Wendy Knerr from The Pleasure Project really, really wants me to put a female condom inside my rectum. She keeps coaxing me, as if I’ll go running to the men’s room to try one on like a Ralph Lauren pullover. But her enthusiasm for the device is charming, and according to her it empowers gay men engaged in receptive intercourse to take control of safer sex without relying on their partner to use a condom.
Our free-wheeling conversation is in Part One of my video blog below, proceeded by an informative interview with Edwin Bernard, one of the organizers of a session on the criminalization of HIV, a very hot topic at the conference. Edwin does a marvelous job making the legal issues understandable, and he does it with a charming accent.
Meanwhile, Annie Lennox is in the media room and actually answers my questions about her famous “HIV POSITIVE” t-shirt, and colorful cartoon characters promoting recovery from heroin addiction roam the Global Village. These are all great reasons for bringing my video camera to this conference, and I can’t wait to share it all with you in this two-part video blog from the opening day of the event.
The theme of human rights seems, so far, to be embodied in the concept of de-criminalizing HIV, and I chat with an organizer of a seminar on the topic.
Please check back for my daily postings from the conference, and please be well!
Mark
