www.southernvoice.com/2007/10-26/news/localnews/7613.cf -
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Published on: 10/26/2007
Last Visited: 10/26/2007
"There's a deep linkage in the minds of some gay people that if you're gay, you'll inevitably get HIV," said Donna Futterman, professor of clinical pediatrics and director of the Adolescent AIDS program at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York.
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"Unless we give each generation the message with the same kind of passion, intensity and updatedness, [youth] are not going to get it, they're not going to believe it's for them," said Futterman, author of "Lesbian & Gay Youth Care & Counseling."HIV-prevention strategies must address "the interaction of so many forces" that prevent gay youth from using a condom, including various mental health stressors, Futterman said.
"We can't isolate one factor [that causes unsafe sex] and so our approaches have to be multi-factoral," said Futterman, who added that a societal taboo about condoms prevents them from appearing in commercials, movies, music and all other mass media."If condoms are just in the public health sphere, and not in the real world sphere, why should young people think condoms are for them?"Futterman said.
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With abstinence-until-marriage messages contradicted by constitutional same-sex marriage bans, gay youth "are basically told their very existence is not accepted," said Futterman.
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But despite condoms not being in vogue, "until we discover a better tool, this is the tool we have and must use," Futterman said.