus; many users choose to ditch the condom's removable inner ring to aid comfort; if the penis is hitting against the end of the female condom, it could compromise the device's effectiveness.

In order for everyone to get comfortable shilling the female condom to gay men, Peterlis says that the public must first acknowledge that anal sex isn't just a gay thing. "I hope you're sitting down for this: Straight people have anal sex, too," says Petrelis. "It's not just gay men who need to know how to use it anally." Promoting the condom's anal use among straight women could be a vital tool in preventing the spread of HIV: Women who engage in anal sex are at a higher risk of contracting the virus, particularly if they are chiefly using condoms for pregnancy prevention. "I've got to put my hair down here and say that regardless of straight, gay, in-between, vaginal, anal, there is still a great reluctance to talk honestly in America about s-e-x," says Petrelis. "We're going to have to get over that if we're going to protect ourselves."

Photos by Darrow Montgomery.

Free female condoms have been sitting on the counter at Jasmine’s Hair Gallery in Anacostia for one week, but the contraceptive device has yet to make it out of the salon and into a woman’s vagina. Last week, a representative from a local nonprofit came down to Jasmine’s equipped with a few dozen female condoms—and two sets of rubber genitalia—in order to instruct the salon’s owner, Terry Nelson, on the finer points of the device. Nelson, 50, is the last stop in the female condom’s long activist conga line—a system set up to distribute the condom from the D.C. government, down through five local nonprofits, and finally out to hundreds of local businesses, where the device can be casually promoted to the public through trusted neighborhood fixtures. Theoretically.

“This is really new,” says Nelson. “We’re still in the stage where we’re trying to see if women will be receptive to this or not.” So far, Nelson and Cecelia Woodland, 49, the other Jasmine’s stylist to soak up the demonstration, haven’t yet tested out the female condom themselves. They haven’t found the right opportunity to raise the topic with any of their customers. And no one’s plucked a device from their tidy stack on the Jasmine’s shelf.

The D.C. government has invested a lot of energy in figuring out how to get women to pick this thing up. This year, Washington will be the first city to roll out a large-scale promotion aimed at getting women to use a form of contraception few even consider. Thanks to a $500,000 grant from makeup company M.A.C., five local nonprofits will distribute 500,000 free female condoms at hair salons, barber shops, health centers, nail salons, and liquor stores around D.C., where owners are being recruited to tout female condom promotion to customers. The condoms will also be available for sale at 56 local CVS stores.

Here’s what you may not know without getting the full, rubber genital demonstration: The first barrier method controlled by women, the female condom is a loose, synthetic rubber sheath that women can insert into the vagina before sex—and that will stay in place by means of flexible rings on both ends. The FDA approved the female condom in 1993 as a revolutionary tool in the fight against HIV, but objections to it have mostly centered around aesthetic concerns. Women who tried the device had one major complaint: the distracting sounds of crinkling, squishing, or rustling emanating from the vagina.

Enter the FC2, the female condom’s new generation. Like its predecessor, the FC2 is manufactured by the Chicago- and London-based Female Health Company, but it’s been tweaked to mute the grocery bag soundtrack (and cut the retail price by 30 percent—a three-pack at CVS goes for $6.49). But for all the female condom’s plusses, its advocates must still navigate between promoting the device as a crucial tool for preventing HIV infection in women and situating the condom as a socially acceptable sexual accessory.

For years, female condom promotion has focused on women in desperate need of the device—like sex workers or women in coercive or violent sexual relationships, whose sex partners refuse to use the male version. Now, female condom promoters have discovered that to protect high-risk women, they must first reinforce the idea that the device is a normal—and yes, sexy—option for all women. “We’re trying to reach that critical threshold,” says Shannon Hader, director of D.C.’s HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, STD and TB Administration (HAHSTA). “So if you have 10 women in a room, it’s not necessary that all 10 try out the female condom—but if a few of them have tried it, if your best friend has tried it, if half of you are familiar with it and know about it, then there’s a higher comfort level with the product when you’re introduced to it.”

But female condom advocates have to do much more than throw out some free protection and wait for women to bite. Women have to be wooed to the condom. “Just giving women the female condom doesn’t necessarily inspire them to use it,” says Abby Charles, a program director for the Women’s Collective, one of the nonprofits funded by the M.A.C. grant. “We’ve found that we’ve had to do a lot more training around the female condom. At the trainings we’ve done so far, women start by saying, ‘Mmm—what’s that.’ You know?” Charles says the trainings often start from scratch. “There are a lot of women who don’t understand their bodies. When they take a look a the female condom, they’re confused by it. They think it’s pretty complex. A lot of the training is just helping women to understand the structure of our bodies.…At the end of the training, I would say 90 percent of them are ready to try it on.”

How exactly does a woman just spring a previously inserted protection device on her partner? Part of the training around the female condom includes translating the device’s prevention features into bedroom-ready talking points. For every FC2 feature meant to help protect against HIV, there’s another sexy twist. The condom can be deployed in anticipation of a partner or client who may show up to force unprotected sex. In other words, the device “increases spontaneity” and doesn’t “interrupt lovemaking.” The female condom is often touted as a bargaining point for women in coercive sexual relationships. But those kinds of conversations can also “encourage intimacy.” And the external ring that stretches the condom over the woman’s vulva, protecting her from sexually transmitted infections like herpes? That ring can also stimulate the clit.

When D.C. rolled out its new female condom campaign last week, it scored extra sexy points with the help of rock stars Cyndi Lauper and Lady Gaga. The ladies are the new faces of M.A.C.’s “VIVA Glam” campaign, which encourages HIV awareness among women. Gaga has this to say about her prevention device of choice: “It’s for the everyday woman,” Gaga declares in a M.A.C. PSA. “Anybody can wear it and feel great about themselves, and that’s what VIVA Glam is all about…awareness, and identity.” Gaga was speaking, of course, of her new M.A.C. lip color, “VIVA Glam Gaga,” a light-blue-pink shade. (Proceeds of the cosmetic sales will go toward HIV prevention).

It’s easier to talk about the eternal themes of HIV awareness than it is to start a conversation about a new loose, lubricated bag and why women should insert it into their bodies. But Gaga is just the face of female HIV prevention—not its vagina. So in order to encourage a more intimate knowledge of the female condom, local nonprofits are staging educational sessions around the District, encouraging business owners to pass the FC2 promotion onto their patrons. It’s the fantasy imagined by every birth-control commercial—women just hanging out, talking frankly about their vaginal health. “Women talk to women. We all talk to each other,” says Hader. She wouldn’t disclose whether she’d tried it out herself. “I’m not going to answer that question. I don’t want people to think that we’re asking that when we come around,” she says. “I am familiar with the product. I’ve touched it, I’ve felt it. It’s not a new product to me.”

The D.C. government is hoping that District hairstylists will be more forthcoming. “People are comfortable talking to their hairstylist about anything. You get to feeling like social workers sometimes,” says Nelson. But stylists can’t just start chatting FC2 with every customer dropping in for a trim. “They have to bring up the conversation,” says Nelson. In order to be on the receiving end of Nelson’s female condom spiel, customers don’t have to specifically name-check the device—“but if they bring up sex, say they’re dating around, finding a new partner, I might mention it to them,” says Nelson. Suitable “ins” for the female condom talk arise between Nelson and her clients “about three to four times a week,” she says—they just haven’t come up yet.

Early in the afternoon at Jasmine’s Hair Gallery, a woman comes in, settles in a salon chair, leans her head back for a shampoo, and starts talking. Somehow, one of Jasmine’s female condoms has ended up in her hand. “What do they do with it?” she asks Nelson. “They stick it up in you?” Nelson and Woodland are quick with the talking points. You do stick it up in you. It stays in place near your cervix, like a diaphragm. You can put it in whenever you want. It conforms to the inside of your body. The rings provide extra stimulation. The condom wraps around the outside to protect you from other STDs. The customer does not appear entirely convinced. “Well. I’m allergic to latex anyway,” the customer says, dropping the condom into her lap. “It’s not latex! It’s not latex!” Nelson and Woodland both call out, stepping over each other to mention that the FC2’s made of synthetic rubber. Of course, it’s possible this conversation would never be happening had I not been in the salon, prompting these women to openly discuss rubber genitals, clitoral stimulation, and herpes for the past 20 minutes. Either way, we’ve got our first taker: After getting dried off, the woman walks out the door with an FC2 in hand.

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

This Wednesday is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, and since women now account for one-third of all new HIV cases in D.C. [PDF], well, it's really important that we all become aware of this, post-haste! So this week, activists are hosting a variety of events around the D.C. area in an effort to encourage HIV prevention among women and girls. Even if you're not a women's health nerd like myself, the roster of activities may have something for you: Refreshments! Interactive Facebooking! A star of White Men Can't Jump, after the jump!

What: "Standing United Against HIV/AIDS: Confronting the Impact on Women and Girls," a lunch lecture featuring speakers like Tina Tchen (Executive Director of the White House Council on Women and Girls) and Dr. Howard Koh (Assistance Secretary of Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). RSVP to Lynn Shaull at 202-434-8003 or lshaull@NASTAD.org.

When: Tomorrow, March 9, 12:30 to 3 p.m.

Where: Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 562, First and C streets NE.

Bonus: If Koh isn't your bag: The discussion will be moderated by Rosie Perez!

—

What: The "HHS Office on Women's Health National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day Event at the National Press Club," a press conference (register online here).

When: Wed., March 10, 12 to 5 p.m.

Where: National Press Club, 529 14th Street NW.

Bonus: Totally free lunch!

—

What: "REPP: Remind, Encourage, Protect, Prevent," a spoken-word poetry night featuring "DC's finest poets, spoken word artists, female DJs and MCs" taking on the question of "why women and girls must remind each other, encourage each other and our partners and protect ourselves from HIV." Plus: The world premier of REPP PSA 'The Promise Ring.'"

When: Thursday, March 11 from 5:30 to 8 p.m.

Where: The Women's Collective, 1331 Rhode Island Ave. NE

Bonus: Program host the Women's Collective promises "refreshments, giveaways, and prizes(!!!)"

—

What: "Chasing Waterfalls," a program hosted by the Black Women's Health Imperative that will provide "An Artistic Showcase and Conversation about Young Black Women and HIV/AIDS."

When: March 11 from 6 to 8:00 p.m.

Where: Tabaq Bisro, 1336 U Street, NW.

Bonus: Beyond the TLC-inspired programming? Interactive Facebooking! If you log onto the event's Facebook page and post a "creative HIV/AIDS awareness message," your "message may be featured in a collaborative poem performed by our featured artists."

—

What: "S.O.S: Saving Our Sistas from HIV/AIDS," a "skill-building summit" for women ages 13-29 (Sign up here).

When: Sat., March 13

Where: The ARC, 1901 Mississippi Ave SE.

Bonus: If you can't make it down to the ARC: "Event will conclude with a Town Hall Meeting that will be streamed live via the Internet and include panel interactions from Facebook and Twitter."

photo via Jayel Aheram, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Though the most dedicated rape apologists may disagree, clothing choices like miniskirts, low-cut shirts and high heels are not reliable indicators of a woman's sexual availability. Inanimate objects don't consent to sex; people do. But is there any sartorial choice out there that does announce to the world that the wearer is down to fuck?

Enter The "LOVEBUCKLE," a product of sex toy retailer OhMiBod (suggested stylings here). This leather belt features a brushed metal buckle with "circular cut-out window" for displaying "uniquely designed One® condoms." Basically, it's a big 'ol condom belt, and it retails for $85.

It's pretty clear that the LOVEBUCKLE is the rare clothing accessory that's specifically designed to send a sexual message. But what exactly is it saying?

Are you one of those people who still believes that women wear short skirts in order to secretly signal that they want to have sex with you? Consider this: Even prancing about with a prophylactic strapped to your pubic area by an extravagant leather belt can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Possible messages sent by wearing a LOVEBUCKLE:

a) Have sex with me now! Last night, I strapped on my sample LOVEBUCKLE and asked some co-workers what it all means. "You're wearing a condom right above your vagina," one co-worker explained. "It means you're ready to get freaky."

b) Don't have sex with me! I consulted a trusted friend to get another opinion on the meaning of this LOVEBUCKLE. This is what a giant condom belt means to her: "It's one step up from a giant torso tattoo that says 'I NEVER WANT TO GET LAID.'"

c) I want you to know that I am committed to safe sex. According to the OhMiBod presser, the LOVEBUCKLE is perfect for the safe sex partner who cannot be bothered with the hassle of accessing a condom that's not directly above their genitals. "Never again find yourself digging though your wallet or purse to find a condom when the mood strikes," The press release reads. "You’ll always have one handy when wearing the practical and stylish LOVEBUCKLE."

d) I do not want you to know that I am committed to safe sex. In the next breath, OhMiBod recasts the LOVEBUCKLE as the pinnacle of discretion. "I find the LOVEBUCKLE a handy way to inconspicuously be prepared on-the-go," an OhMiBod representative told me over e-mail. The LOVEBUCKLE's promotional materials include the following travel tip: "Spare yourself the embarrassment of packing condoms in a carry-on or purse that may be searched. The LOVEBUCKLE allows you to discreetly carry artistic One® condoms in the buckle, and makes a great fashion statement at the same time. With the LOVEBUCKLE, you'll always be inconspicuously prepared for safe sex on-the-go." Until your gigantic brushed metal belt buckle sets off the metal detector, and sends you over for a more intimate inspection.

e) I want you to know that I'm committed to condom wrapper art. According to the OhMiBod press release, the LOVEBUCKLE can be filled with "200 different graphic [condom] designs . . . giving wearers hundreds of ways to express themselves, and making the idea of safe sex fun, hip and stylish." My LOVEBUCKLE sample condom was illustrated with a photograph of Yellowstone National Park's volcano-heated Old Faithful Geyser, which I can only assume means that the wearer is scheduled to erupt every 35 to 120 minutes.

f) Or, something completely different. According to an OhMiBod press release, "When the LOVEBUCKLE is empty, an engraved 're-load' message shows through the circular window, reminding wearers to refill it with One condoms, or leave it empty, giving off an entirely different type of message and showing a alternate fashion style."

So which is it? Is it a gigantic metal buckle dedicated to displaying your collection of designer condoms? Is it a discrete accessory that allows you to carry your safe sex accessories undetected? Is it a handy signal that you can take on or off depending on your level of horniness? Or is it a belt that carries an unnamed but "entirely different" message?

What's that old phrase? When you assume, you make an ass out of the extravagant condom belt. After all, even if the LOVEBUCKLE is meant to signal that you're "ready to get freaky," it does not automatically signify that you're willing to de-belt for just anyone who happens to spy your LOVEBUCKLE. For me, at least, strapping on the LOVEBUCKLE indicated only that I was conducting some field research on the meaning of strapping on a LOVEBUCKLE. Results were inconclusive.

Because seriously, this thing is hard not to notice.

If you think it's possible that you have been discriminated against in the District of Columbia in housing, public accommodation, or employment, head over to the D.C. Office of Human Rights' free clinic at the DC Center next week for advice on filing a discrimination complaint. Details after the jump.

Location:

The DC Center
1810 14th Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20009
(202) 682-2245

Time:

Wed., February 17th
1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

and Wed., March 10th
1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Eligibility: In order to file a complaint, the discrimination must have occurred sometime in the past year within the District of Columbia. According to Fight HIV In D.C., you can file a discrimination complaint in D.C. based on any of the following criteria:

- HIV status

- disability

- sexual orientation

- gender identity or expression

- race

- religion

- national origin

- sex

- age

- personal appearance

- political affiliation

- family responsibilities

- familial status

- matriculation

- marital status

- source of income

- place of residence or business

The District expects to register six-to-twelve inches of snowfall today. Winds are clocking at up to 40 miles an hour. The government is closed. Classes are canceled. Road conditions are hazardous. You want to pass the time by fucking. But is it safe?

A tipster for We Love D.C. reports that at least one District Safeway's condom selection was so decimated from the blizzard supply rush that only Magnums were left on the shelf (plenty of lube, though). Snogasm, indeed. Will D.C.'s near-record snowfall present a heightened risk for unintended pregnancies and STD transmission among antsy residents?

So far, at least, the condom rush has yet to extend to the District's most pervasive condom provider, CVS Pharmacy. Perhaps the chain's signature security click-boxes are fortified enough to prevent a quick clearing of the shelves: I called several CVS locations to check on their availability, and many claimed to be stocked with the full cornucopia of reproductive health products. The Dupont Circle CVS (6 Dupont Circle NW) boasts a full condom stock and will be open 24 hours throughout the storm; a clerk at the Adams Morgan CVS (1750 Columbia Rd. NW) promises the store will stay open until 10 p.m. As for AdMo's prophylactic stock: "Yes, we have a lot, honey," she insists.

The larger condom concern, of course, lies in the Southeast quadrant, home to the District's highest HIV/AIDS rate and the lowest concentration of pharmacies. One Southeast CVS (661 Pennsylvania Ave. SE) is currently operating and stocked with condoms—but the clerk who answered the phone said she couldn't promise the store would keep its doors open throughout the storm. One Anacostia CVS location (2646 Naylor Road SE) also plans to close early, at a time TBD. That store's condom stock isn't as healthy—"we have a few," says an employee—but the store doesn't anticipate having to turn anyone away from protection. "They're not running out," she says. "Nobody's buying them at the moment." CVS's second store across the river (3240 Pennsylvania Ave. SE) wasn't answering the phone when I called; a nearby Safeway pharmacy (2845 Alabama Ave. SE) also wasn't talking.

If your local pharmacy is closed or running low on condoms, the D.C. Department of Health points condom-seekers to the long list of community partners who distribute free condoms to District residents. While the D.C. government is closed today, some of D.C.'s condom partners may still be shilling rubbers gratis. But make sure to call ahead. "They're not government run, so they're probably opening and closing on their own accord right now," says a DOH rep. The list includes 37 locations in NW, 29 in SE, 14 in NE, and four in SW. The DOH also directs frisky residents can also text "DCWRAP" (followed by their zip code) to 365247 for a list of the nearest participating locations. The DCWRAP text line may be closed today, as well: I texted twice. I got nothin'.

But what of the residents who aren't able to brave the wind, sleet, and snow to reach one of these rubber providers? Call up DC Snacks, one of the Department of Health's condom distribution partners, who will deliver free condoms to your door—along with your order of Cheetos, cigarettes, or Chipwiches, of course.

Snack delivery entrepreneur Matt Mandell says that DC Snacks was open for business until about 10 p.m. last night. He hopes to resume delivery service again this evening, provided that the snow slows enough to ensure safe conditions for his delivery fleet. Since most DC Snacks snacks are delivered on bicycle, tonight's service depends on whether the main city arteries get plowed. "Our people on bikes can usually ride until we hit about six inches of snow, and then it's hard to get traction. That's when we pretty much closed," says Mandell. Mandell doesn't like to be closed. "We'll do our best. In some areas, we'll have to walk the bike. Some areas we can do it by motorized transportation . . . if it's close enough, we'll try to walk it there," he says. "I'm almost positive we're going to be open tonight."

If DC Snacks is operational this evening, be sure to take advantage of the extras. "There are always people who request that we throw a bunch of condoms in the bag," says Mandell. "We will definitely do that."

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

I recently headed over to the Web site for Just Detention International (formerly Stop Prison Rape) in order to learn more about this sad study reporting high rates of sexual assaults against juvenile detainees in the U.S. (Short version: one-in-eight detained youth report being sexually assaulted within their facility within the past year; 80 percent of these victims were abused by a member of the facility's staff).

The numbers make JDI's current ad campaign, which attempts to raise awareness about sexual abuse within our prison system, even more striking.

Consider the rape victim above. Then, consider her after a change of clothes:

JDI's campaign comes in three flavors. The first is aimed at addressing rape in detention facilities. The second is aimed at promoting the sexual health of detainees:

And the third is simply aimed at preventing jokes about prison rape:

I love this public-awareness campaign. I think the before-and-after effect is really on point in revealing how our society completely dehumanizes detainees by condoning their sexual assaults. However, I'm afraid that I'm a bit jaded about the expectations of the "before" part of the campaign. Unfortunately, I know that there are people out there who would look on as a woman is brutally raped. There are people out there who would refuse to allow their tax dollars to go toward basic HIV prevention. And there are people who would joke about a man being raped. (That last attitude is particularly widespread). If anything, this campaign shows that it's time to address our attitudes that minimize the sexual assaults of detainees—and those which minimize the experiences of all other victims, too.

City Paper: Deez Nuts. What does the title of the piece mean?

John Johnson: "Deez Nuts" is just like, D.C. . . . I’m sure everywhere people say "Deez Nuts," but when I was in high school, it was like a refrain. "Guess what? Deeeeez nuuuuuts!" It was more of a chant or a cadence. People are familiar with it, you know what I mean? And it refers to a dude’s testicles. So it's a witty title for a show that talks about men’s experiences.

CP: Was Deez Nuts inspired by the Vagina Monologues?

JJ: The show was inspired by talking to men in the community, but the Vagina Monologues is a good reference point for the audience. . . . The world is familiar with the Vagina Monologues, so we used the name to make people understand what it is. This is an all-male spin on that concept, with a real local D.C. flavor. It's a perspective on everything from love to war to having children, being fathers. But unlike the Vagina Monologues, where the women talk a lot about their parts—you know, about hair on the vagina and having periods—Deez Nuts doesn't focus on the male parts so much. It definitely talks about sex and relationships, but it's more about all the things that affect these nuts, instead of the actual nuts.

CP: How have women responded to the show?

JJ: All of the women want to see how men think. That’s been the positive feedback from the show. But on the flip-side, they want to see the female version. They don’t want to see the Vagina Monologues. They want to see the female version of Deez Nuts. . . . The difference would be that it would focus on local, D.C. women. Some women have been brainstorming a name for it. Some suggested "The Honey Pot." It's got to be something clever that refers to women and whatever their nuts would be. Like "Deez Ovaries."

CP: What men did you interview in creating the monologues?

All of them are my artist friends, and they run the gambit from musicians to poets to actors. The majority were men in the arts community, so they can convey a message. They've been practicing that for years. Putting all of their stories under the umbrella of Deez Nuts wasn’t a difficult task to do.

CP: The Vagina Monologues is considered a feminist project, because it discussed issues affecting women that hadn't been addressed so publicly before . . . . Do you think Deez Nuts does a similar service for issues affecting men?

JJ: Ultimately, men and women are compliments complements. So if there’s any type of inequality on either side, it affects both of us. If women are oppressed, so are men, because we’re not enjoying the full potential of our compliment. So it's not against feminism at all . . . This show has all African-American men in it, which is a unique angle. The Vagina Monologues came from a very different vantage point. Deez Nuts is about Chocolate City. All the performers happen to be black men—not that it was initially constructed that way—but their stories definitely reflect that part of D.C.

Responses have been condensed.

Despite the snub, CUAllies has carefully attempted to conform its advocacy work to the teachings of the Catholic church. The Post story notes that CUAllies has formulated a "self-imposed list of topics that are off-limits: pre-marital sex, gay sex, birth control, gay marriage and behavior not permitted by the Catholic church." With sex, marriage, and "behavior" off the table, what can CUAllies talk about?

Catholic University senior Robby Diesu, one of the group's founders, explains how to cultivate an LGBT group while keeping it Catholic: Avoid "advocacy," distract administrators from the dreaded combination of gays and food, and invent some clever condom wordplay.

"The three goals of CUAllies are to make Catholic U. a safe, welcoming, and affirming place for GLBTQ peoples," Diseu wrote to me. The purpose of CUAllies is hardly controversial: The group is devoted to preventing gay-bashings, providing some visibility for gay students on campus, and affirming the "dignity of the human person" for gay and straight students alike. Diseu insists that the group's goal is "not to change the Church," but rather to find a safe space within church teachings for LGBT students. In order to make life at Catholic University better for CUA's LGBTs, Diseu has found that it benefits the group to keep quiet on the political front. "We as a group do not have an official position on issues like gay marriage or birth control, so the group never diverges with the administration on those types of issues," he writes.

CUAllies has reason to step carefully: The group was formed in the aftermath of Catholic University's first gay-straight alliance, which ultimately conceded to university pressure. The first iteration of the CUA gay group, the Organization for Lesbian and Gay Student Rights, operated as an official student organization from 1988 until several years ago, when "the group was forced to dissolve . . . because it became an advocacy group," Nakas told the Post. "The university has chosen not to go down that path again," Nakas said.

Diseu says that CUAllies' strictly apolitical activities are an attempt to avoid the dreaded accusation of "advocacy." "The reason why we have 'self-imposed' off-limits topics is to show the ridiculous nature of the fact that Catholic is refusing us official status as a group," Diseu writes. But no matter how much CUAllies members censor themselves, Catholic University will always raise the bar for inclusion: "Their definition of advocacy is to have food at your meetings or wanting to talk about hate crimes! Ahh the horror!!" According to Diseu, Catholic's former gay group was hardly controversial. "They were having food at their meetings, and if the gays have food you know what happens. . . . The school put a stranglehold on the group, and we were not going to let them do that to us." (Despite the evident controversy of gays serving food, Diseu says CUAllies does have refreshments at meetings).

Besides fighting off dissolution, what can CUAllies do? Plenty, as long as they frame it right. "We went to the National Equality March as a group because we support full equality for all people," Diseu writes. "In the spring we are having a 3-week series on GLBTQ health and safety and we have a whole week set aside to talk about HIV/AIDS." Diseu says that last subject may take a little bit of verbal acrobatics. "It's basically a word game, we find the loopholes and use them to our advantages," he writes. "Will we talk about condoms? Most likely. But will we directly say, 'When you have sex, use a condom'? No. It will more likely be, 'One of the ways to prevent getting HIV/AIDS is to use a condom.'"

Last we checked in with Dr. Ruth Jacobs, president of the Maryland Citizens for Responsible Government, she was explaining why transgender women should not be allowed in her bathroom: “If somebody with an opposite body part is allowed in to a ladies’ restroom—a guy who has a penis, who could put his penis inside my vagina—what am I to do?” Jacobs said. “We need to be able to retain the right to speak up about men in our bathrooms without being labeled bigots.”

Okay! Well, now Dr. Jacobs is back to apply her anatomical expertise to the issue of gay marriage. Let's see what she has to say!

Thanks to Metro Weekly for getting this all on tape. Here are the money quotes:

* "An anus was designed for exit, not entrance."

* "Who will protect the children?"

* "Once it becomes law, you cannot opt out . . . students are terrified to be taken out of sex ed. They get on their knees and beg to their parents to be included. Because, to be outside is to be labeled the conservative. To go to the library while everyone else is in class having sex ed, means that you then—when you refuse to go to sex ed, you then become the group that is discriminated against."

* "46 percent of black men . . . are HIV positive" (No).

* Marriage and the vagina and the penis are designed to go together, and the penis and the anus do not."

* And a dose of reality courtesy of Councilmember David Catania: "If your testimony is that you're only eligible to marry if your population has a low HIV rate, the first in line . . . are lesbians. So based on your testimony, we could only marry lesbians."

The Centers for Disease Control is currently weighing whether to recommend the circumcision of boys and men in the United States. If the CDC finds that a circumcision recommendation would reduce the risk of HIV among American men, I think that's swell. Providing people with information to help protect themselves from disease is a wonderful thing. But a CDC recommendation would likely come with one major adverse side-effect. For women who already find uncircumcised penises disgusting, wrong, or unfuckable, the recommendation will also provide more fuel for their ignorance.

Women who shun uncircumcised penises has always struck me as short-sighted. These are the women who will glibly deem their sex partner's genitalia unacceptable if, several decades ago, his parents did not predict her sexual preferences and subject him to newborn penis surgery accordingly. Sound familiar? We're women. We know what it's like to be unfairly judged on impossible physical standards! And yet, even women who are well-informed about sex—women who like it, talk openly about it, and even get paid to write about it—are keeping the genital snubbing alive.

Yesterday, the Frisky's Annika Harris wrote: "Uncircumcised penises repulse and scare me, so my sons are getting cut whether it’s PC or not." And she writes for a sex blog.

On the Simple Life, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie laughed over catching sight of some uncircumcised dick at a nudist beach, with Richie calling uncircumcised penises "fucking disgusting." And they're Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.

In circumcision documentary Partly Private, a woman on a Sex and the City bus tour announced that "Ninety-nine percent of women in America would be shocked if they got in bed with someone and they were like: Oh! Huh!" (Watch her genital superiority, above, at the 1:33 mark). And she was standing outside of a sex toy shop while paying homage to a television show almost exclusively devoted to having sex with men. Note that this woman doesn't just express her extreme dislike of uncircumcised penises—she attempts to justify her position by extending the disgust to her entire gender. In the Sex and the City's circumcision episode, incidentally, the girls' penis preferences were split about 50-50.

Whenever I've encountered women like this—women who find uncircumcised penises inherently gross—various medical statistics will doubtlessly be raised in defense of their penis discrimination. Uncircumcised penises, they'll say, have a higher risk of contracting HPV—plus, they look weird. Uncircumcised penises have a higher risk of contracting penile cancer—also, what the fuck do you do with it? Uncircumcised penises have a higher risk of spreading HIV—and none of my girlfriends would ever fuck an uncut guy. These women are interested in sexual health, but they're more interested in protecting their own prejudice against unmodified genitalia. When it comes down to it, it doesn't matter if the guy's clean of STDs—to these women, he will always be unclean.

Again, facts are great. And when the CDC gets around to making a recommendation, we'll all be better informed about just what the risks of circumcision are. But no matter what the HIV link to uncircumcised penises turns out to be, you will never be able to determine a man's status by examining his genitals. (And in some cases, you wouldn't notice the difference anyway). So if you're one of those women who dislikes uncircumcised penises because you consider them to be "unclean," you would be better served to reserve that reaction for penises that don't have condoms on them, or any sexual conduct initiated before you and your partner undergo fresh STD tests. No matter what style of penis you prefer, those two little accessories are a lot more likely to keep you safe than an irrational repulsion to unmodified dick.

In order to prove that his Artificial Intelligence could  master the "outer parameters of all possible human thought," Holland presented a variety of common human interactions and demonstrated how the AI's reasoning would operate under each circumstance.  All is well until we get to the "Reproduction" section, where we discover that this reasoning is not "Universal" so much as it is "Wilson Holland's ill-informed heteronormative rants about women, rape, and HIV." Let's take a look:

WILSON HOLLAND'S POSSIBLE HUMAN SEX SCENARIO NUMBER 1, IN WHICH CHECKING OUT LADIES PROVES YOU'RE NOT IMPOTENT AND/OR GAY:

A male human is flipping through channels on a television. He stops on a channel which has a bathing suit commercial. He views the beautiful women wearing skimpy bathing suits.

His wife enters the room. "What the heck are you doing?"

He replies, "I'm just seeing what kind of bikini I might buy you for Christmas."

She says, "Yeah right."

When a male human receives the visual stimulus of the silhouette of a healthy female's body this information entering the brain from the optic nerve triggers the hormonal generated thoughts (in most situations). His hormones are telling him "I want to have sex with that girl, and that one too." Does this mean he is a bad husband? . . . If he were to see these women in bathing suits and not feel any hormonal generated thoughts, then this might be a sign of impotence. This would mean that he may not be functioning properly when attempting to have sex, with his wife.

WILSON HOLLAND'S POSSIBLE HUMAN SEX SCENARIO NUMBER 2, IN WHICH MEN DON'T LISTEN BECAUSE THEY NEED TO FILE SOME MASTURBATION MATERIAL FOR LATER:

Jim is a cashier at a convenience store. A very beautiful girl walks in a mini skirt. She walks to the back to get a soda out of the refrigerated section. He looks down to view her legs. She then walks up to the counter.

She says "Can I get ten dollars on pump four (she is speaking of the gasoline pump which she wishes to receive fuel from for her vehicle)?"

After a few seconds he states, "Uh yeah, uh pump two?"

She says "Yeah"

He then says, "And that will be all?"

She says "Yeah. That's it."

He says, "Well thank you. If you need any help pumping the gas or anything I would be glad to help."

She laughs a little, "Thanks, but I think I can manage."

When a male human comes in contact with the visual appearance of a female's form, and that female is a healthy normal specimen, his thoughts are of having sex with the form (in most situations). . . . It is important to note that male humans (generally) view the silhouette of a female's form and masturbate with this stimulus. . . . Males can be found visualizing the female form in many scenes exclusively for the act of masturbation as opposed to actual sex. It is not likely that this cashier will have sex with the female. He may use her visual stimulus to masturbate.

WILSON HOLLAND'S POSSIBLE HUMAN SEX SCENARIO NUMBER 3, IN WHICH THE WOMAN AND BABY WHO DIE OF AIDS ARE TO BLAME!!!!!!!!!!!1:

The battle of work verses play manifests itself in the sexual desires of humans. Having sex is not always the correct solution to the natural selection problem. Males often want sex from a female while the female puts it off in making sure her mate is a good choice. The male (generally) has a strong desire to achieve an orgasm. He will surely make errors in problem solving with this issue:

A male and female are beginning to have sex

"Do you have the condom? The female asks.

"If we could ..." He says as he is kissing her. "It feels so much better without the condom."

"You have to wear the condom. " She asks.

"Let . . . me" He then proceeds to have sex without the condom. She does not dispute or try to stop him. She later becomes pregnant and develops HIV. Her and her child both die from the illness.

In this scene the sensation of a sexual experience is in conflict with the knowledge that not using a condom can be harmful. Natural Selection is trying to eliminate these humans one way or another. If she would have insisted on a condom, his not being "fit" would mean that his offspring would not have been born. But she made a mistake, so natural selection has sought to eliminate her and the offspring.

WILSON HOLLAND'S POSSIBLE HUMAN SEX SCENARIO NUMBER 4, IN WHICH RAPE IS A SMALL SEXUAL "ERROR":

Johanna and Liz both have pet Chihuahuas. Liz is visiting Johanna with her male dog "Pinto."

Johanna's female dog "Lady" is quite excited to see Pinto and they begin to play immediately when they arrive. The two humans sit on the couch and begin having conversations. After a minute or two Lady jumps up on the couch and sets still. Pinto jumps up and continually attempts to get her to be more animate so that he can perpetuate the sex act and then mount her. She was temporarily interested in playing when he first arrived because she was caught up in the excitement of having visitors, yet now she is indignant. She is not in heat and does not wish to have sex. Pinto's showing the arousal he has felt since arriving by constantly keeping his ears pointed up high and his eyes wide open. The two humans laugh and make comments at his attempts. Liz pulls him back telling him "Relax, she's just not interested." She holds him for a second and then lets go. Like a magnet he goes directly to the female to attempt courtship. She pulls him back again and when let go he moves directly to the female again. Throughout the entire hour long visit Pinto does not give up, slow down, or show any other desire to do any other thing but have sex with "Lady."

The human which first coined the phrase "Men are dogs." must have observed a dog like this one. In nature, the males of many species often act as an "on" button. They are ready at any given moment to perform sex (in most situations). Females often are only able to perform sex at certain times. The female has more of a duty to decide if sex with a given male is in the best interest of the offspring to be produced. . . . Males perform the act of rape more than females because their arousal is closely linked with the sex act and they often have the ability to over-power their victim. Females, even if given the ability to overpower a victim, would not be as compelled by sexual desire to perform rape. Males like the cashier mentioned earlier are distracted by their sexual desires. The strong sex drives of males cause a wide range of errors in the acquisition of sex.

Whenever a man deviates from this reproductive gender role, he's labeled as kind of a pussy. When a woman deviates from the role, she doesn't get off so easy—she's a bad, immoral, evil slut. It's funny: even those who believe that men and women were "created" this way though the process of evolution—and not via some God who wove his moral authority into our very genitals—will still argue that deviating from gender norms results in great moral depravity.

Except for gay guys! When gay men are sexually promiscuous—you know, like men are evolutionarily wired to be—they are bad, immoral, evil sluts, too. Welcome to the club, guys (there are no free towels). It's funny: even those who believe that there's nothing wrong with being gay still argue that gay sex results in the great moral depravity usually reserved only for female sluts. Why? Because there are no women around to virtuously refuse to have sex with them.

Yesterday, The New Gay editor Zack made the gay man's double-standard clear. Zack has been seeing his boyfriend for two years. And one time, Zack peed on someone's face in a kiddie pool (consensually). Sure, it's not the most effective way of spreading one's seed, but whatever—he's a dude, and it's only natural for him to want to do some freaky stuff with his penis, right? Wrong. Zack peed on a man's face, which is a no good very bad slutty thing to do. And it's not because men loving men is bad—it's because men fucking men is bad. And it all comes back to us ladies. Zack writes:

Though gay men’s lives are not purely defined by sex — I don’t need to tell you that the richness of the modern queer experience goes beyond an eternal search for dick in ass — I think we do ourselves a disservice by forgetting that we have been designated like we are because of sex. Not love, not companionship, not dating, but sex. Gay marriage is verboten because it leads to gay sex. Parent freak out about gay teachers because they think we’ll teach their children about abhorrent sex. Gay adoption, gay blood donors, all “controversial” aspects of us as a people can be traced back to a popular disdain for how we get off.

However, the way to address this is not to cut sex out of our lives entirely. Some people seem to think that we can whitewash ourselves to equality. Show no affection, no desire, no indication that you have anything between your legs but a smooth strip of plastic and we’ll be able to do what everyone else does. This is true in a sense, but if we win our acceptance as a sexless people we’ll be forever robbed of sex. It’s common sense. Not everyone wants to be joined in holy matrimony or to fight in the military, but everyone wants to have sex. And if the way we have sex is fundamentally accepted, then all of our other rights would fall into line. I’m sure of this.

The parallels between gay rights and women's rights here are obvious. There's a reason that feminism is so centered around reproductive rights (it's the sex). Birth control allows women to have sex the way we want, for the reasons we want to, and without the responsibility of bearing all the moral consequences that come with having sex (chiefly, babies). And yet, even when sex is very explicitly undertaken for pleasure instead of reproduction, women are still called upon to bring some morality to the situation. A woman who takes her birth control pill every day is still a slut. A woman who uses a condom is still a slut. A man who pees on another man's face, where insemination is impossible—as is transmission of HIV, which often acts as a moral-responsibility stand-in for pregnancy—is still a slut.

In response to Zack's coming out as a slut, commenter B.B. wrote:

I am so exhausted from hearing excuse after excuse about why having sex with anyone and everyone anywhere and everywhere is “okay.” No, it is not okay. Let’s also not fool ourselves into believing that straight men are just as slutty as gay men. Women are still socialized to rebuff men’s attempts to have sex with them. I do not doubt that many straight men would have sex as often as possible if they could, but there is still a certain degree of dignity in the straight dating arena.

Ah, dignity. Where does this dignity come from? Why, it comes from us, the women, who must be forever chaste in order to save all of mankind from sluttiness. But once you take women out of the equation, sexual relationships become a lot less dignified—in fact, they become something approaching equal!

Behind the slut-shaming of gay men and the slut-shaming of straight women is the same irrational fear: the fear of equality in sexual relationships. And it sucks for everybody. In accordance with gender roles, men are considered morally inferior to women. Women are considered morally responsible for men. Men who have sex with men will never have their immoral natures redeemed by women. Women who have sex with women are wasting their feminine virtue.

I'm with Zack on this one—it all comes down to equality in the bedroom. When women are allowed to want sex like men, we will all be made responsible for our own personal relationships—and not the collective morality of our entire society. And when everything is equal between men and women, gay men and women will no longer be considered morally inferior to all heterosexuals. And consensual kiddie pool face-pissing will be available for all, if that's what they're into.

the tests are administered by taking groups of 15 to 20 students at a time to the restroom area. The students are given paper bags containing urine collection cups and enter bathroom stalls. Once they get in the stalls, they can choose whether or not to provide urine samples. All the students return the paper bags, so other students do not necessarily know who did or did not provide a sample. Students provide a password and then call in a week later to get their result and treatment, if necessary.

That's the good news. The bad news is that last year, a pilot program found that 13 percent of D.C. public school students tested positive for STDs ("mostly gonorrhea or chlamydia").

The really bad news? Even though "all 50 states and the District allow minors older than 12 to be screened for STDs without parental consent," some educators are
still against this initiative. The rationale? Think of the Parents:

[State Board of Education rep William Lockridge] said parents need to be involved. "Right now, if you play sports in a public school, you have to get permission from your parents. If you take a field trip, you have to get permission from your parents. Why would it be any less for this? . . . Only if the parent gives the consent upfront would I do this."

Please: Do not bring Mom and Dad into this. Under the current anonymous-paper-bag method, where kids all pile into the bathroom and either do or do not pee into the cup, about 68 percent of students elect to submit to a urine test. It's not the most private ceremony in the world. But if we were to add in an extra Parental Signature step to the ordeal, I wonder how many kids would choose not to piss?

When parents have to sign teens up for the pissing trip, they'll know when their teens are being tested—and when to badger them for the results. Teens—duh—will feel a lot less confident that their test results will remain confidential. D.C.'s teens deserve STD testing, and they deserve it to remain private. Even if they're surrounded by 20 of their fellow students in the process.

So ... ejaculation. It turns out that where you do it can greatly affect a woman's chances of becoming pregnant. Like: If you ejaculate straight up into her vagina, she's more likely to become pregnant; if you ejaculate into a condom or anywhere else in the world, she's less likely to conceive. Every 16-year-old boy knows this to be true, and now those 16-year-old boys have grown up to become the Guttmacher Institute's Lead Pulling-Out Researcher, Rachel K. Jones. Jones published her findings in the June issue of Contraception magazine [via NYT]:

“If the male partner withdraws before ejaculation every time a couple has vaginal intercourse, about 4 percent of couples will become pregnant over the course of a year,” the authors write.

For condoms, used optimally, the rate is about 2 percent. But more significant, the authors say, are the rates for “typical use,” because people can’t be expected to use any contraception method perfectly every time. Typical use of withdrawal leads to pregnancy 18 percent of the time, they write; for typical use of condoms 17 percent of the time.

Hey, that's information that helps us become better informed about our sex lives. Great, right? No. IT'S BAD, says the Daily Beast's Tracy Quan, who calls the study's results "folk wisdom" with a lack of "supporting evidence" and infers that the Guttmacher Institute is no longer "sane" for publishing this no good very bad information. Why? Because withdrawal is "caddish," "insulting," and it's FOR BOYS, NOT GIRLS. And we all know we can't trust boys to do anything. What else can't we trust? Science, for one! And while we're at it: We can't trust grown women in mutually monogamous relationships to make this choice for themselves, either, even though it's free, accessible, and feels better than a condom. THERE I SAID IT.

But enough about ejaculating outside of vaginas. Oh, wait, no: It's time for Sady of Tiger Beatdown and I to discuss ejaculating outside of vaginas some more! Join us!

AMANDA: 9:23 a.m. is a great time to talk about the ups and downs of not ejaculating into vaginas.

SADY: yes. personally, when i heard that not ejaculating into vaginas was a "reliable" form of birth control, i had my suspicions! i was like: apparently all of the dudes i have argued with about birth control have become scientists! who knew?

AMANDA: published in the renowned peer-reviewed journal of medicine, Maxim.

SADY: right. it strikes me as some flawed science, is what i am saying! for, even if withdrawal is a semi-effective method of "birth control," it strikes me as a highly ineffective method of Not Getting Various Diseases Such As The Herp Control. which i think is what Tracy Quan is saying, which is good common sense.

AMANDA: of course, but at the same time, real scientists who are not your ex-boyfriends have worked very hard to come up with dozens of methods of birth control that also don't prevent STDs

SADY: fair enough! the scientists, they do these things! i suppose i am a person who likes a certain modicum of control over these situations. and withdrawal as birth control, TO ME, relies on your partner having (a) really good timing, and (b) a solid commitment to not getting distracted or losing track of whatever he is supposed to be doing, during a moment that (AS I UNDERSTAND IT) can be kind of distracting! (I AM REFERRING TO THE MALE ORGASM. In case my incredible tastefulness and subtlety are working against me.)

AMANDA: this is a point that Quan made as well, and I agree that for a lot of people withdraw would not be a good option for this reason. But all forms of birth control come with a degree of human error, or in some cases, shit ripping inside your vagina error. say you're a couple who doesn't want to use condoms. and the woman takes her birth control pills, but the man, like you, can't trust her—for whatever reason—to take them at the same time every day. maybe she forgets sometimes!

SADY: fair enough!

AMANDA: he might not want to rely on her, either. and so if you forget a birth control pill, or a condom breaks, or you ejaculate into a vagina, you know, you can take emergency contraception as well. one of the interesting things to me about this study—and i'm just going to assume the study is accurate for argument, because i don't know anything about methodology with these things. is that it placed withdrawl slightly below condoms, right? and still, most of the response has been, 'there's no way this could ever work, this is some frat dude conspiracy.' and so perhaps what this study reveals isn't that withdrawl is a very good option, but rather that we have a bit too much faith in condoms

SADY: a fascinating point! and i agree, some of this may have to do with the fact that, as long as i've been alive, anyway, Birth Control has been less important to the discussion than Safe Sex. and most of the sex ed i have ever received has been like, "USE CONDOMS, also there are other methods but seriously just USE CONDOMS." and i'm still a fan of the condom, because it is cheap and does not require a prescription and has a lower failure rate and higher disease protection rate than other things! the withdrawal method, to me, requires what is (in many or most circumstances) a perhaps unrealistically high level of trust for one's makeout partner. but maybe this just has to do with the fact that i have been culturally conditioned to trust other people less than i trust the Trojan corporation.

AMANDA: of course. and the method is really counter-intuitive, because pulling out is something that irresponsible 15 year old boys are supposed to do, when really it's something that would be more appropriate for, say, mutually monogamous STD-free old people.

SADY: right. it is odd for me that something which is the centerpiece of much heterosexual porn is now a meaningful expression of committed monogamous trust. NEXT UP: how having sex on a bus can keep you from getting cancer!

AMANDA: hhahaha. yeah. i heard if you put a donut on it and then seductively bite it off it lowers the risk of kidney failure, or something

SADY: WOW. a doughnut, you say! i guess i've been doing it all wrong with the bagels.

AMANDA: i'm with the critics of Quan with this one, though – something that PEOPLE DO turning out to be less sexually risky than we thought is probably a good thing. she says a bit of anxiety is good, but i actually have a lot of that! and so reducing that is probably a good thing for a lot of people. maybe not for Quan, but it's not like we're getting rid of condoms! The Trojan lobby (sponsored by Tiger Beatdown) would never allow that.

SADY: true enough. i guess i am just concerned with the fact that there is already pressure on girls to be the "cool" ones who don't "make" the dude use condoms. i do not know why i think that the sort of dudes who apply that pressure are all going to show up with scientific studies and go through a careful risk-benefit analysis! yet i do. in conclusion: withdrawal is totally fine, if you want to do that and are reasonable about it, and not fine if you do not. CONTROVERSY!

AMANDA: agreed. DON'T LET HIM NOT EJACULATE IN YOUR VAGINA IF YOU DON'T WANT HIM TO NOT DO THAT, KIDS.

SADY: there, problem solved. everybody does what they want to do. the real winner? the paper towel industry. hurrah!

Photo by amorphity

Thanks to Representative Jack Kingston of Georgia, a rider just added to D.C.'s District's 2010 federal appropriation bill will effectively trash all clean needle exchange programs in this city. According to the Examiner:

an amendment recently offered by Republican Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, and accepted by the Democrat-led Appropriations Committee, bars the District from distributing clean needles or syringes to drug addicts within 1,000 feet "of a public or private day care center, elementary school, vocational school, secondary school, college, junior college, or university, or any public swimming pool, park, playground, video arcade, or youth center, or an event sponsored by any such entity."

Can anyone think of a space in D.C. that's not within 1,000 feet of any of these things?

I'm glad to see that Congress doesn't want to completely eliminate needle exchanges in the city with the highest HIV rate in the country—it just wants to push clean needles to the one obscure spot in D.C. that's football fields away from any public or private . . . anything. The Examiner reports that The House Rules Committee has already "nixed nine proposed D.C.-related amendments offered by Republican members involving guns, gay marriage, abortion and marijuana." Clean needles didn't make the cuts cut.

Local needle-exchange provider Dr. Phil Terry notes that Kingston's fear of needles may, ironically, bring the clean needles closer to his workplace: "There's virtually no area in D.C. that would meet those restrictions, except maybe Capitol Hill," Terry said.

DCist says it all: "Considering the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the District of Columbia, we think it's fair to label this latest maneuver in the House as absolutely despicable."

Photo by Todd Huffman

Some people believe that every human being has the right to a full and healthy life. Others believe that every human being has a right to a full and healthy life—as long as they aren't gay, addicted to drugs, or a prostitute.

And then, there are those who believe that only pre-born babies are innocent enough to deserve a full and healthy life. These people are the reason that the campaign against AIDS has to focus on infected pregnant women—instead of infected pregnant women, infected drug users, infected prostitutes, and infected gay men.

AIDS activist Elizabeth Pisani drove this point home in a recent interview with VICE Magazine. Pisani is a crusader against both AIDS and the bullshit which prevents health organizations from fighting it. There are a lot of insights in this long interview with Pisani. Most interesting to me is the way the fight against AIDS has been shaped by branding issues.

The face of AIDS, Pisani argues, has been focused so exclusively on the "innocents"—like pregnant women, their unborn children, and recipients of blood transfusions—that the epidemic has been left to thrive in the most at-risk populations—like gay men, drug users, and sex workers. The problem, of course, resolves itself in the most macabre way: The epidemic eventually spreads from "the wicked" to the "innocents," who are not as isolated as the judgmental types would like to believe.

Says Pisani:

Yes, gay men, drug injectors, and people who sell and buy sex, the three groups which are more likely to get HIV, are the so-called “wicked” people. At UNAIDS we had to find a way to turn it from a “disease of the wicked” into a “disease of the innocent”. Unfortunately, in the process of trying to do that, we turned attention from the groups who most needed it to the whole population. So what we were essentially trying to saying was, “If you don't invest in prevention for these high risk groups now, then you will have a bigger epidemic—i.e. innocent women and kids—later on.” What the politicians heard, however, was, “HIV prevention blah blah blah blah innocent women and children.” It's like talking to a dog who recognizes only its name and the name of the food. Can you recollect a precise moment for this shift in perception? It was when the African epidemic really hit people's radars. In Africa all of our data came from pregnant women, and you can't have a more touchy-feely innocent group than pregnant women and their unborn babies. That was the thing that really made people think it wasn't just a disease of 'the wicked'.

The whole interview is worth a read, including Pisani's explanation for why democracies have been less proactive at fighting the epidemic: "Democracy isn't all that good at protecting the rights of minority groups who don't vote. . . . when I say public health is a fascist discipline, I mean it." Hey, maybe that finally explains President Bush's initiatives to fund AIDS work in Africa?

Photo by bryan88

This morning, 26 national AIDS protesters were arrested under the Capitol building's rotunda. At least four of the parties charged with "unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct" hail from the District's own activist community.

At 10 a.m., the protesters convened in the building, chained themselves together with a white chain, and demanded that Congress recognize the need to fund the fight against AIDS. They then "marched in a circle before lying down on the floor."

Capitol Police confirmed that "11 men and 15 women were charged." Though the full names of all protesters haven't been released, the activists belong to a coalition of five national groups, including a couple of organizations with D.C. offices: DC Fights Back and Housing Works.

A call to the D.C. Housing Works offices found all three regular staff members currently tied-up in the legal scuffle. The office's summer intern, Summer Sterling, was on-hand to answer the phones. Sterling confirmed that Larry Bryant, who serves as a co-chair of DC Fights Back and a National Field Organizer for Housing Works, was under arrest; two other Housing Works employees were busy monitoring the process and handling media inquiries. Though Sterling wouldn't comment on how involved she was in the planning of the protest, she did say that she "one-hundred-percent expected [the activists] to be arrested."

Housing Works' Christine Campbell, who had accompanied the activists to the protests, confirmed that at least four locals were among the 26 arrested activists. She, too, registered little surprise with the Capitol Police reaction. "We took that risk," she said. "We knew we were going to be chaining ourselves together in the Capitol, so."

Campbell says that the arrest "went very smoothly"—especially after police realized that Campbell was on-hand as "legal support for the group." At that point, Capitol Police cleared the rotunda, issued a warning to the protesters, and then arrested them.

Photo by Kyle Rush, Creative Commons Attribution License

Don't?Guess?Test! hopes that increased awareness of "accessible HIV-testing"—including self-administered tests—will help curb the spread of HIV in the District. Some, however, are second-guessing Don't?Guess?Test!'s methods. The Washington Business Journal noted on Friday that the campaign's tests have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

It's hard not to think about sex when an R. Kelly jam comes on the radio. After all, Robert Sylvester Kelly is one of the foremost sex crooners of our time. But Kelly doesn't just toss around sexual euphemisms in his songs—he mixes them up in ways that are often misleading, confusing, and maybe—just maybe—transgressive. Is R. Kelly unintentional invoking anal sex and phallic imagery in his heterosexual love songs, or is it all just clever wordplay? Take a tour of R. Kelly's twisted sexual vocabulary, after the jump.

"Chocolate Factory"

[youtube:v=DeJMzLEjSUw]

UNDERLYING MEANING: Butt. "1. A process inside the anus which produces shit as we know it. 2.The name of R. Kelly's new album. Coincidence? I think not."

R. KELLY USAGE: R. Kelly's lady. (Seriously, dude?) "candy carmel coated, taf-fies, chocolate covered strawberries, love so sweet / you're my chocolate factory, gum drops / mixed with chocolate, milk bars, there's so much variety / love so sweet, you're / my chocolate factory."

—

"Down Low"

[youtube:v=8icIgtdKkdA]

UNDERLYING MEANING: Secret homosexual liaisons. "when black males try to remain straight by having sex with other men then go home and sleep with their wives."

R. KELLY USAGE: Secret heterosexual liaisons with a woman who already has a man. "Secret lovers is what you wanna be / While making love to him girl you're silently calling on me."

—

"Snake"

[youtube:v=BqqBTEPAag4]

UNDERLYING MEANING: Slang for male genitalia. "Penis."

R. KELLY USAGE: The way a woman moves her body. When this song declares, "love the way you put that thing on me no doubt," R. Kelly insists he's referring to the way "you move your body like a snake." And not the other thing.

—

"The Package"

[youtube:v=hc7QdHqA0D4]

UNDERLYING MEANING: A dude's junk. "Male genitalia (penis and scrotum together), often associated with large size." R. Kelly has invoked this usage before, in "Make Me Love Her."

R. KELLY USAGE: "The Package," in epic R. Kelly hip-hopera "Trapped in the Closet," is a mysterious threat to group of people linked through a chain of casual sexual encounters. It's probably HIV, but we can't be sure—until R. Kelly comes out with more episodes, the series ends on a cliffhanger. Urban Dictionary confirms that "package" also means "AIDS—derived from prison slang: the complete package." Knowing R. Kelly, the "Package" will turn out to be something completely different.

Hans Rosling, awesome dude, explains the spread of the HIV epidemic with these awesome floating color bubbles, his cute Swedish accent, and a pole, which he says has "solidified the beam of the laser pointer." The AIDS bubbles start to go out of control at around the two minute mark.

Last month, I wrote a story on why the government won't fund local youth AIDS prevention group WAIT (or Washington AIDS International Teens). WAIT's problem was this:

a. Their goal was stopping the spread of HIV.

b. Their methodology was abstinence.

c. The government only funds one or the other.

Last week, President Obama proposed to add another roadblock to their fight for funding by cutting abstinence-only cash from the budget altogether.

Now, groups like WAIT, which represent the most practical side of abstinence eduction—delaying sex only to prevent an uncurable deadly disease—will remain, well, pretty much unaffected. As I detailed in my piece, federally-funded abstinence-only education was always itself too much of a "comprehensive" strategy. In order to receive federal funding, abstinence groups couldn't just work against AIDS—they also had to teach prevention of “out-of-wedlock pregnancy”; that “a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity”; and that “sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.”

So while proponents of comprehensive sex education rejoice at the White House rule, some abstinence advocates, at least, aren't lamenting the move: abstinence's realists have always been left behind.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery.

Devon Hunter, a "a career exotic dancer with formal, professional training in dance and theatre," set out on the streets hit the clubs of D.C. last weekend in the hopes of launching a new safe-sex campaign. All the guys he approached thought Devon Hunter—who should call me, by the way—was totally lame.

"I’d asked three people if they’d like to be part of an advertising campaign to promote safe sex. All three rejected me," he writes. "Two said, 'Condoms are so 1985,' and the third said, 'Condoms are so 1980’s.' It had never occurred to me that safe sex was trendy, much less that condoms were connected in some way to fashion."

I agree with Hunter that this does not bode well for the future of the HIV epidemic in D.C. Still, I'm impressed that the condoms-are-lame trend is so specific! One respondent narrowed condom use down to the decade that it became uncool; two pinned the exact year.

Hunter posits that we should mix things up and reestablish condoms as "so 2009." I say that fashion is cyclical. Now that AIDS is back, condoms can't be too far behind.

Photo by Jeb Ro

Kate Tsubata is not your typical abstinence advocate. She wants you to choose one person to have sex with for the rest of your life, but her fidelity to the movement’s traditions ends there. She refuses to draft no-sex pledges, forge promise rings, stage purity balls, or cite scripture. She doesn’t care if the sex you’re not having is straight or gay. She likes sex, actually, as long as you only do it with one person ever—no wedding required. The stakes are lower, too. In Tsubata’s abstinence movement, sex won’t lead you down a road of eternal damnation—all it will do is kill you.

As the leader of the Washington AIDS International Teens group—or, the T-shirt-perfect “WAIT”—Tsubata, her three children, and a team of youth activists teach young adults to abstain from sex solely to stop the spread of AIDS. The encouragement comes via performance: a teen-friendly program of beat-boxing, break-dancing, and sober Powerpoint presentation in the name of waiting for “the one.” In steering a middle course between the anti-AIDS and anti-sex sets, Tsubata may be ensuring that her cause never, ever gets any money.

WAIT’s prevention strategy of lifetime fidelity to one person is too idealistic for most AIDS activists, who prefer to tout the benefits of lifetime fidelity to the condom. WAIT has also proven too practical for the abstinent, whose AIDS work is often colored by moral prescriptions against fornication, homosexuality, and other at-risk sins. The division between the groups has blocked a possible solution to the AIDS crisis. Forget daddy-daughter dances and abstinence-themed jewelry; these days, only an incurable epidemic that threatens to wipe out entire populations may succeed in convincing teens to keep their legs crossed.

The latest ravages of this incurable epidemic have jolted people into action. Within days of the release of striking new AIDS figures placing D.C.’s AIDS epidemic on par with West Africa’s, WAIT fielded dozens of requests for WAIT performances, in which a vanload of teens channel unused sexual energy into back-flips, one-armed headstands, repurposed  hip-hop songs, and other chaste stunts. Then, an hour-long Powerpoint presentation details HIV’s causes—intravenous drug use, sex, and in very rare occasions, deep kissing; and effects—rare bulbous skin cancers, tuberculosis, or simply wasting away. Only at the final slides does WAIT arrive at its recommendation: Better not to do it.

Tsubata, who also serves as co-director of the Washington AIDS International Foundation, WAIT’s parent group, knows it’s a radical conclusion in a city where an e-mail to condoms@dc.gov can bring a shipment of 1,000 government-funded “Durex Enhanced Pleasure” rubbers. But she says that rough times have benefited WAIT’s unorthodox abstinence approach. “Everyone is just so desperate for something to work, for something to help people, that I think they’re ready to try anything,” she says.

Everyone, that is, except the D.C. government, which has denied WAIT’s repeated requests for funding since the program started up in 2002. In that time, WAIT has staged at least 120 performances a year in 20 states and 15 countries, and been rejected for a dozen federal and local grants. Tsubata, who works closely with more generously funded locals like Planned Parenthood and Metro Teen AIDS, says the renewed interest in the AIDS crisis will only reinforce the AIDS cash status-quo. “Since I have never received a penny of it, it doesn’t matter to me,” says Tsubata. “But the lack of funds is not from lack of trying.”

Tsubata is quick to insist that she doesn’t need government cash to be effective, but the numbers are dire enough to test even the most committed of charity workers. In 2007, the Washington AIDS International Foundation collected $225,975 in donations from individuals and corporations like Wal-Mart, and zero from government sources. That doesn’t leave a lot of money to support its skeleton staff: In 2007, Tsubata raked in $18,480 from her work with the group; her eldest daughter, Lan Lee, collected only $569 for her efforts. Compare those numbers to two of D.C.’s more readily classified youth nonprofits: Metro Teen AIDS, which takes a comprehensive prevention approach, received $968,015 in government funds in 2007; the Best Friends Foundation, an uber-abstinent education initiative, received $1,520,759. The highest-paid workers in those groups made $59,129 and $96,750, respectively.

The problem is a funding strategy based on a strictly segregated sex-ed cash flow. The D.C. government will cough up cash for comprehensive HIV prevention. It will allocate federal funds for right-wing abstinence. But it rarely funds anything in between. The D.C. Department of Health does cite “abstinence” under in its HIV prevention strategy as “the only absolute fail-safe way for preventing HIV infection”—it’s just listed second to “condoms.” D.C.’s HIV/AIDS Administration allocates more than $70 million each year to local AIDS workers, and all must satisfy the District’s full approach. “The District believes in a comprehensive sexual health approach for young people, which does include abstinence,” says Michael Kharfen, the bureau chief for “capacity building and community outreach” in the HIV/AIDS Administration. Though WAIT’s program is comprehensive enough to include advocating for widespread testing, access to antiretroviral drugs, and condom use between HIV-positive lifetime partners, the group is not comprehensive enough for the D.C. government. “The HIV/AIDS groups that we partner with provide an array of services, including HIV and STD testing, contraceptives, working with youth,” says Kharfen. “Many also include abstinence in their approach. But none of them are exclusively abstinence-only.”

Abstinence-based AIDS groups are instead forced to compete for the small amount of federal funds allocated to “abstinence education” in Title V of the Social Security Act. The District receives “less than a million dollars” from that pot, Kharfen says, which is then distributed to groups based on a host of traditional abstinence criteria—almost all of which WAIT fails to satisfy. Federal abstinence criteria focus on preventing “out-of-wedlock pregnancy”; that “a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity”; and that “sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.” The federal funding, in other words, is dedicated to supporting the abstinence movement’s reputation as an impractical, preachy, and partisan expenditure.

Tsubata puts it more delicately: “The abstinence people who get funding have to teach all of these things we’re not interested in teaching,” she says. “Sometimes people will even scold us after a performance and say, ‘Your presentation was great, but I wish you had talked about the Bible. I wish you had some message from scripture,’” says Tsubata, who says WAIT entertained only a brief flirtation with fundamental funders. “I walked out on a meeting with a person high up in the Bush government because he basically said, ‘If you go and help Planned Parenthood, and you work with these other organizations that aren’t pro-abstinence, you’re making them look good. We’re not going to do anything for you unless you come over onto our side,” says Tsubata. Other WAIT rejections have been more subtle. Tsubata remembers receiving one returned grant application that scored WAIT highly in all categories—scores that were then crossed out and downgraded in order to give the grant to another group. But Tsubata insists WAIT has “never, ever, ever considered changing our message to get a grant,” invoking a very non-abstinent word to describe what that move would make her.

To Tsubata, ideology—and the government funding that follows it—has little to do with on-the-ground success. “Frankly, there’s a lot less division among those who work with AIDS than people might like to think,” says Tsubata. “We know abstinence is good. We know sexual integrity is good. We know condoms are necessary. Why do we get into these stupid little territory fights and worry about who’s right and who’s wrong? Who cares about the damn funding?”

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

I am a respectable redneck, bigoted, racist, gay bashing homophobe, democrat slamming, liberal trashing, ACLU cussing, gun toting, Muslim hating, SUV driving – gas guzzling, cigarette smoking by the No Smoking sign, beer drinking, meat eating, resource wasting, free porno watching, God Fearing Christian...employed full time.

Great. But how does "urbuggenme" account for homosexuals like Maddow, who spend their time eating vegetables, saving resources, and loving Muslims—and still manage to hold down full-time jobs? Homosexuals with jobs! The gay agenda, it has gone too far.

In the future, women may be able to protect their vaginal linings from the HIV virus by smoking a special cigarette containing the anti-HIV drug griffithsin. Or maybe you'll just rub it all over your vagina, but either way, this is good news.

Griffithsin has been known for years to be effective in preventing HIV from "colonizing the vaginal lining," but science has yet to figure out how to reproduce the drug effectively, as "the only known naturally occurring source of griffithsin is a red algae found off the coast of New Zealand"—essentially, nowhere. Now, scientists have found a plant that has that grows under the necessary elements to cultivate griffithsin growths—tobacco.

Already, scientists have sprayed an entire tobacco field with a synthetic version of the algae and extracted the drug. Now, a vaginal gel is being tested on animals, with hopes of "phase one FDA clinical trials" within a year.

For those still hoping to smoke their HIV away, take heart: "A cigarette containing griffithsin hasn't been discounted either."

Photo by lissalou66

It's amazing what the Internet can cough up.

UPDATE: The source material for this photoshopped image appears to be this; this image also appears here and here, though the original source of the photo and the photoshopped image are unknown.

Zack Rosen over at The New Gay wrote an excellent column the other day about the importance of condom use within the gay community. The post covers a lot of ground—personal responsibility, modes of transmission, casual anal bleeding:

A couple years ago when one of the cutest boys I’d ever seen begged me to fuck him without a condom. Actually, beg is the wrong word. He pleaded. He whined. He implored me not to use one as if it was simply some seasoning our our sexual entree that he found disagreeable.

Condoms, however, are not cilantro and I refused to eat without one. And the next morning I found his blood on my sheets, meaning that if he had listened to me, and I was HIV+, he would’ve been too. What a dumbass.

Zack answers a lot of questions about cultural attitudes toward condoms in same-sex relationships, but he also posed a question for me: Do straight people feel the same urgency to use protection?

I am but one woman, and I do not speak for The Straights. But D.C.'s newest AIDS numbers included two statistics that may have something do do with each other: The leading mode of transmission for new HIV cases is heterosexual sex, and 7 out of 10 D.C. citizens reported to not use condoms.

One reason I think condom concern may be lower among heterosexuals is that the HIV threat hasn't been pounded into our brains for decades, like it has in the gay community. Also, "protection" means something different than STD prevention for us—it also means preventing babies. In a lot of heterosexual relationships, sex partners are often so worried about pregnancy that the fear of conception overshadows concern over STDs.

I have to think that the real question, in the straight world, must be this: Are condoms as important to men as they are to women? In both cases—pregnancy and STD prevention—the responsibility to use protection often falls on her. She has to go to the doctor regularly and get her birth control prescription and make sure she takes it correctly every day. Often, she also has to make sure the man is wearing a condom. If she doesn't, she's more at risk than he is: In a female-to-male HIV contact scenario, women are more likely to contract the virus than men are, because of the way our bodies are made. This is true all the time—it doesn't depend on whether or not anybody is bleeding or whether the sex is anal.

So, that leads me to my question for Zack: Are condoms as important to guys on top as they are to guys on bottom?

Photo by victoriapeckham.