Good Morning Aachi

What pertinent points you raise. While the law is dancing down some absurd street of its own(still undecided on what constitutes individual rights to privacy and how much an HIV positive man /woman have to reveal to the partners they are with or marry)the problem proliferates in huge numbers.

This is such an exhausting subject because the chicken egg scenario just does not seem to go away. How does one transfer rights of sexual safety to women in India when for all these years (at least 45 years) of active campaigning by govt and NGOs on transfering power to women in reproductive rights have failed. Women are unable to control contracpetion, right to terminate repetitive pregnancies or have safe methods to control fertility. Largely the question is the right to negotiate sexuality within a marriage. Part of the reason many years ago we abandoned our work on reproductive rights and moved to sexuality (including working with men) because it all boils down to negotiating power and perceiving their sexual space/health/safety as autonomous rights.
God Aachi it is such a long and complex road and one which is now postively scary with
the HIV epidemic looming over all else.

very nice post , aachi..paradoxical it may seem, so much of technology and media of awareness awareness available and yet.....a couple of women have recently taken their husbands to court on this issue...on the other hand, while there is a general feeling that education makes a difference, I would beg to differ on teh extent of it's impacts....deep seated conditionings are more overpowering than conditionings of education, as i have often observed...regular pub and discotheque and dance bar hopppers that I have known who cpome from affluent and educated cross -sections often find it a display of the masculinity to get into unprotected sex...infact, if i am not mistaken , it actually works at a premium cost in many commercial facilities...

Aachi great post. Ditto Jasjit it always boils down to female sexuality. Sundar its true, more than education its about empowerment and about how you perceive yourself and hence your sexuality.

This post Aachi reminded me about this extremely frightening trend amongst homosexuals called Giving the Gift. There are apparently gift takers and gift givers and the gift is HIV. There are men who want to get infected and there are men who want to get you infected. I'm going to do a piece on this soon. The deeper you go into sexuality the more you see what a can of worms it truly is.

Jasjit,

you are right. The situation is very complex and the solution to it probably more.

Bringing in legislation to punish the guilty who have sex despite being aware of their positive status might just be a drop in the ocean. Increasing awareness another drop.

As sundar and anusheh have said probably deep seated conditioning plays a very important role...but how do you root it out...how much time do we have taken the size of the epidemic?

I personally feel it is very tough battle which will be won eventually for the very reason that humanity has faced such epidemics through the ages. What HIV is today, Tuberculosis was a century ago...probably much worse...but we were able to tackle it...

I hope we are able to tackle this too...

Hello all,

Well, may be things are changing, slowly but surely. I read in the paper some time back that women are now taking charge of their husband's sexual lives. They are beginning to take their (sexually) incapable husbands to doctors, describing the problem to them (while the husband quietly listens)and even ready to file for divorce if the problem cant be solved!

Talk about womens' empowerment!

But shubhosree,

Why all the burden on the woman? First they have to deal with their own sexuality and now even with their husband's?

I think the epidemic has come this far because of the silence that has been (and still to certain extent is being) maintained when it comes to men's sexuality. THat silence needs to be broken like the silence in women's sexuality has been.

Dear Annie,

I am sorry if I wasnt clear enough. I certainly would not endorse the idea of women taking on double the pressure. The point I was trying to make by sharing this piece of info was simply that the women are finally coming out of their inhibitions and are finding the strength to decide and choose for themselves a life that works for THEM. To be able to know what they want out of a relationship, to say NO to what doesnt work for them, in my view, is quite a brave step forward, considering the silence (as you rightly point out) that has been extant for so long now.

But of course there is a long long way to go still ....