Category Archives: Smart. Safe. Sex.

“The idea at the time that gay men would use condoms was ludicrous.”

Sex Positive, a documentary on the life of safer sex educator and activist Richard Berkowitz in the early days of AIDS, is out now in Manhattan. The Times calls it a “sad, useful film,” with Berkowitz possessing “the aura of an army veteran who served on the front lines in a war that took the [...]

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It takes 30K users to get good press (and get tested)

inSpot, the service that lets you send anonymous ecards to past partners you may have exposed to an STI, has hit 30,000 users and a burst of really fair press. Where once there was disbelief — that anyone would ever send a message through a web app about infectious risk to someone they’d slept with [...]

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Bravely Into the AIDS Space

From an award-winning ad campaign from France: “Explore. Just protect yourself.” (via Broadsheet)

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Recycled Condoms as HIV/AIDS Risk - Hoax, or No?

Chinese state media (I know, reputable) report that condoms being recycled into hairbands are posing an HIV/AIDS transmission risk. Really? HIV/AIDS can only live outside of the human body for at most 15 days in highly-controlled laboratory settings, and fluids lose 90-95% of their viral load through exposure to air. For HPV, [...]

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Abstinence Only “Education,” from .gov to YouTube

Via Voices of American Sexuality, a PSA from government-run 4parents.gov, with a whole raft of young people just begging their parents to teach them to wait until marriage to have sex:

Jenna Bush notwithstanding, of course.

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Speaking & Teaching Sex Outside the Bubble

The challenge with the democratization of media-making has been just that: you know, democratization, getting voices and stories from outside the social media saturated echo chamber (San Francisco, New York, hello) out into the Great World Beyond. Which might be why finding a show like The Midwest Teen Sex Show is still shocking:

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Viral Sex Education is Taboo

I’M TABOO is a d.i.y. media advocacy campaign organized by Sex, Etc., promoting comprehensive sex education that addresses not only disease and risk prevention, but pleasure and positive sexual self image. Aimed at high school aged folks, the project encourages young adults to make their own videos about what’s so taboo about wanting to [...]

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We Make Art Not Sex: Rubber Lover

(by Janaina Tschäpe, via sexblo.gs)

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HPV Vaccine Getting Smacked Around Again

Oh, HPV vaccine, it’s been a hard year. People accused you of making girls slutty, like in Texas, where efforts to make you mandatory for girls aged 11 and 12 are stalled in the State Legislature. Now the Los Angeles Times says you “may be less effective than previously thought,” though of [...]

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From the Awkward Sex Files

Special to the “Awkward Safer Sex Activism” Department:

(thx, mister.)

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