EDITORIAL.- "Put it on, put it on him". There was a time when the slogan swept away, it was a success, a good advertising phrase that probably saved many lives. Today we believe we are safe, we have lowered our guard and relaxed customs, but reality is stubborn and comes back to remind us with its macabre figures that playing Russian roulette with sex is not a good idea.
Last week on a late-night radio program, a young gay man claimed what he called "the pleasure of bareback sex", the emotion of risk, the sensations, giving up even asking the other about their state of health (measure on the other hand, very high risk because the other can lie).
To that young man and the thousands who have stopped putting it on, perhaps because illness and death are as fictitious in 20 years as the country of never again, or it can simply be that the risk goes even with pleasure when one is playing with one and premiering the other. We should remind them of the alarming information published on the situation of the gay community and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
Already in the 2014 BCN Checkpoint alerted that 6 of each new 10 infected with HIV were gay. This trend has been corroborated by the Center for Epidemiological Studies on Sexually Transmitted Infections and AIDS of Catalonia (CEEISCAT) which states that 58,5% of 808 diagnosed with AIDS in the 2014 correspond to men who have sex with other men (MSM). In the last 10 years cases of syphilis have quadrupled and of them in the 73% of cases the contagion had occurred between men. Those of gonorrhea have tripled and practically the same of them had contracted in male homosexual relationships.
We know what risk behaviors are and what prevention and awareness-raising mechanisms need to be encouraged and receive institutional support, but none of this will work if the stakeholders, those at risk of infection, are not mentalized and protected against any kind of can cause.
Remember, with life, you do not play, with health you do not play, for you, for those who love you and for those who trust you, put it on, put it on.
Editorial Gayles.tv
Online TV
