I often use PositiveLite.com as a place where I can let loose with some unabashed rants. But occasionally, I do get the desire to blog about things that I actually like! And today I have a topic in mind that really makes me smile – One brand condoms.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when our Public Health nurse showed up in our agency with bags of the artistic, ironic, and hilariously packaged condoms. Our staff went wild, sorting through the condoms, reading the taglines, and laughing. Each condom has a picture and tagline that is a play off the word “one” – such as, “Enjoy one”, “I O U one”, “Hot one”, “One a day”, “Don’t forget one”, “One likes it hot” – and my favourite, “One time at band camp”).  Each has a picture to accompany the tagline to heighten the joke (such as a picture of a flute with “One time at band camp”, a picture of a chili pepper for “Hot one”, an apple for “One a day” and a picture of Marilyn Monroe for “One likes it hot”).  

I counted 74 unique condoms, although there are many more that I haven’t yet seen. Some of the condoms have been designed through the “Become a Rembrandt of Rubber” contest where people submit their own designs. Brilliant!

There’s been significant discussion in the HIV/AIDS field about how to make safe sex sexy but not so much around making safe sex fun. Well, these condoms are definitely fun. The crazy designs and hilarious taglines make you want to collect them all, like cereal box prizes, only better.

One of their greatest benefits, I believe, is helping to de-stigmatize sex overall. These condoms don’t feel risqué or secretive – they are bold, bright, and playful. If these condoms fell out of my purse (which let me tell you, happens pretty often when you’re a sexual health educator), I wouldn’t feel embarrassed - in fact, you’ll want to display, not hide, these condoms.

A colleague of mine actually put out a great big bowl of these condoms at a party, which served up some great discussion and laughs. She actually worried that the condoms might be too nice – that people might display or collect them instead of actually use them.  But I don’t believe that’s an issue – if you’re in the position where you need a condom, you don’t care how cute that Dalmatian is on the package (One hundred and one!)  

It makes me wonder if maybe making condoms fun is the right approach. After all, as sexy as condom packaging can get, sex is so stigmatized that people can find it difficult to talk openly sexuality and pleasure. Maybe having condoms that look a little bit less sultry and a lot more playful is the key to making them more accessible.

These condoms would make for a great way of flirting (they look almost like calling cards that could be given to someone at a bar) or for easing in to the discussion of safer sex. I can imagine them being displayed in a bedroom in a fishbowl, providing a fun focal point to ease into the discussion around safer sex with a new partner.  

Other benefits to the packaging: they are easy to open, with an existing nick in the packaging to promote easy-tearing. Our only concern is that people need to know to push the condom away from the tear before ripping open the package, so that they don’t accidentally tear the condom itself.  Some of the condoms are also colourful; the colours deviate slightly from the normal primary colours of standard colour condoms – they offer a slightly more “tasteful” palette of shades.

How could these condoms not make safer sex easier to discuss and more fun to have!  I have only one question - why did it take this long for someone to make condoms that are this much fun? 

Every year around this time, we hear the same debates about whether or not the celebration of Christmas should take place in public spaces. In Guelph, this debate emerged when Stone Road Mall decided to remove the Nativity scene from the mall. Due to public uproar, the mall decided to put the Nativity scene back, and then invited patrons to celebrate with a reception.

I will get back to that particular decision in a minute, but let me say that, while I have my own opinions on the matter, these topics can be had in a fair and reasonable manner. The problem is that they tend to bring out far harsher sentiments and deep- seated oppressive beliefs.

One of the worst things I hear every year as people engage in this discussion is, “If I went to their country, I wouldn’t expect them to accommodate my religion.” This comment speaks volumes. How does this country belong to Christians any more than it belongs to any other citizen, regardless of religion?  How does being Christian make someone more Canadian? These types of arguments, besides being oppressive, are also ignorant of Canada’s history - of colonization, of diverse immigration, and how the presence of racism has also shaped the demographic make-up of Canada today. 

Canada is a secular country with a rich tapestry of ethnic origins and religions. Toronto is the most multi-cultural city in Canada. Canada has one of the largest Jewish populations in the world. And while the predominant religion in Canada is Christianity, Canada is not a Christian country. Non-Christians should feel as comfortable as any Christian when they access a service, business or public space.

Another common phrase I hear is, “I wouldn’t mind if someone says Happy Hanukkah to me, so why should they mind if I say Merry Christmas?” Unless you’ve heard Happy Hanukkah 10,000 times in your life, unless your television starts blasting Hanukkah commercials the day after Halloween, unless your radio plays Hanukkah music and your office, mall, park, grocery store, and doctor’s office are filled with Hanukkah decorations, and unless Christmas passes without a statutory holiday or mention outside your own religious community’s traditions, it’s not quite the same thing.  And while I don’t think that saying “Merry Christmas” is the worst offence someone could commit, what hurts most in this discussion is not that people do it, it’s the lack of interest in change; it’s the lack of empathy or understanding of what it’s like for people who don’t celebrate Christmas; it’s the lack of a desire to be more inclusive and respectful.

Back to the issue of the Nativity Scene in Stone Road Mall. You know, removing explicit images or mentions of the baby Jesus does not make Christmas an inclusive event. Let’s call it what it is – Christmas is a religious holiday. The “holiday tree” in Queens Park is a still a damn Christmas tree, since to my knowledge, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists don’t stick great big trees in the homes and cover them with lights and decorations in preparation of the 25th of December.

I want to be sensitive to the fact that celebrating Christmas is a source of happiness and comfort for many people.  And sharing other people’s religious traditions is not inherently offensive – it can be a source of great joy and discovery. Lighting a Christmas tree in City Hall can be a really fun event for many people – something I may enjoy myself. But surely celebrating Christmas and being inclusive is not an either-or situation. 

It’s the self-centeredness – the unwillingness to see another person’s perspective is what I find really hurtful. If you are white, Christian and straight, it is worthwhile to consider what your experience might be if you were not all of these things. If you are gay, then you no doubt know what it feels like to grow up in a society that excludes you through the assumption of straightness and by constantly letting you know that being straight is normal, and superior.  In the field of HIV & AIDS, we make an effort to break down heterosexism.  I believe we need to do the same with ethnocentrism.

The No Doubt video (no longer available from You Tube, thanks to online uproar) was a spectacle of racist appropriation of Native culture, featuring fetishized, stereotypical, and tokenized elements of Native American culture in some kind of sick cowboy & Indians fantasy display.  It went as far as dressing up Gwen Stefani in an “Indian princess” costume, to act out a (supposedly) sexy, tied-up, helpless Pocahontas-type figure – which is ironic given that the story of Pocahontas is actually one of colonization and violence against Aboriginal women, but which has been changed and romanticized to tell a story that (apparently) appeals to non-Native people. 

This is a racist video that perpetuates colonization over a group that has long suffered from colonization - and continues to have to struggle with the ongoing effects of colonization. Do we really still have to argue about why this is offensive? 

One of my favourite books about the appropriation of Native culture is “The Imaginary Indian: The image of the Indian in Canadian Culture” by Daniel Francis.  Even the back cover of this book is revealing: “The imaginary Indian is ever with us, oscillating throughout our history from friend to foe, from Noble Savage to blood-thirsty warrior, from debased alcoholic to wise elder, from monosyllabic “squaw” to eloquent princess, from enemy of progress to protector of the environment. The Imaginary Indian has been, and continues to be… just about anything the non-Native culture has wanted it to be.” This video reveals several of these images within seconds. 

It’s disappointing that we continue to see non-Native people play “dress-up” with someone else’s culture in the public sphere, trying on some stereotypical outfits and then discarding the look when it’s no longer trendy. 

Then again, maybe it’s not surprising, given that Gwen Stefani has a history of appropriating culture and then dismissing it when it gets old. Remember when she went through her Japanese phase? She used “the Harajuku Girls” for her back-up dancers and in a series of videos – as though selecting one “race” of women was fun, exciting and exotic. It was as though the women were props, to be used for their exoticness, highlighting Gwen’s whiteness. Clearly, Japanese women are not exciting to Gwen Stefani any more, and she’s left them behind.  Now she has moved on to pretend to be Aboriginal for a while. Sorry, did I say Aboriginal? I meant Indian.  I don’t think Gwen Stefani realizes that she is playing a real person with a real culture – this is just fantasy stuff to her. 

In their apology, No Doubt noted that they are a “multi-racial” band, as though people who are not white cannot be racist, or as though having a multi-racial band protects Gwen Stefani from doing anything racist. It’s like the “but I’m not a homophobe – I have a gay friend” type of argument. 

They also noted that they did not intend to offend anyone. You know, very often these things are not intentional. Sure, some people are outwardly hateful but most do not try to hurt or offend anyone. But that’s not really the point, is it? The point is that it’s easy to be offensive or hurtful if we stay ignorant and don’t consider the meanings of our actions or words beyond how we ourselves perceive them.  The same thing applies to the phrase “it’s so gay.” Even if you don’t mean it to be offensive, you have to consider that for people who are gay, this statement is hurtful, so you should re-think the words that you use. When people are not willing to validate another person’s experience of racism (or any type of stigma, prejudice or discrimination) it just serves to the supremacy of the white (or straight) person’s experience and reinforce the experience of racism, homophobia or colonization.

During my summer vacation, I spent a couple of days to spend in London, England. The Paralympics were still going on at that time, and there was an abundance of advertising for the games. Apparently there were some changes this year. Advertising was really ramped up and for the first time, tickets were being sold, not just given away.

Perhaps you’ve seen the video advertising the games.  Take a look. Even if you’ve watched it before, ask yourself, “What does this say about people with disabilities?”

In the incredibly ableist society in which we live, differently-abled people are frequently excluded entirely from the media. When they are present in the media – such as in news stories - they are often portrayed as either victims to be pitied, or as noble heroes, who have managed to rise above the hardships life has thrown them. Very rarely do we see people who have disabilities portrayed as full, complex, individual human beings.

One exception to this is the documentary Murderball, which featured a subculture of paraplegics who play wheel-chair rugby. What made this movie different was that it showcased people with disabilities who were tough, rough, strong, competitive and aggressive - characteristics which deviate from the victim/hero dichotomy.

There is an interesting scene in Murderball where the men talk about their sex lives – a rare digression from popular media portrayals of people with disabilities who have essentially been stripped of their sexuality. Through exclusion, people with disabilities are made to appear asexual. However, you can see this challenged through the “American Able” series in which the artist challenges the exclusion of disabled women’s sexuality in American Apparel ads and other forms of media, calling into question who “the everyday woman” really is.

Back to the Paralympics. I enjoyed the Paralympics commercial, and appreciated that it portrayed the athletes as athletes – powerful, talented, tough competitors. Great – the ad blew one stereotype out of the water. What I didn’t like was that the commercial relied on the other stereotype – the hero.  The ad was clearly piggybacking on recent trends around films of comic book characters, such as Spiderman, the Hulk, Ironman and the Watchmen. But calling the athletes superhuman suggests that they are, well, not human.  I don’t have to tell you that people with disabilities are human, but we wouldn’t know this from media that eliminates the diversity that characterizes our humanness. Lumping people with disabilities into a group that is literally not human does not help challenge stereotypes which homogenize people and strip them of their individuality.

I share these thoughts on this blog not just because HIV is classified as a “disability” in Canada, but because you often see dichotomized portrayals of people living with HIV in the media – as deviant criminals (as in mass-media cases of non-disclosure) or heroes (like Jamar from the Voice).  Rarely is it that someone is portrayed as a full, complex human being, with strengths and weaknesses, and with a sexuality to boot.

Admiring someone for super-human strength or courage sounds nice, but isn’t it just a fancy way of dividing and segregating people?  Just because someone has a disability and is able to overcome that challenge does not make them less or more human. It just makes them human.  We are all faced with different challenges in our lives that we are able to overcome because we have an incredibly human will to continue living and breathing and participating in this life. The stories shared on this blog attest to that.

One of the interesting features about the grant that we received was that this was a “capacity-building fund.” Capacity building is really about acquiring resources – in this case knowledge, skills and networks – that give a person or organization the ability to do something new. In this case that ‘something’ is the ability to conduct community-based research (CBR). 

I believe that having some basic understanding of research methods and process is important, because it empowers people to be able to evaluate incoming information. This goes hand in hand with scientific media literacy.  In the information-age where we are absolutely inundated with information, including news about latest research findings, the ability to understand research methodology is an important skill. It helps prevent people from misunderstanding research findings or from being “taken” by false claims.  But for organizations, the capacity to conduct community-based research is even greater than that - it creates the ability to learn more about the community’s needs and create closer connections and relationships with them. In fact, the research process itself can be a gateway to empowerment among the client population.

People living with HIV have been studied a lot! Bob has written about this before.  Anyone who has been living with HIV for any length of time is no stranger to research.  And the experience is not always a positive one. In fact, the traditional approach to research is reminiscent of colonialism: a research team enters a community, takes what they need, and leaves, without the community ever directly benefiting from the study.

CBR is a fairer approach to research. It recognizes that research should be a mutual exchange of knowledge, hence the emphasis on knowledge translation (making the findings accessible to people who may not be academics or experts in the field themselves) and exchange (understanding that both parties have something to share, which is different from knowledge dissemination - a unidirectional flow of information).

CBR also ensures that the community being studied is empowered to participate in the research process, in some ways perhaps even having the opportunity to participate in the research design and/or ownership of the data. Because CBR is intended to be inclusive of the community-being studied, it is, in a way, very similar to the principles behind GIPA, suggesting that the community should be involved in the research that potentially impacts their lives. 

Understanding and employing these features has been a wonderful experience and, I believe, an excellent learning process for us at ACG. It has allowed us to execute many of the principles we aim to employ in other areas of the organization to a new goal and process. I believe it has also been a positive experience for our research participants.

Another feature worth mentioning is our experience in having a Peer Research Assistant (someone living with HIV) work on the project. Our peer research assistant, as part of our Working Group, conducted many of the interviews. However, he wasn’t just an interviewer. He helped with the research & methodology design and contributed in many ways, making sure that the interview schedule captured or addressed key issues. He urged us to address issues related to HIV beyond the disease, remembering the impact of trauma and other life experiences, and the way they intercepted with HIV.

He was not the only person living with HIV involved in the research, but I believe that his relationships with ACG clients allowed the study to gain credibility among our client population. Having a peer research assistant who is well connected and respected in the community provided a gateway to having participants trust in the process and open up about incredibly intimate issues. Peer research assistants have to maintain clear boundaries and professionalism while executing research with their peers, but this is clearly possible for people with skills and experience in this regard.  Organizations should not write off the possibility of utilizing peer research assistants because of fear of boundary issues. Our peer research assistant provided an invaluable contribution to the project.

No doubt, I have learned just as much about community-based research as I actually have about the subject of the research itself. From writing a research grant proposal to presenting research in lay language, we have built a great deal of capacity in our organization, gained many skills and strengthened bonds as team members. Our peer research assistant was hired and now works at the agency part-time. I am sitting on a committee to develop another community-based research study under the wing of anther organization. And the project continues to be a learning process, as we move forward with knowledge translation & exchange activities.