The Wisdom of Whores

I’ve just spent an interesting couple of days at the Cuidad de las Ideas festival in Puebla in Mexico. I spoke of sex and drugs as usual; Puebla being one of the more conservative towns in this still overwhelmingly Catholic country, some were perhaps shocked by the directness of my language. But I was more shocked still by the absurdity of some of the responses.

One woman, who tends as many in the audience towards the well-preserved Russian hooker look, asked me afterwards whether it was true that HIV could pass through a condom. I get that a lot, so I just explained how daft the idea was. “Ah! I’m a Doctor of Psychology and I didn’t know that,” she said. That slightly floored me, but it was nothing compared with what followed: “You said there was not much good news around HIV. But my colleagues tell me there is, that nowadays homosexuality is 80% reversible.”

This in a country whose capital already allows gay marriage. Apparently there is still a long way to go…

Para los Hispanofonos, aqui la presentacion. Tampoco uno de mi mejores, pero se hace lo que pueda.