This story was broadcast on NPR's All Things Considered on 6/3/2011, and was originally published on Turnstyle News..
A lot has changed since the 80’s. Or so I’m told. I wasn’t born until 1991 – the same year Magic Johnson announced that he had HIV. I’m 19 now, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people joke that Magic Johnson discovered the cure to AIDS…money.
Katherine Hood knows the same joke. She’s a senior at UC Berkeley and has grown up knowing about the disease her whole life. Regardless of the jokes, we both know HIV is still deadly serious. “I think it’s interesting because while I don’t think it’s the same sort of death sentence mentality,” says Hood, “To me if I actually stop and think about it, it still seems like a horrifying thought.”
Hood and lots of kids we talked to say their school Sex Ed classes were pretty good. Thanks to my school’s health classes, I had seen a condom by the 7th grade and knew what it was for. My mom even bought me a book called Deal With It. I remember my friends coming over after school to giggle about stick figure illustrations of sexual positions.
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A school in New Hampshire will no longer allow Safe-sex kits to be handed out at school. The kits contain flavored lubricant, candy, and condoms. The kits were passed out last month during a special presentation by AIDS Services during World AIDS day. Approximately 70 students took the kits home, making parents of the school extremely upset.
School officials approved the kits but weren’t aware of what it contained. The group has since been banned from the school district.
I can understand why parents may be upset, but at the same time it’s better to be protected than contracting any kind of disease. Let’s not forget that young people are often curious and sometimes pressured into trying things, and sex is not an exception.
According to CDC, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 18,000 people die of AIDS each year in the United States and one in five people living with HIV don’t know they're infected. Honestly, I'd rather give kids color and flavored preservatives, than have them be part of those statistics. Let’s also not forget, that as a group, women account for 27 percent of new HIV infections every year, and 25 percent of those living with HIV.
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The youth voice is getting louder and louder in the fight against HIV in Nigeria. For the past five years, there has been an annual National Conference on HIV / AIDS: Youth Programme in Nigeria, but for the first time this past May the conference included a youth forum. The website for the conference reads:
[The youth forum] will bring together young people from across Nigeria, Africa and beyond to discuss their challenges and make their presence felt in a major regional event. The forum will provide the spring board for action towards future regional events The theme of the conference “The Nigeria HIV Response: Ownership and Sustainability” reflects the centrality and indispensability of young people to the national HIV/AIDS response.”
It’s empowering to hear that youth are considered indispensable in the fight against HIV in Nigeria. A big effort is also underway to reach the younger demographic in Nigeria. Just last year, a new character named Kami, appeared on Sesame Street in Abuja, Nigeria. Kami is a five-year old who is HIV positive.
Kami has actually been on Sesame Street in South Africa for eight years already, but just made her debut in Nigeria recently. She is part of an educational initiative that aims to reach out to children who have been orphaned by HIV, and provide them with resources. According to UNICEF, 1.8 children are orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Nigeria.
The segment of the show will be called, “The Adventures of Big Bird and Kami,” and the two characters will talk with and feature many Nigerian children telling stories of their lives in their communities, according to an article on the Animation World Network. I don’t think we can underestimate the power of our favorite Muppets to influence future generations in good ways.
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John was the kind of teenager who’d drive 100 miles per hour without a seatbelt and jump into a pool from the second story of a building. What his parents said no to, he’d do ten times harder.
“I didn’t think I’d live past 21,” says John, who asked us not to use his real name. “I had alcohol poisoning at 15, I was in a coma one stage away from death.”
Adults always say people my age think we’re immortal, and that’s why we take crazy risks. But for John, who’s now 25, it was the opposite.
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School is out, and like many 14-year-olds in San Francisco, Carina Aguilar is looking forward to summer – going to the movies, playing basketball and traveling to Utah with her family for a kayaking trip.
“I will have a really busy summer,” says Aguilar, who wears her dark brown hair in a pony tail and talks in a soft voice.
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California state health officials announced plans over the weekend to investigate an HIV outbreak within the porn industry. Last Wednesday, June 10th, a San Fernando Valley based health clinic announced that one actress contracted HIV, and since then, 16 other infections have been confirmed.
Ironically on the same day the positive test results were announced, LA County health officials announced plans to offer free in home STD testing kits to women within the county.While the kits aren’t available to men, and test mainly for Chlamydia and Gonorrhea, their availability marks a huge step in STD prevention.
Meanwhile the Los Angeles Convention Center hosted Erotica LA, one of the adult film industries “big shows,” where you could find every adult toy, DVD, T-Shirt, actress, and production company, as well as tattoo parlor and medical marijuana clinic information, but not one booth providing information about STD prevention.
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What's the new what? Sex without a condom is the new engagement ring.
My generation has known the threat of HIV/AIDS our entire lives, and sex without a condom isn't something we enter into lightly.
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