Affirming sexuality in HIV/AIDS interventions

Alvin Concha, MD | Davao Regional Hospital | Tagum City, Philippines

Good afternoon!

I will briefly talk about the visuals or the images, specifically in the posters that we use in
our region to educate people about HIV/AIDS prevention. Later in my talk, I will ask
questions about the notions of sexualities that we consciously or unconsciously espouse
in our advocacies.

When we encourage a certain behavior through a health ad, we also encourage values and
attitudes that go with the behavior and subsequently attempt to alter the consciousness of
the public. This poster graphically illustrates how imposing we can be in our efforts to
campaign for safe sex practices.

AVERT is an international HIV and AIDS charity based in the UK. In its website, which
has a collection of HIV/AIDS educational materials, it proposes a certain way to view the
posters over the years. Early posters, just right after the discovery of the causative agent
of HIV/AIDS, talk about transmission of the virus and “at-risk” populations.

A little later, when we got to know more about the disease and when statistics became
available, posters would talk about the signs and symptoms of HIV/AIDS, as well as
incidence rates, and the seriousness of the condition in certain countries or regions.

Then, in the early 90’s, we begin to receive a lot of messages about “safer sex” and the
use of condoms to prevent viral transmission. I would call it the start of the “Condom
Age.”

Posters from the late 90’s up to the present tend to be more complex, dealing not only
with the disease, but also, and more importantly, with people, especially persons living
with HIV/AIDS and their entitlements. Later posters also tend to incorporate more
values, such as monogamy, family and “healthy choices” and education in the
advocacies.

Another way of looking at it would be that contents of posters have loosely shifted from
clinical to behavioral to socio-cultural over the years. I will show some posters from this
region in the subsequent slides….

Questions:

1. What values of sexualities are we infusing in our “health information” campaigns on

HIV/AIDS?

2. In our condomcentricity, what notions of sexualities are we recognizing, affirming or

celebrating? What notions are we silencing?