(no subject)

[geminigirl]

So I'm thinking it might be nice to have a community devoted to people doing HIV Prevention work...there are a bunch of people on my friends list who are involved in that to varying degrees, but I haven't found a centralized place to communicate about it on livejournal...

Thoughts?

Comments

[lovingboth]

Yep, I'd be interested in that.

Closed, please, so we can go 'argh!' without the risk of clients/funders/colleagues seeing it...

Re:

[geminigirl]

Good point about a closed community.

Thanks.

Now for a name and a cool community icon. And rules and all the other things that need to come along with it.

Re:

[geminigirl]

So, since you said "Yes" -do you want to help me with community guidelines and rules, and a name and the like?

Re:

[lovingboth]

OK. I'm a fan of having a small number of rules - the good people won't need them and the bad ones won't read them.

So...

... who's it for - people working in HIV prevention (and more general sexual health?)

... a confidentiality statement - no talking about the content, anywhere. (It's not likely to be large enough, at least at the start, to get away with 'you can say something like "someone in x said..."' without naming the someone, for example.)

... an outline of some of the things that are appropriate and not appropriate to talk about.

Name: erm... hiv_workers? hiv_something, anyway.

I quite like the idea of borrowing 'silence = death' for the logo.

Re:

[geminigirl]

Found a silence=death logo to use...I can't remember if .bmp files are okay for icons though-if not, since I'm the worlds worst iconmaker, I might seek help with it.

You Asked.

[walterwz.livejournal.com]

I believe that at least in the GLBT community there is a saturation issue with HIV. The more I work with and think about this the most effective strategy of HIV prevention and harm reduction is to promote an over all happy and healthy lifestyle.

This by the way is one person's opinion and perspective. I just believe that as soon as someone shows up with the bag of condoms and bleach people just change the channel.

HIV seems to thrive best where there is a "backward" and pathological cultures which supports and fosters those behaviors which are most favorable to the disease.

Actually I would take a more radical view. I think it would be extremely interesting to have places where people discuss things like bare backing, bug chasing, pregnancy, and drug use. I think these discussions can take place in the existing discussion groups.

I am very sensitive to throwing a party and having no one show up. I find it much better to show up at a party.

But getting back to the original question

[geminigirl]

which wasn't about how to do HIV prevention-I do a lot of harm reduction oriented stuff based on the idea of making healthy choices, because that works better with my audience than a lot of other strategies...

Would people be interested in a community oriented towards mutual support for people involved in HIV prevention?

Re: But getting back to the original question

[walterwz.livejournal.com]

This is a fantastic medium for experimentation. I would suggest going to gay_sex_tips and simply asking these questions. Discussions there get really hot and interesting.

Talking about issues which lead to unsafe behavior would be extremely interesting and effective. Raising levels of awareness is a fantastic starting point.

I would love to see a discussion of why I hate using condoms, or why I can't cum with a condom as one example. Even more interesting would be a discussion of why I love to bare back. I see it as critical to the discussion to leave the foregone conclusion out. I have just had too many safer sex discussions where people talk about how flawlessly they practice safer sex all the time.

The most unsafe sex is that sex which is not happening.

Re: But getting back to the original question

[geminigirl]

I'm very careful about how much I step into gay spaces...especially gay spaces about sex. If I'm invited in, as when certain friends include me on filters where they write about explicit sex, for example, it's one thing. For me to just kind of wander in might be less than comfortable for some people.

As someone who spends a great deal of time talking about safer sex, I'm willing to admit that I'm not flawless. I do engage in some risky behavior, and I do sometimes feel funny about it.

I think what my goal would be is to create a safe space to talk about both personal and professional challenges-where you could talk with other people who are engaged in the work of safer sex education as volunteers or professionals, for example about your own desires to bareback or condom difficulties, or client challenges, or the stress of giving a positive HIV test result or whatever.
Not necessarily discussions about sex or safer sex, but discussion about the work and process...

Re: But getting back to the original question

[lovingboth]

That sounds good to me.

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

I'd join. While I'm not "in the field of HIV prevention," a number of my friends and clients have it, and a fair bit of my spare change goes to AmFAR. So, I've got an interest.