It's time to fight back against "bullshit" excuses for not using condoms for sex, say the AIDS Foundation, who are launching a new campaign with precisely this message. The Bullfighter campaign has been developed in response to growing concerns that men are communicating less about HIV, and to challenge them to stand up to partners' weak excuses for eschewing condoms in favour of risky bareback sex. The Foundation say common excuses include: "You're my first"; "You're the only one I do this with"; "But we love each other – don't you trust me?"; "You can't get it (HIV) if you're the top." ; "It doesn't feel as good."; "He's too gorgeous to have HIV."; and "I have a low viral load." "Frankly, it's 'bullshit'," says the Foundation's Health Promotion Coordinator Douglas Jenkin. "None of the above excuses, or the many like them, will take unprotected anal sex between men out of the high-risk zone for contracting or passing on HIV. And, at a time when new HIV infections in New Zealand are at record levels, anything that weakens men's resolve to have safe sex is dangerous."
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Thursday, 10th February 2005 - 12:00pm