UGANDA: "Less noisy" female condom proves a hit

Women surveyed said the new condom was less noisy, more comfortable and well lubricated, increasing their sexual pleasure


KAMPALA, 22 December 2009 (PlusNews) - Ten months after being re-launched, a new brand of female condom has proven popular among a test group of Ugandan women, according to a study. FC2 was launched in February; the government stopped distributing the original female condom, FC1, in 2007 on the grounds that women had complained it was smelly and noisy during sex. "The new condom has improved features and will enable women to have a procedure within their control to give them more choices for prevention [of HIV and unwanted pregnancies]," said Vashta Kibirige, the coordinator of the condom unit at the Ministry of Health."




The women [surveyed] say they like this version of the condom better and they are ready to use it," said Janeva Busingye, coordinator of the Most at Risk Populations Initiative project, which carried out the study in the capital, Kampala. The UN Population Fund and the NGO, Programme for Accessible health Communication and Education, are spearheading the re-launch of the female condom, which is still in the sensitisation stage and will become available to the public in 2010. The women questioned said the new condom was less noisy, more comfortable and well lubricated, increasing their sexual pleasure. It also has no smell and can be inserted in the vagina at least eight hours before sex, which the women liked a lot.





The Health Ministry and its partners have so far trained women in Kampala to teach other women the benefits of the female condom. According to Kibirige, they hoped the condom would become more popular in other regions after a situation analysis in 2008 revealed that cultural barriers and lack of proper education had prevented their use in some parts of the country.





Targeting MSM According to an official at the sexually transmitted diseases clinic at Mulago Hospital, Uganda's largest referral facility, men who have sex with men (MSM) would also be taught about the female condom. Uganda has no official policy for prevention of HIV among MSM, and outlaws homosexual sex.

"We shall promote it among MSM because when we were sensitising people they expressed a need for them; they use for them for anal sex after removing the ring," the official said. At each end of the female condom is a flexible ring; at the closed end of the sheath, the flexible ring is inserted into the vagina or anus to hold the condom in place - this ring is sometimes removed during anal sex to reduce the possibility of rectal injury.

A 2003 study of the acceptability and safety of a brand of female condom for anal sex between men found incidents of condom breakage, semen spillage and rectal bleeding to be similar for the male and female condom, but slippage was more frequent with female than male condoms. The authors recommended design modifications and training in the use of the female condom for anal sex.

The Tabloid mess continues …… Gay men scared says Observer Chat

The Jamaica Observer Chat an imprint of the mainstream Jamaica Observer paper sold on weekends with no online support at this time (scanned logoed above) has joined the sensationalism on gay issues in earnest these days not that they haven’t published stuff like this before but I am concerned about the detailed inside information they seem to have been able to gain on this particular occasion. This is worrying, are there gays who are playing a dual role in helping to what amounts to stigmatization of us, the GLBTQ community and promoting self hate? After all why should a funeral service of a gay man and its attendees become front page gossip?

By the letter of it there seems to have been knowledge of the Funeral service and the first person account is worrying, this is not the first time we have seen what amounts to reporters infiltrating private gay events such as parties and then reporting on them in detail.

The headline read …. Gay Men Scared … Friends death from AIDS leaves many fretting at funeral.

It’s just beyond me that a newspaper seeks to reinforce the old stereotype that HIV/AIDS is intrinsically a gay disease and they found it necessary to report even of the presence of a reputable HIV/AIDS organization at the service, I guess they don’t care about the safety of the staff there who have to brave all kinds of stuff to engage our marginalized community they are no different from the trashy Xnews or previous Enquirer publications. Efforts to contact a member of the management team of said organization at the time of this post were futile as calls went to voicemail.

The Story published on December 18, 2009 went on to suggest that the deceased a 22 year old gay man died of AIDS (so much for proper description of the cause of death as persons don’t die from AIDS directly they die from associated complications) and that his friends didn’t know he was positive and are now fearing their own demise because of his refusal to disclose.

Other stereotypes reinforced are the “bleached skin” phenomenon that pervades our society where it is believed men who lighten their skin tone are gay. (soooo wrong) The author seemed preoccupied with the effeminacy of the men and their metro sexual activities such as facial powdering and mode of dress.

The captioned cartoon also is of concern to me as I am not aware of any homophobic incidents in Frazer’s Content recently. The Images suggest that a man asked another man for sex and was beaten by residents in the area. My efforts to find information on any possible case in that area were fruitless as either JFLAG or others in and near the area were not aware of any such case. Investigations continue. Is this mischief on the Chat’s part?
Anyone having any information on any case in this area and can help, please do. We need to counter these subtle suggestions and innuendo sometimes and not let them just slip and stay.

Tabloids and even the major newspapers are guilty of pushing this hard-line biased homophobic sensationalist rhetoric to sell papers playing on the public’s sentiments from time to time, whenever the semblance of tolerance or fairness seems to be reached or when any steady news on JFLAG reaches mainstream media then watch out for a hit from left field that turns up to maintain the negative momentum. As indicated above the Observer Chat and as Xnews have no website support so stories like this appear in hard copy (print) format only for now. The Xnews website has been off and on these days and hardly publish the recent articles on gay issues there, is this deliberate on their part? Who knows?

Watch, be vigilant speak up too.

Peace and tolerance
H

Beaten Because Of HIV status?

(image from the Ministry of Health)

In what ought to be the enlightened era of HIV/AIDS knowledge and outreach with free flow of information one would have never imagined that incidents of this nature still happen. An HIV positive man was beaten by men in a neighboring parish earlier in 2009 after he was identified due to his open stance on the issue. A reliable source within the Ministry of Health has confirmed my research on the story as the young man who is conducts peer educator activities on the Ministry’s behalf on several occasions has decided not to pursue the case any further.


The man in question is very open about his ordeal with the disease and as mentioned before has spoken at workshops and other seminar type occasions about his experiences thus he was identified allegedly by a man who had witnessed one of these events and hurled derogatory remarks at hi m insinuating that HIV positive people should be separated from the general population and other negative remarks.


On the face of it the perception is that there may have been other motives behind the attack but according to the information received and investigations within the respective parish community other persons agreed with the sentiments expressed by the lead attacker. It is not yet known how many others were involved but three were singled out as directly inflicting the first blows on the victim.
This is really surprising as given all the various social marketing initiatives on the subject by governmental and private organizations over the years and other spokes persons who live in far more volatile areas that have not experienced this kind of backlash. For e.g. Ms Anneesha Taylor who still resides in her community of Jones Town which is known for sporadic outbreaks of violence but she is respected for her bravery in coming forward as the one of the few female public faces on the disease.




Despite her fall from grace she still enjoys the respect she has commanded over the years although her rise wasn’t smooth either, she recently spoke on the issue in a documentary on World Focus where she explained why she fell but has been re-engaged by the ministry of Health who recognized her contribution towards the programs during her tenure thus she now works at a major health center in Kingston. Mr. Jason Richards, the new male public face on HIV who resides in South Central Kingston as well is another hot spot for crime and the occasional gang warfare problems also commands the admiration and respect from his peers and elders in his community.

Once a poster child for living HIV+ in Jamaica, Annesha Taylor knows firsthand that life after a positive diagnosis is not an easy one. The campaigns showing that there is life after a positive diagnosis are right — HIV is not a death sentence. But strong stigma and the difficulties of juggling family life, the batteries of medication and bouts of depression have left Annesha fighting to survive.

An extended essay by Mr. Kwame Dawes on HIV/AIDS in Jamaica is featured in the Spring 2008 issue of The Virginia Quarterly Review: www.vqronline.com
A synthesis of video, photographs, poetry and music, all inspired by Kwame's reporting in Jamaica, can be found on the interactive site: www.livehopelove.com

The real issue is how do we fight this scourge that is still present in our society? The young man should have never backed down I say, it is facing issues like this that makes the fight meaningful and bringing public shame to the perpetrators of such incidents and letting would be attackers think twice before acting out their ignorance.

Peace & tolerance

H

Jamaican Literary Gay Icon Thomas Glave makes the OUT100.com list of honorees

Thomas Glave (Photoed writing)

THE BOOK CLUB

THOMAS GLAVE & VESTAL MCINTYRE

With its nameless protagonists, unusual punctuation, poetic breaks, and graphic depictions of genocide and antigay violence, Glave’s The Torturer’s Wife is about as far as you’ll get from a breezy beach read. Nonetheless, the Lambda Literary Award winner’s experimental short story collection—which tackles war, slavery, turbulent gay relationships, and HIV—contained some of 2009’s most compelling moments in queer literature. Glave (left) is only the second gay African American (after James Baldwin) to win the O. Henry Prize for short fiction.

A National Endowment for the Arts fellowship recipient and former Meatpacking District waiter, 37-year-old McIntyre (right) published his first novel, Lake Overturn, this year (set in mid-’80s small-town Idaho, it was an Out’s critic’s pick in April). The 37-year-old Idaho native, whose previous collection of short stories, You Are Not the One, was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, is currently at work on a new series of stories he describes as “a bitchy good-bye letter” to New York City, which he left in 2008 to live with his husband in London.