As promised, data on women, autonomy, partnerships and HIV. It’s quite true that I have not developed some magic indicator of “autonomy”. But the World Economic Forum has. Or at least its Gender Equality Index is as close as damnit. Let’s take the sub-Saharan African countries at either extreme, and set their equality index against [...]
The other night, I was dining with someone who didn’t know their acronym from their elbow. I had to explain MSM (mice that have sex with mice; no, wait…) and had a special rant about LGBT. For the unitiated that’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. It just trips off the tongue, doesn’t it? And it [...]
Though I work in a world of addictions, I try and keep mine in the closet. But with others springing out of the closet right left and centre, I’m going to come clean. I’m addicted to rugby. Rugby is said (largely by people who see no glory in the bad haircuts and hystrionic dives of [...]
At breakfast in Bangalore this morning, I was greeted by news of Bollywood’s first on-screen gay kiss. When they’re puckerd up like this, wouldn’t you want to? But the Indian censors may not share my enthusiasm. I am Omar will be screening at the Rotterdam film festival. Check it out and see if the kiss [...]
Many Europeans think American beer is gnat’s piss. But the maker of the pissiest “Lite” version is turning our mind to another orifice. Anal sex, or the slang for it at any rate, appears to going mainstream in the US. Buy your lube stocks now.
Thanks to IRMA, the bottom line in HIV prevention, for [...]
I’ve been roused from my long summer torpor by a row over a German ad that tries to make Hitler the face of AIDS. Predictably enough, activist groups immediately yelled “stigma”! What we should be yelling is “dinosaurs!”. In Western Europe, AIDS is no longer the “mass murderer” the ad claims. In fact, it is [...]
The day before the UK release of Bruno, Sasha Baron Cohen’s swish along the catwalks of homophobia, the UK’s House of Lords voted to allow Brits to criticize homosexuality. Gay groups are painting this as a victory for homophobia. Christian groups say it is a victory for free speech. I say, on balance, that it [...]
There’s enough divorce in the world without forcing it on people who want to be together…
“Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.
On the subject of America’s extaordinary relationship with homosexuality, I urge you to see Milk, an important film about an important era, which reminds us rather vividly that we have not come far, [...]
New HIV-infections among gay men are rising everywhere they are measured, with the sole apparent exception of Sydney. That’s in part because Sydney has not dropped the ball (and the budget) on prevention. It hasn’t swallowed the “Treatment IS Prevention” mantra that seems to be behind the rise in many other places.
If we want [...]
Tuesday evening. I spent it with baited breath sitting at the bar in Baltimore airport, surrounded by boys with buzz-cuts and camouflage who were headed for Iraq. They seemed strangely unconcerned by the drama that was unfolding in red and blue on the screens in front of us. I, for my part, nearly missed my [...]
