With HIV infections rising an alarming 48% in some populations of young men, Joanna Schroeder hopes the new Kiss & Tell program will help educate all young people.
With a startling resurgence of HIV infections in young men, especially young gay black and Latino men, a new campaign is being launched both developed by, and targeting youth.
For those of us who were around in 1980s and aware of the plague that AIDS was, it’s impossible to imagine that there’s a whole group of young people for whom HIV and AIDS seems like something old people used to die of… But that’s just what a few teenagers I know told me recently. One boy said he knows that teens should be practicing safer sex, using condoms every single time, but AIDS just wasn’t on his radar.
But the numbers are clear and alarming:
Janet Weinberg, chief operating officer of Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), highlighted the dangers facing these young men by sharing the most recent HIV statistics available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which shows an alarming 48 percent increase in infections among young black men 13 to 29 years old between 2006 and 2009.
This new campaign going up around New York City hopes to change that.
“Thirteen to 19 year olds get it,” Weinberg said. “They understand the need to kiss, they need to tell and what they’re doing isn’t wrong. How they do it needs to be safe.”
Weinberg says that the biggest roadblock to the practice of safer sex is the continuous shame tied to gay relationships.
As parents, we need to educate our children about the very real possibility of HIV’s resurgence within all communities, and that protection, education, and communication are the best ways to prevent the spread of a disease that is still very often fatal. We should also convey to our children that even though these numbers reflect an increase in one segment of the population, nobody is safe without protection.
A thought: This was told me about 5 years ago. Since HIV/Aids were primarily a Gay Mans disease (way back when), I wonder if was ignored because of the “GAY” part or the “Man” part. The reason I ask is because here in Canada (not sure about the US), most of the ads I see for it or companies who are supporting the research focus almost primarily on women. They use statements like “the fastest growing population catching aids is women” and statements like that.
Well my understanding is that in the U.S. the reason it was largely ignored in the 80s and early 90s was because of the running narrative that the only people who got HIV deserved it. If it was only drug addicts and homosexuals, then all the ‘good’ people weren’t at risk. It wasn’t until some kid got it through a blood transfusion, and Magic Johnson announced that he was HIV positive (along with a lot of other activism) that people started to pay attention. So I don’t think it was ignored because of the men thing…so much as it was… Read more »
Yeah, it’s a bit unfortunate how much HIV has fallen off the radar. When I was in high school, our sex ed classes taught us about it, but just lumped it in with other STIs. On the one hand that’s a good thing…the stigma that has traditionally been associated with HIV has been extremely harmful. On the other hand, I think it definitely deserves more attention than something like herpes.
Anyway I really like the positive message in this campaign. Hopefully we can educate kids without making them feel ashamed for their sexual desires.