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.
Comment by Alejandro Ezquerro, 15/11/10, 09:17:
Pídele a los organizadores que la suban completa, de verdad vale la pena. Me encantó tu valor, tu fuerza y tu enfoque. Quiero compartirlos, pero hay gente que no lee libros y no ve TED talks. Quería que te llevaras esa beca, creo que eres la que mejor la hubiera utilizado. Algún día espero estar en posición de ayudar con tu investigación o en alguno de tus proyectos, por ahora sólo puedo colaborar esparciendo tus ideas.
Dan Dennett dice que para encontrar la felicidad, debes “buscar algo más grande que tú y comprometerte a ello”. Creo que es lo que tú has hecho y tienes toda mi admiración por eso. Te mando un abrazo enorme desde México, fue un verdadero gusto conocerte.
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Wisdom of Whores is Elizabeth Pisani's blog and personal site. For her professional site please visit
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