by Don Eggert & image from AIDS Infoshare
Since December 1996, Kevin Lamb, an American
student in Moscow, has been promoting safe sex and working to further the
all too neglected fight against AIDS in Russia. An intern at An Effective
Shield of Prevention's (AESOP) center in Moscow, Lamb decided to take concrete
action to help a group often overlooked when it comes to talking about sex
and sexual health: gay and bisexual men. The AESOP center, established in
1993, promotes the right to receive accurate and up-to-date information
about sexual health. The center recently began an internship program to
allow students interested in sexual health and AIDS issues the opportunity
to work in a Russian NGO and pursue independent projects.
Lamb launched project M&M, an outreach project directed at men who have sex with men. The program premiered at a popular gay disco on December 1, in honor of World AIDS Day 1996. On the first night alone, AESOP's staff distributed over 600 condoms and nearly 100 safe sex brochures, and was on hand to answer club patrons' various questions about sexual health and the risks of unprotected sex.
However, after a month of regularly providing sexual health booklets and free condoms at various gay clubs in Moscow, Lamb realized that he was seeing a lot of the same faces and probably not reaching the people who were most in need of information.
"Although people were asking some good questions [at the clubs] and the outreach was going successfully," Lamb says, "it seemed as though I was only talking to a privileged group of informed Muscovites, and not those that were on the street, negotiating sex in less comfortable environments."
Beginning in February, Lamb refocused his efforts and joined forces with the Names Fund, a Russian NGO that supports HIV-positive patients, to conduct direct outreach at pleshki, "cruising areas" frequented by gay men. On weekend evenings, local men, traveling Russians and foreigners visit such areas in Moscow, often with the express purpose of meeting others interested in anonymous sex. One of the most frequented areas lies near a downtown metro station, minutes away from Red Square.
"In the beginning," Lamb says, "it was difficult to get people to talk about sex in what's considered a public place, especially when you try to narrow the discussion in terms of condom use and specific sexual activities, and the risks associated with those activities."
However, after nearly two months of weekend visits by Lamb and other volunteers, their presence is becoming expected and welcomed by the regulars of such hang-outs. "We're able to speak with about 10 to 12 people each night. After we talk to them, we give them a free condom and an informational brochure as a message: Don't just talk about safe sex, practice it! People expect to see us now and know that they can ask us questions or obtain free condoms from us if they need them," says Lamb.
Many ask about the latest breakthroughs in AIDS treatment, about the different brands of condoms and their reliability, and about other STDs besides HIV and how to prevent their transmission.
As a foreigner studying and volunteering in Russia, Lamb believes that he is received differently than the Russian volunteers from the Names Fund, who have occasionally been verbally harassed and often resented for their perceived "intrusion" into the sex lives of their compatriots.
"People are more receptive to me, I think, probably because I don't pose any kind of threat or challenge to them. I'm not from their cultural context. They tend to look down on other Russians lecturing them about what they 'ought' to know."
Providing outreach at these kinds of areas is particularly challenging for Lamb since many of the people he encounters are intoxicated or under the influence of drugs. "But that's when this type of outreach really counts," says Lamb. "People feel like they need to be drunk or high in order to go out looking for someone to have sex with, which makes it even more difficult for them to remember to use condoms."
Lamb believes that pleshki have become such an institution in Moscow because gay and bisexual men are pushed out into the streets by a society that, like most societies, stigmatizes sexual minorities. He claims that if men who are questioning their sexuality had a safe place to discuss relationships and their feelings toward sex, it would be much easier to inform them about safer sex and condom use. Unfortunately, the Triangle Center, Moscow's only gay, lesbian and bisexual organization, recently closed its office and remains dormant.
"Pleshki are a fact of life," Lamb says, "which means there's a definite need for this type of work." In conjunction with his research and work at the AESOP Center, Lamb, together with the Names Fund, plans on continuing safe sex outreach during the rest of his stay in Moscow.
Timeline of AIDS in Russia1987 The government announces the first official case of HIV in a citizen of the Soviet Union. HIV outbreak infects 279 children in hospitals in the cities of Rostov-na-Donu, Elitsa, Krasnodar and Volgograd. 1991 A network of government AIDS centers is established to carry out testing and prevention activities. 1991 - 1995 Over 142 million HIV-antibody tests are performed, resulting in the diagnosis of 1,061 Russian citizens. Over 500 foreigners are deported after testing positive. 1996 An unprecedented growth in the number of cases in Russia. By November, the number of cases for that year exceeds the total number of cases for the previous nine years. Ukraine and Belarus also experience an explosion in cases due to intravenous drug use. An epidemic sweeps the small town of Svetlogorsk, Belarus, where over 1,000 drug users test HIV-positive, giving it a rate of infection proportional to that of New York City. 1997 As of April, 278 Russians have died ofAIDS; 60 of them children. Health experts predict that the number of Russians infected with HIV will continue to increase exponentially. Sources: AIDS Infoshare, NY Times |
Don Eggert is the coordinator of the internship program at the AESOP Center. For more information please visit http://www.spiral.com/infoshare.
www.isar.org/isar/AIDSprevention471.html
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