Wednesday, June 9, 2010

HIV/AIDS [Vs] CONDOM

I was traveling via City Market and happen to see a sign board at Bust Stop in front of Vani Vilas Hospital, which read:

click to enlarge

KSAPS; Karnataka State AIDS Prevention Society (http://stg1.kar.nic.in/ksaps/Home.html) is a Special Cell constituted under the Directorate of Health & Family Welfare Services by Government of Karnataka in 1997. It mainly aims at HIV/AIDS Prevention along with extending Care & Support to the infected.

Lets read it all again - To prevent HIV/AIDS, we have to abstain from pre & extra marital sex, should be faithful to our partner & use condoms. Well, doesn't it sound to be revolving only around SEX? For me, it is! Rightly, it should be.. since, that indeed is the major cause.

Abstain from Pre & Extra Marital Sex
In somewhere around 2005, well-known actress Kushboo said in an interview given to a magazine "pre-marital sex was fine; provided safety measures are followed to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. No educated man would expect his wife to be a virgin". This resulted in filing of 22 (if am not wrong) cases against her, which the Supreme Court recently quashed. Ok, coming back, 'Abstain' seems to be the perfect word used; and yes, it should be ones own decision to keep away from Pre & Extra Marital Sex to prevent HIV/AIDS. No issues.

Be faithful to your Partner
Of course! We should be. It seems more like an emotional/sentimental way of tackling. When one cannot really 'abstain' h(im/er)self, at least this trick may work. No issues.

Use Condoms
*~@#&^$!! What does this mean? It sounds a bit of 'controversy' (at least to me). Does this mean to say if one cannot avoid pre & extra marital sex nor be faithful to partner, can safely use 'Condom' and 'Enjoy'? Earlier, it was told to avoid pre & extra marital sex; but now, by saying 'use condoms' do they want to mean the converse? Or, is it a 'clever' way of encouraging pre & extra marital sex (might not be)? Or, does it mean that pre & extra marital sex cannot be totally 'stopped' - so 'safely use condoms'?

Know AIDS - No AIDS
Does it mean to say that one should know Condoms help preventing from getting infected with HIV/AIDS and safely indulge in Sex by using them? If that is the case, what was the need to say 'A' and 'B' to begin with?

I personally have always been thinking that CONDOM shouldn't ever be a preventive measure to HIV/AIDS. Because, it indirectly may give the impression that - it is fine to have Sex with any number of (wo)men. When our lives are been built upon strong foundation of 'monogamy' preached in our great epic Ramayana (Mahabaharatha is a contrary, should seriously start finding substantiating evidences if HIV/AIDS did exist then), how would such concepts be promoted and popularized amongst us? I think KSAPS should be very cautious while releasing such advertisements in public; not just making some (ir)relevant statements. Being a Government of Karnataka undertaking, there should have been some 'real intellectuals' working behind such 'crucial' & 'responsible' propaganda.

1 comment:

  1. UPDATE:
    A week after my post, the above discussed sign board has been removed! Never know it was intentional or coincidental or accidental or fortunate or unfortunate. But, this has given me a lot of push-up to go and debate furthermore. :o)

    ReplyDelete

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