Sex workers: We don't spread AIDS

[Guest]

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/07/13/aids.conference.sexworkers.reut/index.html

 

BANGKOK, Thailand (Reuters) -- From under her skirt, she teases out knotted ribbons, bells and a string of needles. She fires blow darts at balloons and produces an improbable chain of flowers. For Mo, a Thai sex worker, this is all in a night's work at one of Bankok's notorious "go-go" bars, where girls pole-dance to raunchy music and perform astonishing feats with hidden muscles. But this time, she is performing at the world's biggest AIDS meeting.

 

Gyrating on the stage of a mock go-go bar and wearing slightly more clothes than usual, sex workers treated delegates at the 15th International AIDS conference to a simulated erotic show on Tuesday. Chanting "We are real, we are here, we are everywhere," they didn't quite deliver the real thing, but the act still left little to the imagination.

 

"We want people in society to know what sex workers actually do in the bars," said Chantawipa Apisuk, founder of Empower, a support group for prostitutes. "It's a big business. We're telling people we are professionals who know about AIDS prevention." Chantawipa set up Empower 20 years ago to help sex workers learn how to prevent getting AIDS and demand rights still denied to them under labour laws. The group publishes a magazine called "Bad Girls" and offers practical training all over the country.

 

More than 200,000 sex workers ply their trade in bars, brothels and massage parlours throughout Thailand, the government estimates. Many work "freelance," meaning the only money they make comes directly from their clients. The industry proved a perfect breeding ground for AIDS in the 1980s, helping push annual infection rates to a peak of 143,000 in 1991. Mass public information campaigns and a "100 percent condom programme" dragged rates down to 19,000 in 2003, but prostitutes say they still bear the burden of discrimination and stigma.

 

"Society is always accusing us of being the people who spread the disease, so these days whenever we perform at an AIDS conference, we do it because we just want to tell people that AIDS is not being spread by us," said a sex worker who gave her name only as Bao. "We know how to protect ourselves better than other groups in society."

[Khun_Kong]

wsvinja said:

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/07/13/aids.conference.sexworkers.reut/index.html

 

<snip> Chantawipa set up Empower 20 years ago to help sex workers learn how to prevent getting AIDS and demand rights still denied to them under labour laws. The group publishes a magazine called "Bad Girls " and offers practical training all over the country.<snip>

 

I think we need to discuss what exactly is a "Bad Girl"? This people seem highly educated on the subject- perhaps they'll loan us a clue

[Coss]

"Gyrating on the stage of a mock go-go bar and wearing slightly more clothes than usual, sex workers treated delegates at the 15th International AIDS conference to a simulated erotic show on Tuesday. Chanting "We are real, we are here, we are everywhere," they didn't quite deliver the real thing, but the act still left little to the imagination. "

 

Given that the majority who have seen an act as described above more than once, usually say "seen it, not interesting anymore" can one conclude:

 

 

a/ that the AIDS conference delegates have never seen one before?

b/ or that this kind of act is just as common at AIDS conferences as at bars?

c/ that having seen the act the conference delegates will lose interest in bars and look to truck drivers as the most profligate of virus/disease spreaders?

d/ that if one were to clad the performer in "slightly more clothes than usual" that this kind of act is suitable for PG public performance i.e. shopping malls?

 

Oh I could go on, the irony is endless...

 

:) :)

 

Cheers

 

Cossthewhereisbadabingwhenyouneedhim?

[thamachat]

 

http://aras.ab.ca/articles/AIDSQuotes.htm