#TruvadaWhore: The Controversial Pill
San Francisco “a self-proclaimed gay city” is home to two gay men who are partners. One is a HIV- and the other is HIV-positive. Max Cameron and Drew Sebastian are not only a gay couple with ordinary jobs, but both work in the porn industry. According to a documentary PSA from Fusion TV, they work for Treasure Island Media, who was under fire for health law violations, having their actor perform bareback scenes, which is sex without a condom, and having fellow HIV-positive actors star in their productions. Max admits on camera and is shown to be taking an FDA approved pill Truvada produced by the Gilead company according to Barmann. Truvada is pill that prevents the spread of HIV and from people becoming infected from the disease regardless of an individual’s status. When the topic of sex becomes the conversation, many people falter back due to their preconceived notions about sex, and many become uncomfortable. With a controversial subject of HIV, Truvada has been treading the waters for some time; the pill introduced in 2012 is barely making headlines. Truvada a pill that prevents HIV, is hardly being promoted with the fear people would start to have unsafe sex, but if properly endorsed and educated it can present a new way of thinking toward sex and HIV.
Before Truvada became FDA approved, the only other HIV preventative was Post-exposure Prophylaxis (PEP), which was a mixture of drugs i.e. drug cocktail, to help treat possible HIV infection. Although it was not in a high percentage of being effective, the drugs were shown to work in some cases. A.R. Markos writes in his book Sexually Transmitted Diseases, that PEP is generally taken with people who have been sexually assaulted, drugs, expo...
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...m company, Lucas Entertainment, which has released a series of videos promoting barebacking sex between the porn actors. They are the under the impression that truvada according to their boss, can be taken anytime and the pill will still be effective. Since the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980’s, condom use in gay porn has become that inexplicit rule that a condom will be used on set. Jonathan Agassi who did a bareback scene with Draven Torres, who recently did a scene with an HIV-positive actor Mike Dozer. Agassi was once according to Matthew Tharrett a gay porn star who advocated condom use and deemed bareback sex out of the question and unsafe (Tharrett). Agassi putting his life in the hands of a company that is supposed to protect his life has to rely on both parties taking Truvada regularly, or he could become the next porn star being affected with HIV.
This article was my least favorite article out of these set of readings. The author explains how much pain and suffering women went thought before and during the 1930’s. Being a mother and a wife women went thought a lot due to the lack of resources. Margret Sanger explains how women are having risk pregnancies which cause them to become ill. Women wanted ways to stop having babies. However the doctors were basically saying it was not up to the husband. Overall I agree with Sanger, women should be informed of contraception and their bodies.
The film looks at both the understanding of the church, that is portrayed within the film, and the suggestion that there can only be one sexuality, heterosexuality, and that all others are sins in the eye of God. Christians understood sex and sexuality to be between a man and a woman and for the purpose of procreation. The film challenges this by giving other examples of things the Bible sees as sins because of the prevention of procreation, such as ejaculating outside of the body and contraceptives. Both of these are also strongly condoned by today’s society to prevent unplanned pregnancy and STI’s. This is directly related to Irvine’s article “Victims, Villains.. And Neighbours” about Comprehensive sex Ed. vs. abstinence sex Ed, and the debate between teaching kids about safe sex and how to use things such as condoms or birth control, or not teaching theme these things at all because this would be telling them that sex is okay as long as it’s safe, when abstinence sex Ed’s goal is to avoid sex all together until marriage because the reason we were created to have sex is to procreate and having sex outside of marriage is wrong and using any kind of contraception that could prevent procreation is...
The Progressive Era was a period of social and political reform beginning in the post Gilded Age 19th century and lasting through WWI. Industrial and urban growth of early 19th century America while representative of opportunity and future advancement simultaneously posed many difficulties for working class citizens. Prior concerns over the conditions of working class citizens were multiplied and magnified by overpopulated and impoverished urban communities. During this era many new Progressive agendas were introduced with the goal of reforming dated and unregulated policies, the most prominent of these, the birth control movement. The documents from chapter six of Constructing the American Past show that at its core, the birth control debate was a multifaceted social dispute with, religious political and racial influences.
Paradox Of The Pill. (Cover Story)." Time 175.17 (2010): 40-47. Military & Government Collection. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
During her freshman year at Northeastern University, 19-year-old Jennifer Grant* thought college was just about doing minimal homework, going to parties, and meeting new people. She looked forward to every weekend when she was invited to parties with upperclassmen. Sadly, her world fell apart when she was raped by another student who was an acquaintance. Scared and confused from the experience, she turned to her friends for help.
Ethical Cases (dilemma) regarding Birth Control by Contraception : First we need to define an ethical dilemma it is a circumstances in which no answer seems completely suitable. Opposite courses of action may look similarly necessary. Ethical dilemmas are in the middle of the most difficult situations in medical practice. To find answers, physicians must use ethical philosophies and principles to determine the problems and benefits of any course of action.
In America, it has become a battle to earn a high paying job to cope with the expenses of a typical American. It has become even more of a battle for some people to afford medical prescriptions to keep healthy. Health becomes a crucial issue when discussed among people. No matter what, at one point or another, everyone is going to stand as a victim of the pharmaceutical industry. The bottom line is Americans are paying excessive amounts of money for medical prescriptions. Health-Care spending in the U.S. rose a stunning 9.3% in 2002, which is the greatest increase for the past eleven years. (Steele 46) Many pharmaceutical companies are robbing their clients by charging extreme rates for their products.
Spink, Gemma. "AIDS." AVERTing HIV and AIDS. 23 Dec 2009. Web. 11 Jan 2010. .
Today millions of people globally are plagued with HIV/AIDS; some of which were contracted unknowingly through heterosexual sexual contact, others unknowingly through homosexual contact and surprisingly some who set out to contract HIV/AIDS purposefully. Bareback sex refers to intercourse without the use of any barrier protections to prevent the transmission of bodily fluids between participants. This is an extremely high risk behavior given the number of sexually transmitted diseases, and not knowing the status of HIV in them or in their partners. Unfortunately, in some developing countries the technology and condom supply are very little in respect to the sexually active population, and therefore results in more cases of STD’s and HIV/AIDS.
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) first came to light in 1981. There has been a long and arduous global effort on the prevention of HIV/AIDS. HIV is a virus that is spread through body fluids that affect the specific T-cells of the immune system. Without treatment HIV infection leads to AIDS and there is no cure for AIDS. HIV infection can be controlled and the importance of primary pre...
In America, one million teenagers get pregnant every year (National Abortion Federation, 2003). Of these pregnancies, 78% are unplanned because these teenagers start having sex at a very young age and are unaware of ways to prevent pregnancies. Thirty five percent of the pregnant teenagers chose to abort, as they fear that the consequences of the pregnancy might cause significant effects to their lives. The problems that come with teenage pregnancies include dropping out of school, receiving inadequate prenatal care, developing health problems, relying on public assistance to raise a child, and probably divorcing their partners. In most states, the law allows pregnant teenagers to take their babies for adoption without consulting their parents. The same laws allow the teenagers to have an abortion but require parental notification or consent before carrying out the procedure. These laws prove biased as they favor one resolution over the other, as they force some to bear babies they do not want by restricting their options.
The movie, And the Band Played On, portrays a current issue the U.S. health care system face: the effects of societal perceptions of people who should receive health care support. Those perceived as undeserving are disregarded. Homosexual men were the first to be affected by AIDS in the US, and because of this, the stigma of homosexuality prevented developing health care policy to control the epidemic. Homosexuality was, and to a lesser extent now, not widely accepted. Marginalizing gay individuals was seen in the movie at the beginning, when media coverage on AIDs would not include “homosexual” within the news title (Pillsbury, Sanford, & Spottiswoode, 1993). This represents how media has to be marketed; the broader public will not be interested if a new disease only affects an undesirable population. Another example of this negligence is seen when Phillip Burton is asked to introduce a bill on AIDS. He agrees, but does not hesitate to retort, “They couldn’t get a dime out of this administration with the name gay on it” (Pillsbury, Sanford, & Spottiswoode, 1993). Finally, in order to change the perception, at the CDC conference with blood agencies, they renamed gay related immune deficiency (GRID) to AIDS, and the film cuts to news segments finally covering
In the adult film business everyone thinks that its just people having sexual intercourse with each other , or having oral sex. The amount of work that goes into one production is more than it seems. First the...
"People and Events: The Pill and the Sexual Revolution." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 12 May 2014.
The condoms display in the Hidden Heroes: the Genius of Everyday Things exhibit is a showcase that would cause an individual to wonder about adolescents’ overall knowledge of human sexuality. In today’s society, children are susceptible to learning about such a delicate topic not only from their families and peers, but through the media as well. These sources often provide misrepresentations of the information due to ignorance and biased views. Therefore, in order to inform individuals more accurately, sex education programs have been created with the intention to be implemented into schools across the country. This has led up to being one of the most controversial issues hovering over educational institutions, where the inclusion of such programs has been hotly debated. However, recently, the dispute is not so much about whether sex education should be taught in schools, but rather what content should be taught and what approach should be taken.