Within two blocks of the Catalyst Forum lies the “Red Light District”

April 20, 2010 marked the first evening of the Catalyst Forum, a colorful assembly of nascent and seasoned activists learning and offering knowledge about HIV Treatment and Biomedical HIV Prevention Research.  On the first evening I took a stroll with my good friend Nichole, within two blocks of the hotel we stumbled upon what we called the “Red Light District” of Baltimore. Oh yes, there’s the identifiable “at-risk woman” that we in our work, understand to be most likely to be exposed to HIV/STI infection through the occupational hazards of her means of survival.

As we continued to walk, I continued to think, what about the woman we don’t see, those women who are placed in the “non-identifiable risk” category because their greatest risk are the unknown risk behaviors of their partners?  Dare women ask their partner about their risk behaviors… only to be met many times with negativity and violence, when we are only trying to save our lives?  So what’s my approach for HIV Treatment and Biomedical HIV Research and women? To offer this through a lens of inviting women to understand that sex is and should be a self initiated, pleasurable experience, and how HIV affects their lives both in what we can deliver today and what we are developing for tomorrow.

Eroticizing safer sex is what my dear colleague Lisa Diane White of SisterLove calls a “Make-Up Kit” for the “Toolbox” of HIV prevention for women. What makes the “Make-Up Kit” so special you ask?  It examines all the ways we prioritize pleasure through prevention strategies and a self help model as a treatment for first providing healing spaces, then offering opportunities for self guided improvement through education.

So how do we as activists address the fact that we must make this opportunity available without judgment for the “at – risk” woman on the “Red Light District” and the “non-identifiable risk” woman whose life we don’t experience on the surface, that’s my question going into the first day of workshops at the HIV Research Catalyst Forum?

Jasmine Burnett

Aunt Betty's Basement