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Michael Callen, in his article "Pinned and Wriggling :
How Shall I Presume?", describes experiences of being
constructed as an object of inquiry during his involvement in "challenging" America's conceptualization of
AIDS and people living with AIDS.
AIDS/VIDEO/and the MEDIA provides an overview of some of the "alternate" media production that
has surfaced in response to the world-wide health
crisis: AIDS . There's educational AIDS information
tapes geared to specific communities, personal
memorials to people who have died of AIDS, community-based educational tapes, video art, and
documentary challenges to mainstream's representations
of Al DS. My favourite development is video production
within the Al DS Activist Movement that is pressuring
governments, educational and health care institutions
to better address the educational needs of all sectors
of our society and the current health care needs of
PLWA's (Persons Living With AIDS) and those seropositive for HIV .
Main points of discussion are the dominant media's
representation of Al DS, its biases, and its neglect of
certain groups in our society. Mainstream political
agendas are exposed and criticized. There are discussions of politics, power relations, sexism, racism,
classism, and homophobia, as well as issues around
access to means of production and access to public
cable airwaves.
"Making It: Al DS Activist Television" addresses
video and the Al DS activist movement that is fighting
government inaction on AIDS . In "Some Notes on
Collective Production", Sandra Elgear and Robin
Hutt look at three New York based media collectives:
Diva T.V., Gran Fury, and Testing the Limits, and
their involvement in the Al DS Activist movement.
"Do It!" is safer sex educational video by producers
at NYC's Gay Men's Health Crisis. Spread The Word, a
video produced by Australian Tracey Moffatt and
directed specifically at the Australian Aboriginal
population is discussed. I've included a Safe Sex
page because it is crucial that people keep informed
about details around safer sex, especially video producers who are getting involved in Al DS educational
video.
-----~-- --t
While there are a number of articles addressing gay
rights within the context of dealing with the AIDS
crisis, this has occurred because gay people were the
first visible group in North America to be identified
with Al DS. This issue reflects the community and
political commitment of P.L .W.A.'s even in the face of
contined harassment and discrimination.
Jan Grover, curator of the U.S. Arts Exhibition
"AIDS : The Artists' Response" has kindly offered to
review this issue of Video Guide for future publication
in a 1990 Video Guide - so watch for it! I would also
like to encourage interested video producers to respond
to this issue, especially those working in Al DS video in
the many countries not mentioned in this issue. Please
address correspondence to myself c/o Video In, 1102
Homer Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6B 2S2.
Finally, special thanks to Judy Weiser, Jan Grover,
and my patient colleagues at the Video In.
Sue Jenkins
for the Satellite Video Exchange Society
In the video by Testing the Limits Collective in New
York - Testing the Limits (Part 7) - Phil Reed of the
Minority Task Force on AIDS states "AIDS will either
kill us or politicize us." I hope this issue is a contribution to such a politicization process.
The following is a brief summary of articles included
in this issue :
The first six articles provide a snapshot of the political climate around AIDS in B.C. and some of the video
resources available. The first article is an interview
with producer David Tuff about his videotape on the
B.C. Government's "Quarantine Legislation", a
dangerous response to the crisis of AIDS. Local video
resource libraries at both Al DS Vancouver and at the
B.C. Ministry of Health are introduced, with brief
reviews of some of the videos available. Terry Leitch
of the P.W.A. Coalition shares some of his experiences
as an AIDS educator who uses video, and his feelings
about the banning of an educational Al DS video for
teenagers. Her Giveaway: A Spiritual journey with
AIDS is an educational Al DS tape made specifically
for American Indians, reviewed by Ruby-Marie Dennis.
HIV+ is another example of a community-based
· educational videotape about Al DS, made by and for
teenagers. Producer/performer David Maclean tells us
about his latest videotape, Now Playing, and comments
on gay social culture in the age of Al DS.
John Greyson comments on the role of video and
its potential effect on the AIDS crisis in his article
"Requiem for Gaetan " : Greyson 's most recent production, The World is Sick (Sic), about the Vth
International Conference on Al DS, is reviewed .
Alexandra Johasz, in "Constructing Authority:
Documentary Form and AIDS", wants us to understand "the formal organization of mainstream media
in order to expose, challenge, and re-construct Al DS
representation." Alternate media producers can learn
how to represent the AIDS crisis differently, how to
provide information, rather than evaluate. Alexandra
underlines the need for community specific programming addressing the specific needs of people.
In conversation, Black filmmakers from England
Pratibha Parmar and Isaac Julien discuss their respective films Reframing AIDS and This is Not an AIDS
Advertisement. Parmar's film challenges mainstream
media's agendas and "re-contextualizes the representations of sexuality and race, to show them being
"re-invented". Julien 's film "uses images and representations of sexuality to celebrate love and desire,
and shows the multiplicity of identities within gay
culture."
In "Mining the Oro Del Barrio", Jose GutierrezGomez and Jose Vergelin illustrate the power of the
video medium in minority health education and
education around AIDS - referring to their educational AIDS video for Latinos, Ojos Que No Ven.
An overview of video at the Vth International
Conference on Al DS in Montreal is provided by one of
the organizers of the video section of the conference,
Ken Morrison, who talks about the role of video in
relation to the Al DS epidemic, and analyses the
effectiveness of the videos presented.
VANCOUVER GUIDE
Vancouver's Video Magazine
Volume 10, Numbers 3,4 Issues 48,49
Publisher
The Satellite Video Exchange
(A non-profit Society est. 1973)
Managing Editor
Shawn Preus
3
ARE WE GOING BACKWARDS?
David Tuff in conversation with Ken Mann
4
AIDS VANCOUVER VIDEO LIBRARY
by Rick Marchand
A PERSONAL STATEMENT
by Terry Leitch
5
HIV+
reviewed by Gordon Fisher
MINISTRY OF HEAL TH VIDEO
reviewed by Tony Carter
HER GIVEAWAY
by Ruby-Marie Dennis
6
VIDEOS AGAINST AIDS - Screening at Video In
Guest Editor This Issue
Sue Jenkins
Production
Cowling & Assoc.
Crista Haukedal
Sue Jenkins
Jill Kelly
Karen Knights
Shawn Preus
Joe Sarahan
NATIONAL
7
NOW PLAYING
by Sue Jenkins
8
REQUIEM FOR GAET AN
by John Greyson
Contributors
Michael Callen
Jean Carlomusto
Tony Carter
AIDS Film Collective
Ruby-Marie Dennis
Sandra Elgear
Gordon Fisher
Jose Gutierrez-Gomez
John Greyson
Robin Hutt
Sue Jenkins
Alexandra Juhasz
Isaac Julien
Terry Leitch
Maria Maggenti
Ken Mann
Rick Marchand
Ken Morrison
Pratibha Parmar
Mark Turrel
Jose Vergelin
9
THE WORLD IS SICK (SIC)
reviewed by Mark Turrel
Photos
Tom Buhr
Sue Jenkins
Testing The Limits
20 SOME NOTES ON COLLECTIVE PRODUCTION
by Sandra Elgear and Robin Hutt
22 DO IT
by jean Carlomusto and Gregg Bordowitz
Thanks To:
Canada Council
City of Vancouver
23 SPREADING THE WORD: an Interview with Tracey Moffatt
by Sue Jenkins
ULISSES CARRION - In Memorium
GLOBAL
10 CONSTRUCTING AUTHORITY: Documentary Form & Aids
by Alexandra Juhasz
12 IN CONVERSATION with Isaac Julien and Pratibha Parmar
13 MINING THE ORO DEL BARRIO
by Jose Gutierres-Gomez and Jose Vergelin
14 VIDEO AND THE 5th INT'L CONFERENCE ON AIDS
by Ken Morrison
16 PINNED AND WRIGGLING
by Michael Callen
18 MAKING IT
by Jean Carlomusto
19 MEDIA NETWORK: An Educational Guide
by Maria Maggenti, Robin Hutt, Sandra Elgear
AIDS FILM LIBRARY
by Aids Film Collective
24 SAFE SEX PAMPHLET
ISSN 02286726
British Columbia, Canada
25 MR JOE SAYS
26 SCANNING
2nd CLASS MAIL REG. No. 7268
Cover: by Joe Sarahan
2
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
Subscriptions to VIDEO GUIDE are available at $70.60 for 5 issues, $70.00 U.S. funds in U.S., overseas $15.00 Cdn.
Send cheque or money order to VIDEO GUIDE, Satellite Video Exchange Society, 1702 Homer Street, Vancouver
British Columbia, Canada V6B 2X6
'
�GOING
Kenn Mann: Tell us about producing "Are We Going
Backwards?"
You also make references to the Quebec separatists
issue in 1970, the FLQ crisis ...
David Tuff: It's been three years since the beginning of
the idea. I was watching a tape I had recorded of T.Y.
evangelists with their slant of AIDS being a punishment from
God. There was a lot of controversy about subliminal messages, the devil talking through rock and roll, etc. I was
playing the tape of the evangelists back, and they sounded
very much like the devil talking. I said to my friend, "Are we
going backwards? or forwards? I can't tell .. .". The form that
you've seen it in [10:00 min. VHS] is an edited version from
an installation at Emily Carr College [1987] . Originally, there
were three monitors, set up on a 15 foot pink triangle - with
a monitor on each point, facing inwards. Loter it was synthesized down to ten minutes so it could be shown on one
monitor.
This is what I felt dealing with Bill 34. We woke up one
morning, and (the War Measures Act] had been passed
overnight. Neither my friends in the gay community nor my
friends in the straight community, had any idea that Bill 34
even existed, before it became law. There was an ignorance
on the part of the community as a whole that this was actually
happening in our city and in our province.
Sounds like to was really powerful to actually experience
it physically - the graphic image of the triangle ...
Yes, it was great. When people came to see the installation they had the option of staying on the outside and not
participating, or they could actually step onto the pink triangle
and be in the midst of these three messages that became a
little bit confusing to separate. I'm still really attached to the
art piece as an installation. I thought it really made people
deal with the issue. "Are we going to get involved or are we
just going to watch this as o media piece?" Many people
who came through the installation chose to walk around it
and leave the room. The people that were very concerned
actually stepped onto the triangle and became part of the
installation, and had to decipher it for themselves. I've been
talking to Video In about setting it up again. I only edited it
down to the 10 minute version that you saw because it's
easier - you can't fit three monitors everywhere.
Con you describe those various images and messages?
Well, one monitor, sitting an a 45 degree angle, dealt
with the politics and policies that [Premier Bill] Yonder Zalm
was proposing, [specifically Health Bill 34, the so-called
Quarantine Legislation]. There is a little box cut inside the
face of Yonder Zalm, containing images of T. V. evangelists,
superimposed with hard care gay pornography. You get this
mesh of the evangelists with a lot of physical bodies - bath
going at wrong speeds, backwards and forwards at the same
time. Behind Yonder Zalm is footage of the concentration
camps from World War II.
The second monitor had all the footage I'd taken at the
"Na Quarantine" rally organised by the Coalition for Responsible Health Legislation. I recorded more than an hour of the
various speakers, including Kevin Brown of the Vancouver
Persons With AIDS Coalition. It's at that rally where he says
"There will be o time when we have to write the history of
this disease, and will we be found to be lacking?" ...
The third monitor was images of the past, what happened to the Japanese Canadians in British Columbia during
World War II, when the government stripped away their
individual and civil rights.
The poem from Joy Kogawa is about her childhood
experiences of incarceration during the war. The face of a
ghost coming out of the heart of her kimono makes reference
to the past talking to future generations.
I did an information workshop last year with prison staff,
security officers and people who work inside provincial
prisons - to look at homophobia and issues around the gay
community. At the end of the couple of hours we showed the
video tape and got quite o violent and negative reaction . I
think they felt uncomfortable and angry. Was this a typical
reaction of people who have seen the tape?
Some people from AIDS Vancouver saw a screening of
the tape and were appalled by the fact that I had a Japanese
boy sneezing throughout the tape. They felt we had all
worked so hard to get across to the general public that AIDS
wasn't a contagious disease, spread by someone sneezing,
or touching hands. That wasn't the point that I was trying to
get across in the tape.
The image I was working with was of a young boy who
is involved with other children. They're not afraid to hold his
hand, and they're not excluding him because he's a different
nationality or because he has a virus.
The thing that struck me with that image was the innocence of the child, I wasn't even thinking of o contagious
virus.
Some things in the tape are very subtle. At one point I
rewrote the lyrics to Ring Around The Rosie . On one channel
you hear the children singing the poem and on the other
channel you have adults talking about visible minorities and
Kaposi's Sarcoma being the new target of the government.
I filmed those children singing Ring Around the Rosie
assuming that people would know the poem comes from the
days of the bubonic plague - drawing a parallel between
the AIDS epidemic and that plague. At the rallies that I went
to, one of the slogans was "People united will never be
defeated I" I took that soundtrack and put it with the children,
looping it from monitor to monitor, so the children were
constantly singing it.
The tape focuses on the power of governments over
individual people.
If we start setting laws in our province to isolate and
quarantine people who have the AIDS virus or the tuberculosis virus, where is it going to stop? Are we going to go
back until we give so much power ta [the government] that
they are going to be able to say at any time "We no longer
want this in our society."
You can't start separating some people, breaking society
down even further. Wouldn't it be a better approach to the
whole problem, to deal with these people, still included in
society, and not segregate them? We should be dealing with
this problem as we have done with cancer, or any medical
problem that we've had, where the country unifies not
separates.
Making "Are We Going Backwards?" must have been o
very challenging piece of work.
It was a real growing process for me, the first political
issue that I'd dealt with. When I finally completed the tape, I
did it almost angrily. I didn't expect this tape to educate a lot
of people, but it was something I had to say in my own way,
about the situation that was happening. I was discouraged
at how many people were not interested in something that
concerns a lot of peoples' lives. "Oh, it's politics and we don't
wont to deal with that."
The tape took me two years to complete and there was
a real turning point while I was making it. When I started out,
I wanted everyone to get the message. But it seemed that the
more information that was out there, the more complacent
the people were getting to the issue. Then it opened up a lot
for me on a personal level, because of what I was going
through being a gay man, and dealing for the last five years
with being HIV positive myself. Finally, it became my viewpoint on how I see my whole province.
Now you're going to do o tape about living with AIDS?
Yeah, I want to do a tape called Positivity. I intend to
focus on three or four people who have been dealing with
having AIDS or being HIV positive, and involve them in the
tape. For example, if they were graphic artists, they could do
the graphics for it, or if they are musicians they could work
on the soundtrack - so they become an integral part of
making the tape.
Maybe there should be a disclaimer at the beginning of
the tape - "This is not another tape on the tragedy of AIDS,
this is o tape on the positivity."
Its hard to find hope when you've been diagnosed with
AIDS or HIV. We're told the odds are overwhelming, that
you' re going to die.
AIDS doesn't hove to be a death sentence - it's not like
the commercial media soys, you're going to be dead in 280
days because you've been diagnosed. Rather it can be a time
when you look at yourself and say "What do I want to do,
now that I know that I may have only o little time?" AIDS is
not the only disease that makes people deal with these kinds
of issues.
A few of the people I've been interviewing have said how
sad they were when they were first diagnosed. They had to
wrestle through that - and now they see it as almost a
blessing in their life. Maybe their life has improved since they
turned off their televisions and radios or stopped drinking in
bars five or six nights a week. Now they've developed an art
form or ore into a spiritual practice, and have found an inner
positivity about themselves, o meaningful quality in their life.
I've hod a few friends who, before they died, have told
me that although their life was cut short, shorter than they
hod planned, taking responsibility for their life and their
situation was the most important priority.
I think my personal involvement with the arts, and
keeping o positive attitude about life and what it holds for me
helps me to keep on beating the odds.
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
3
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M 1.tdr1 1n& 1 cmn·
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AIDS VANCOUVER-VIDEO LIBRARY
by Rick Marchand
Can video facilitate AIDS prevention among gay men?
Gay video brings an image to mind : men at home
watching porn, nights of solo sex. Considering their
popularity, you might think video substitutes for communication and intimacy among gay men. How close can you get
to the glass screen? There' s no chance of exchanging body
fluids, so it's very safe sex.
When AIDS Vancouver moved to assess the education
needs of gay and bisexual men in the Vancouver area,
information was collected through interviews with seventy.
seven people, most with gay and bisexual men, and a short
survey. Three hundred and forty-seven men, representing
what might be called the "mainstream" gay community,
returned the AIDS survey. Although we now talk of high risk
activity instead of high risk groups, this "mainstream" gay
community has been most affected by HIV infection and AIDS
in Vancouver.
We also gathered information on groups within the gay
community: gay Native men, gay Asian men, gay youth,
. disabled gay men, lesbians, to name a few. Although these
groups need more specific AIDS education, it will take more
than a survey to reach them.
Survey results followed patterns established in U.S.
studies. Knowledge is high in the gay community. Many
people practice some form of safer sex, but not consistently.
A quarter of the men "disclosed" having unsafe sex. I use
"disclose" because in the everyday talk among gay men,
telling others about having unsafe sex has become an inappropriate subject. In interviews, people brought up a range
of communication difficulties that have arisen as men experience change in their sexuality.
In the survey on AIDS issues, 44% of gay and bisexual
men said they would prefer to learn about AIDS from videos
more than any other medium. Video can have a significant
impact on stopping the spread of AIDS.
Video can, for example, help us:
talk about kinds of safer sex we like to have
talk about unsafe ·sex we might have had
make decisions around getting an HIV test
decide on a level of risk tolerance that is safe and
comfortable
• explode HIV transmission myths about who gets the
disease and how
• negotiate safer sex
• fight fear and discrimination
• turn denial issues into positive strategies for dealing
with sex and disease
• develop a more accepting attitude of death
•
•
•
•
"Safe Sex - Here We Come", Victorian AIDS Council
Video can provide the context for gay and bisexual men
to work on these issues. What comes to mind is the small
group experience. The natural follow-up to the AIDS Survey
would be several focus groups of gay men talking specifically
about the use and content of video in prevention education.
We have been hearing a litany of do's and don'ts about gay
sexual behaviours. But how can we feel comfortable with new
sexual practices unless we can participate in the evolution of
community thinking?
Video can stimulate social interaction by showing us
familiar, yet challenging situations. We can watch other gay
men on the screen making decisions, talking about safer sex,
experiencing fear and confusion, talking about the difficulties
of ensuring safer sex. Video can move us to talk, or simply
reflect on the personal strategies we use to deal with AIDS.
An excellent video already used in a small group setting
is Safe Sex - Here We Come, subtitled a series of discussion
trigger videos , produced by the Victorian AIDS Council for
the Australian Federation of AIDS Organ izations. Ten
thematic areas are represented in sometimes humorous
vignettes. They focus on the communication difficulties
among gay men concerning AIDS, safer sex, attitude and
behaviour. We see scenarios about picking up men, trying to
find out if they practice safe sex; bringing up condoms in that
moment of passion; the complexity of decisions couples must
consider; attributing safeness to another man based on
looks. Although some of the idiomatic expressions are
decidedly Australian, anyone would readily recognize the
situations.
A PERSONAL STATEMENT
I am a member of the Vancouver Persons with AIDS
Society and chairperson of the Speaker's Bureau. During the
last two years I've been dedicated to providing information
on HIVI AIDS and other STD' s. Almost everyone wants to hear
the real story about living with AIDS from someone who has
the disease.
In our presentations, video provides the visual impact
(along with the presence of myseln that enables us to effectively convey many messages. For example, one of the things
I do is speak to people in the workplace about AIDS. When
an employee wants to inform her/his colleagues thats/he is
HIV positive, or has AIDS, we are sometimes asked to be there
for emotional and educational support when the disclosure
is made. Af this time, we also show "disclosure videos" such
as One of Our Own to support the process. Video is definitely
useful in this difficult situation.
I also work with teenagers. Earlier this year, I went out to
Pitt Meadows with Dr. Michael Rekart to speak to several high
school classes about HIV/AIDS and STD's. We took along a
60 second video about the use of condoms, that has since
been banned by B.C. 's Premier Vander Zalm. We videotaped
the presentations and the reactions of the teenagers to the
4
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
Made in 1988, the issues in this video are still very
relevant; but more situations can be represented, such as
dealing with a homophobic health care worker or dealing
with a persuasive gay man who wants to engage in unprotected sex.
Besides vignettes for discussion, what about docudramas that can more fully address the complexities of AIDS
issues? Video-taped plays? Comedy sketches that can diffuse
the intensity of fear? Or a community development approach: handing over the video equipment to a group of gay
men to have them address the issues through the work of
making a video.
New videos need not be limited to the small group
experience; bars, clubs, and baths could include safer sex
messages in their video programming ; video events with
speakers or panels already happen ; and organizations need
videos for training volunteers in AIDS work.
As part of its educational services, AIDS Vancouver has
a video library where safer sex and informational videos can
be borrowed. But as prevention efforts continue into the 90's,
we need a greater range of video resources to keep the safer
sex message alive. This is a call for video makers to think
expansively about the potential impact of their work.
Rick Marchand, Education Consultant,
AIDS Vancouver, 1272 Richards St. ,
Vancouver, B.C., V6B 3G2.
phone 687-5220
by Terry Leitch of the PWA Society
video, hoping to use both for outreach education in less
accessible rural areas of the province.
The banned video, in my opinion,is well put together and
sensitively presents crucial information to youth on safer sex.
I know the B.C. statistics on the sexual activity of students:
47% of B.C.'s grade eleven students are sexually active. I'm
not going to walk into these groups of kids and speak to them
only of abstinence, nor do I teach them to have unlimited
casual sex. I want to help prevent the transmission of the HIV
virus (and other STD's) and to help people have compassion
and understanding for those who are HIV positive or have
AIDS.
Moralistic Mr. Vander Zalm is not helping us fight the
AIDS epidemic when he bans a video that has such a n
important message for youth : use condoms if you' re going
to have sex. The students who saw it were obviously impressed that we were placing some responsibility on them to
know about safer sex and guide their behaviour accordingly.
Nothing has ever happened to the video footage from our
trip to Pitt Meadows, so we haven't been able to use it in
urban or rural high school settings. I can only presume that
the other videos remain uncompleted because the footage
contains the controversial 60 seconds.
I can't relate to this one man in his Fantasy Castle being
able to push his morals on public policy and decide what's
right and wrong,for an entire province. As someone who is
going into my third year of having AIDS, I am interested in
his justification for this censorship. I don't believe there is any.
Guest Editor's Note : There are two main issues concerning AIDS education for youth - 1) It's difficult to make the
danger of AIDS real to youth 2) Getting the message across
requires a source/method that is credible to youth. The
banned video Terry speaks of was an initiative of the B.C.
Health Ministry and was meant to be used as a trailer in film
theatres. It was made with the following points in mind:
• The video's content/form had to be directed specifically at youth.
• It needed to involve a youth-oriented medium: rock
music/video.
• It needed to use a role model familiar to many B.C.
teenagers (Colin James)
• It had to get to the audience where they hang out. It's
well known that teenagers spend a tremendous
amount of time and money going to theatres.
�______________________________________________.....- ! £ 1 . i § . l i @ § l @ t j
HER GIVEAWAY •• A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY WITH AIDS
Funders: Minnesota AIDS Task Force, The American
Indian Advisory Council for the Chemical Dependency
Division of Minnesota's Department of Human Services, and
the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community.
Her Giveaway is in The B.C. Ministry of Health Video
Library. It's an important production presented by the Minnesota Indian AIDS Task Force. The subject of the tape is
Carole Lafavor, an American Indian who has AIDS. She
explains what a giveaway means to her: "My understanding
of 'a giveaway' is to express to other people that you care
about them and that your home is open to them, and that
what you have you'll share with them." One of her gifts to
Native people, and others, is sharing personal insights and
experience from her struggle with AIDS. This video validates
for native people that native gay people are everywhere, and
we are at risk of contracting AIDS.
Carole explains her perspective: "Maybe the best thing
for me is not to be cured, maybe the best thing for me in this
is expanding my spiritual life, maybe that's why I got the
disease." Her spiritual self is more important than it's ever
been before. She asks us to start caring about this crisis "that
can destroy all of us". As far as why she has AIDS, I find her
reasoning a bit heavy with religious overtone. As native
people we were taught by outsiders that if we were bad, we
will suffer, and that what we get is what we deserve. I don't
believe that anyone deserves to get AIDS.
AIDS Wise .. . No Lies is a video directed at youth, and
contains the seemingly inevitable "Rap" segment. Twelve
young persons from several ethnic groups talk about their
reactions to testing positive to HIV antibodies. They all talk
about AIDS but, whether they are HIV positive or have AIDS
is unclear, and no distinction seems to be made between the
two conditions.
One man in AIDS Wise... No Lies does have AIDS. His
voice is heard over still photographs of himself in a hospital
bed - followed, rather ominously, by a picture of an empty
bed. Far too often persons with AIDS are presented as
pathos-drenched victims, particularly to youth. It almost
seems that they are used as a deterrent - a sort of bogeyman to scare the kids off sex and drugs, a rather dangerous
way of stepping around the difficult issue of informing youth
how to have sex safely. There is no mention of safer-sex
practices in this video; and no strictures against the shared
We are watching a quiz show (Mr. Myth) and our two
adult contestants have to correctly answer the question: "In
what three ways can one catch the AIDS virus?". Our first
contestant answers: "Sexual intercourse, deep kissing, and
(with an embarrassed clearing of the throat) anal intercourse". She wins for being correct, but of course she isn't.
We are informed by a mysterious stranger that kissing or
casual contact does not contribute to the spread of the HIV
virus. We immediately have the premise of the piece set
before us: there's misinformation out there, and the myths
surrounding AIDS have to be dispelled. If the adults in the
Quiz Show of Life don't have the information, who can we
turn to? Youth, of course! What follows is fifteen minutes of
fairly concise information about how and why to use condoms, methods for the safer use of needles, and IV street
drugs, and various other bits and pieces related to AIDS and
survival.
The most effective moments are provided when we have
the opportunity to listen to someone actually living with AIDS
tell us of his experiences in hospital (good), and with friends
and family (alienating). Warnings issued directly from a PLWA
(Person Living With AIDS) tend to carry more weight.
At the end of Her Giveaway, AIDS information phone
numbers are listed.
I've talked about some of what's wrong and right with
this video. I believe it's a must for all Native people because
it opens the door for more information and communication
on the subject of AIDS. It is great to see an effort to inform
others, by our Native Brothers and Sisters across the border.
Hopefully, Canadian Native gay people can take up the
(~~i
example.
Reviewed by Tony Carter
use of needles.
The catalogue description for AIDS Wise ... No Lies says
the video is intended to "personalize AIDS"; but, personalization won't lower the seroconversion stats for youth.
Your Choice for Life is a B.B.C. Open University Production directed at 14-16 year old youth; and, wastes no time
in bringing on the bogey man. This time the "victim" is John.
John has AIDS and one of his infections is Kaposi's Sarcoma.
He has lesions on his face, and the sarcoma has obliterated
his nose. John is encouraged to say little else but that he is
dying and he has no future. He says he is motivated to appear
in this video out of concern for the fUture of others. John is
poorly used here (in fact, horribly exploited), and to no avail
in terms of ensuring the future of young viewers. No amount
of pathos will prevent transmission of HIV infection.
Later in this video, safer-sex practices are described,
including a brief mention of anal sex, but only after an
emphatic prelude on abstinence. The distinction between
being HIV + and having AIDS is fairly well described. Overall
though, Your Choice for Life is a sex-negative effort, that
ultimately leaves one depressed.
The Minnesota AIDS Project funded a video presented
by the Minnesota Indian AIDS Task Force called Her
Giveaway: A Spiritual Journey with AIDS. Carole Lafavor, a
native woman, speaks lucidly and intelligently about her
experience with having AIDS. The viewer is immediately
encouraged by her strength and insight, no dripping pathos
here. She describes AIDS as a "spiritual gift" which is easier
to understand when she explains how she has gained
strength, developed maturity, and produced positive changes
in her life. At one point, she begins to describe her physical
condition, and, is interrupted mid-sentence by a white female
doctor who_takes over the description. A.fter _this, Carole is
allowed to finish her story. It was an astonishingly crass and
offensive interruption, considering how competently the native woman was describing her own condition. I found this a
bizarre abberation in an otherwise positive and insightful
production.
Hopefully, there are more of the Her Giveaway type of
AIDS video in the Ministry of Health Library. There are a lot
of useful and fascinating videos, as well as duds.
Ministry of Health
828 West 10th Avenue,
Vancouver, B.C.
660-5061
+II
Produced and Directed by Theatre Street '89
Kim U-Ming, Rob Joyce, and Stuart MacFarlane have
no previous experience in video production or acting, but with
assistance and guidance from Faye Yoneda and Fraser Doke
they have conceived and produced HIV+. The video is a
vehicle to feed information to their peers, a group the media
generally labels as "Street Kids". Although it isn't a slick video
piece, the work succeeds in touching upon the issues which
probably most concern the target group.
Her final message to other Native people is "What I think
we need to do as Native people is to return again to our
Native place, the place that has never really left us in our
spirits, in our souls, the place of dawns and sunsets. I think
reservations need to get ready for us, those of us who have
it, because we're going to want to come home to die."
Sharon Day and Lee Staples of the American Indian
Gays and Lesbians organization talk about chemical abuse
and how it can make you not bother about safe sex,etc. Lee
Staples says, "I remember I didn't hove respect for myself
when I was using. I remember instances when I was feeling
really bad about myself."
"HIV
The Quiz Show as allegory for life is an old device and
even an overused device, but, in the context of disease (and
particularly AIDS), it's an appropriate image to focus on. You
play the game - you take your chances.
Throughout the video, nc:iture shots and a soothing
Ojibwe Lullaby drift in and out, conveying the strong feeling
Native people have about Mother Earth and its healing
powers. Native spiritual healing ceremonies help Carole and
so do her close personal relationships and positive attitude:
11
Doy in and day out, living the lifestyle of a spiritual person
is the most important thing any of us can do, whether we're
experiencing severe illness or wonderful health."
Lori K. Beaulieu of the Native Indian AIDS Task Force
explains about the dangers of AIDS. She does say that AIDS
is transmitted by unprotected sex, blood, and sharing needles. Basic information is important, but AIDS isn't transmitted
that way, the HIV virus is. The difference isn't made clear.
, Later, she says "to avoid AIDS, don't do drugs and don't
share needles". Simply preaching abstinence to viewers who
may be addicted to drugs, is absurd and dangerous. There
needs to be information on how to clean your works with
water and bleach, to prevent transmission of the HIV virus,
whether needles are going to be shared or not! Also, there
is no mention of safe sex for lesbians. Not all lesbians use or
have use for condoms! If we are to help the fight against
AIDS, then ·we must break down all barriers and communicate truthfully to everyone.
HEALTH MINISTRY VIDEO
The Provincial Ministry of Health's AIDS Video Library
lists about eighty titles in the Library Catalogue. A very wide
range of AIDS-related issues are covered making this a fairly
comprehensive source of information. The quality of this
information, however, does seem to vary somewhat.
' by Ruby-Marie Dennis
When Carole speaks about her feelings on finding out
she has AIDS, it suddenly cuts to White Western Medicine
professionals, who for awhile take over telling her story. I
thought she was doing a fine job and found the interruption
offensive.
reviewed by Gordon Fisher
If all of this sounds like fairly heavy stuff, I don't want
you to be misled. There is a great deal of humour attached
to this work. Every old condom visual (and a couple of new
ones) is here, and the cast obviously took pleasure in their
work. The direction doesn't fail even at the end when the
pistol fires us into a blackout, and a warning that this isn't
just a Quiz Show, it's your Life.
Now we know what HIV+ is about, but there's alot that
it isn't about as well, and that's unfortunate. This is not to
criticize the effort and quality of what was created - it's just
that if the target audience is to learn as much as possible
about AIDS, then there's much more ta cover. The group this
video is aimed at is currently in the highest risk category for
coming into contact with the HIV virus; and, they are also
most at risk for going on to develop AIDS because of the
co-factors present in their lifestyle. For instance, the healthiest
of people will have their immune system compromised by
persistent use of drugs (prescription and street), poor nutritional habits, and lack of proper rest and exercise. Take a
hypothetical "street kid" and you will tend to find a body
abused on all of the above counts. Expose that same person
to any virus, and they will tend to succumb. My point is this:
how about getting some vital information onto the streets
about the importance of exercise and diet (you live on junk
food and your body will give you a junk response), and the
dangers of drug abuse (cocaine, marijuana, alcohol, poppers, and nicotine particularly suppress the immune system).
Even without the horror of AIDS, these are issues we
should be dealing with. In this "disposable" society, these kids
are our "styrofoam" brothers and sisters. On the surface AIDS
generates a fear we associate with any epidemic or disaster,
but look again and you will see that AIDS is a collecting point
upon which all kinds of fears are focused. One of the main
reasons for the slow response of our government and society
was because it required some very honest public discussions
about sexual practices and orientation. We are now made
more aware that "street kids" are at risk, but we have yet to
face up to the fact that they are only out there living that
lifestyle because we allow the conditions that facilitate their
move to the street to perpetuate.
Society has a responsibility to continue and improve the
process of educating our children about AIDS. Theatre Street
and HIV+ is a step in the right direction. The facts are there
for all of us. We have named the problem, and we have some
of the solutions. What's missing is more action, and all things
must end in action, or they just end.
"HIV+", by Theatrestreet '89
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
5
�VIDEO AGAINST AIDS
SCREENINGS AT VIDEO IN
DISCRIMINATION
This section consists of Amber Hollibaugh and Aliso
Lebo.w's. T~e S~cond Epidemic: on informative documentary
on d1scnmmotion coses negotiated by NYC's Human Rights
c;=c;immi~sion. Examine~ in .detail are two stories of people
living with AIDS: Margie Rivera, a young woman living in
Manhattan; and a community in Massachusetts which first
expressed and then overcome its prejudices by providing
support to a young AIDS patient and his family.
ANALYSIS
Tom Kalin' s They Are Lost To Vision Altogether is a poetic
retaliation to right-wing homophobia and anti-AIDS hysteria
which reclaims eroticism. Pratibha Parmar's Refroming AIDS
offers a wide-ranging global analysis of the AIDS epidemic,
focusing specifically on the construction of black sexuality in
relation to AIDS.
AIDS AND WOMEN
Safe Sex Slut is a pro-safe sex education reminder from '
Carol Leigh (aka Scarlot Harlot) a member of the activist
prostitutes group COYOTE. Cori: A Struggle for Life recounts
the heroic battle of one woman to care for her baby daughter
who had been infected with AIDS from a blood transfusion.
"Mildred Pearson: When You Love A Person", by Yonnick Durand Jean Carlomusto and Maria Maggenti's Doctors, Liars, and
Women: AIDS Activists Soy No To Cosmo documents the
angry protest made against Cosmopolitan Magazine by
women from the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP)
for the publishing of dangerously misleading information
NOVEMBER 29th , DECEMBER 6th and 13th
concerning the risk of AIDS to women.
at VIDEO IN, 1102 Homer Street
ADMISSION: $3 members $4 non-members Unemployed
PROGRAMME 2 :
FREE
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 6th at 8:00p.m.
with KEN MANN of the P. W.A. Coalition
VIDEO AGAINST AIDS brings together a persuasive and
involving cross-section of independently-produced works on
the AIDS crisis.
"Stiff Sheets'', by John Goss
RESISTANCE
The three two-hour programs that comprise the package include work by individuals in all sectors of independent
media production, award winning artists as diverse as Barbara Hammer, Isaac Julien, Michael Balsar, Andy Fabo, and
Tom Kalin, as well as activists associated with such groups as
the Gay Men's Health Crisis, the Haitian Women's Program,
and the Testing the Limits Collective. VIDEO AGAINST AIDS
is a cornerstone collection for AIDS education and support
groups, communicating with passion and clarity to anyone
concerned or touched by the pandemic.
Provocative and inspiring, VIDEO AGAINST AIDS (curated by John Greyson and Bill Horrigan, produced by
Kate Horsfield) - is not work you'll see on mainstream
television . The pieces range from highly sophisticated artist's
tapes to boldly confrontational work - from lyrical and
upbeat music videos to in-depth analysis on the AIDS crisis
-: from document~tions of aC!ivist demonstrations by people
with AIDS to reflective memorials of those who've died from
AIDS.
A variety of forms of resistance to the mainstream
media's construction of AIDS is offered. John Greyson's The
ADS Epidemic adopts a music-video format to preach against
ADS - acquired dread of sex. Barbara Hammer's Snow Job:
The Media Hysteria of AIDS critiques the representation of
AIDS in the popular press. In We Are NOT Republicans, Adam
Hussuk and Robert Huff document the disruption made by
AIDS activists at the 1988 Republican presidential convention. Stiff Sheets by John Goss, similarly indicts public health
officials and politicians for the lack of adequate and humane
care for PWA's in Los Angeles, this time by documenting a
mock fashion show staged by ACT UP activists.
A CTN/SM
Youth Against Monsterz's Another Mon is a short and
retort to all the Jerry Falwells of the world. Testing the
L1m1ts (Port 1) produced by the collective of the same name
ad~r.esses the politics of AIDS by documenting the range of
act1v1st responses to the chronic inadequacies in government
health care, the legal system, education, and scientific research.
s~s~
LOSS
E.miay Wilso~'s A Plague Hos Swept My City, is an
associative evocation of the fear and confusion the pandemic
has generated. Ann Akiko Loriyasu's Gob focuses on a friend
who has died of AIDS. Andre Burke's A intricately weaves
layers of sound and image to question the threat to sexual
desire and identity posed by AIDS. British producer Isaac
Julie~'s _This Is Not~ AID~ Advertisement offers a lyrical and
meditative celebration of life and sexuality urging viewers to
"Feel no guilt in your desire."
'
VIDEO AGAINST AIDS : Ordering Information, write or call:
Video Data Bank
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
280 South Columbus Drive,
Chicago,lllinois 60603
Chicago (312) 443-3793
New York City: (212) 233-3441
Toll Free (800)634-8544
FAX :(212) 608-5496
PROGRAMME 1
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 29th at 8:00 p.m.
with ROBIN BARNETT of the Women and AIDS Proiect
PWAPOWER
In Survival of the Delirious Canadian producers Michael
Bolsar and Andy Fabo invoke metaphors from Native
American mythology and weave them into a narrative concerned with the often hallucinatory effect the epidemic has
on persons living with AIDS. Work Your Body, produced by
NYC's Gay Men's Health Crisis as part of its Living With AIDS
television show, offers a variety of life-affirming testimonies
from HIV antibody positive people and PWA's
"A Plague Hos Swept My City", by Emioy Wilson
MOURNING
Yannick Durand's Mildred Pearson: When You Love A
Person recounts a mother's dedication to her son as she
learns he is gay and gravely ill from AIDS. David Thompson's
The Inaugural Display of the Names Proied Quilt commemorates the unparalleled public memorial created when
the Quilt's first 1, 920 panels - each one for a person dead
from AIDS, were unfolded in Washington, DC. Stashu
Kybartas' s Donny is a heartfelt and complex commemoration
of a young man in various stages of his illness.
For Canadian Distribution:
VTape
183 Bathurst Street, 1st Floor
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5T2R7
(416)863-9897
FAX(416)360-0781
COMMUNITY EDUCATION
Patricia Benoit's Se Met Ko, produced by the Haitian
Women's Program, is a model fictional analysis of attitudes
and misconceptions about AIDS within a Haitian-American
neighbourhood. The tape uses indigenous cultural references
and socially-specific occasions to demonstrate how communities, wit_h individuals acting in enlightened cooperation,
can responsibly respond to the AIDS crisis.
PROGRAMME 3 :
"We Are NOT Republicans",
by Adam Hossuk and Robert Huff
6
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 13TH AT 8:00p.m.
Associate Member of the PWA
with BRIAN TEIXEIRA Coalition
VIDEO AGAINST Al DS
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
Cori: A Struggle For Life
�National
"NOW
PLAYING"
Condom pass in "Now Playing", by David Maclean
"Now Ployingn is the third independent video produced
by David Maclean. His video work has dealt almost exclusively with themes related to gay social culture. ("Bon
Voyage My Loven, "It's Your Time"). Recently, David was in
town (from Toronto) performing in "Quarantine of the Mind",
at the Pitt Gallery.
Sue Jenkins: Tell me about the your most recent
videotape.
David Maclean: Now Playing is a videotape that explores a variety of gay men's experiences within the shadow
· of the AIDS epidemic. I've used a thematic base of location
in terms of the present and the past, and the present and the
future. Now Playing addresses where we are as a "community" of gay men. The story's about this group of gay men
who have came to the cinema to see a film, but the scheduled
film isn't available and they have to wait for another one to
arrive. This facilitates ,through a suspension of disbelief, them
sharing stories about where they' re at now in their lives and
in their sexuality, mourning the past, and people who have
died, and feeling that they're in limbo ... where do we go
now ... lt looks at how gay men feel about AIDS, at how people
feel. There's the element of confusion and fear, of a holding
zone if you will.
Why did you choose a cinema for the setting ?
I chose the location of a movie house because cinema
has often been a way that gay men have found a language
of expression and experience for themselves, funnelled
through Hollywood films. There's been strong identification
with female screen stars who express emotion in a way that
men are traditionally not allowed. But there's also a closet
that goes along with this because it's been a way that gay
men don't have to address their emotional experience directly. The onus hasn't been on us to talk about what it means
to be a gay man, without all that accoutrement.
You think many gay men have fantasized around female
screen stars?
Well yes. With the Marilyn Monroe myth there's wanting
to be desirable, and loved, but underneath there's the idea
that the only way you can have that is to turn yourself into
something else. I think it's an issue gay men have been
grappling with for a long time. Oh, to be accepted I have to
be more masculine, or younger, or in this style .. I have to be
less than I am. Even in this sophisticated period of time we' re
living in, I don't know any gay man that doesn't have some
problem with that area, about what it means to be a man.
As a gay man you're seen as giving up control and power.
When you do this you're set apart, but you still have to go to
work, and affect a certain look to fit into the office, or
wherever you work. It's the endless, fluctuating, uncertain
areas of image. Who am I? What am I supposed to be like?
As an artist with a history of using drag, and identification
with film stars like Marilyn Monroe and others, I feel a
responsibility to move beyond that without any of the masks
and the defensiveness around the movie thing. Now the onus
becomes what am I feeling? ... How do I funnel it directly
without the safe place of "I'll be ready in a few minutes .. ;ust
let me get my makeup on and I can talk to you ... ".
goes off and has a quickie in the bathroom. If it's a memory,
it's a good memory. We've learned and hove to keep
re-learning how to have safe sex.
In the tape some gay men reveal their fantasies of
romance, being cared about, being touched emotionally
too ...
Well the film scenarios often portray a heightened sense
of the emotional possibilities in relationships. Gay mole
culture hos been very influenced by commercialization of
experience i.e. the commercialization of sex, and for awhile
sex seemed to be the only currency. While I'm not in any way
opposed to sexual expression, I know for myself and friends
I've talked to in private situations, that what we really want
in life and relationships is something more endowed with
emotional trust and love. These things con be very unpopular
in the stork, block, noir, late eighties but that's really what we
hove to struggle for ... more honestness in our communication, on all levels. In my performance and in the tape Now
Playing there's gay men talking about the tradeoff. Does
giving up promiscuity mean you' re going to get a white picket
fence, a home and lover forever? It's about balancing the
extremes. What are we looking for as we move within a
community that's been totally changed? AIDS has brought
such upheaval, but it's an opportunity to ask some more
serious questions and maybe find a maturity in our community that hasn't been there before.
One of the characters in "Now Playing" complains: "The
condom iust means one more barrier, more tangible than the
emotional barriers we erected before ... / can't stand the
sanctimonious talk about safe sex when so few of us are
willing to examine how men have abused each other in the
post, before we had AIDS ...as if everything was perfect
before. I've hod safe sex but I haven't learned how to practice
safe love yet."
That's a combination of what I know about gay men.
It's very unpopular to admit one's emotional needs cause
we're such a cool generation. AIDS has brought with it all
kinds of new problems. The immediate thing was how do we
prevent transmission of the virus, so it seemed everything was
focused on sexual activity. I'm sort of working this out in my
show as well (Quarantine of the Mind), with the character
who's leading the safe sex workshop. Gay men have a lots
of emotional/psychological stuff to work through and come
to terms with. Even before AIDS there were all kinds of things
about how gay men and men in general relate to each other
- the adequacy of how they can communicate and share
emotion, affection, and all that. Now there's AIDS. We can't
focus any less on the interpersonal difficulties we have as a
community, if anything we have to focus even more.
Especially when friends are dying around you ..
How did you research to find out how some gay men
ore feeling, and did the men involved find it difficult to speak
about such personal stuff, even with a script?
My research was direct observation. Being aware of my
feelings and those of my friends and immediate support
group, as well as observing responses of the gay community
to AIDS. Some of the men hod acting experience, some
didn't. They got ta address some very real concerns. There's
a real impoverishment of lesbian and gay male imagery, so
it was an opportunity to do something in a theatricized way,
that came close to the bone of their real experience. There
was excitement and a bit of fear because it's a very "feelings"
tape, as non-trendy and embarrassing as that is for people
sometimes, but I think that's all we really have to grapple
with, our personal experience.
Was the audience you had in mind for the tape specifically gay men?
It's twofold. Definitely my work's aimed at other gay men
but I've also got a lot of response to the tape and performance from women. Like women, gay men haven't always
been allowed a voice. The work is about being very confrontative in talking about personal experience, reclaiming the
experience and saying "you're the one that's got to work that
experience out. n It's not going to be the straight mole that
defines and decides your role and how you cope in the world.
In terms of a general audience, my approach is humanistic.
Average people trying to cope. Anyone can relate. AIDS isn't
something just affecting gay men.
It's almost like there's an unwritten law between gay and
straight men-that if you're going to be a gay man, then at
least make sure you ore different enough in appearance and
behaviour so that you're easily distinguished from those who
are straight.
Definitely. It's the endless desire. The some thing women
ore bottling with. It's the straight, mole, heterosexist target.
As long as we con target you, as long as we con keep you in
a place that makes us feel comfortable, and as long as we
can control how you express yourself, then everything's fine.
But the minute you wont to define that for yourself, or ploy
with that, then there's trouble. I think gay men and women
have to keep fighting for that right to shed some of the
<:tereotypic straitjackets. As a gay man or woman, there is
this sort of endlessness of how you can express yourself and
be as a person.
Some people do feel anxious around individuals they
can't easily categorize, as if another's difference is perceived
as a challenge or threat...
Yes I It sounds so utopian, but to think that one day things
could get to a state where we weren't so threatened by
everything that's so different, so other. That the other wasn't
the enemy to be lassoed and put in its place. I'm working on
.that in my tape. In the community, subtle lines have been
drown about who was and who wasn't responsible in terms
of the AIDS crisis. Who was trashy and slutty, as if those
people could all be grouped together and disposed of. These
people are part of the fabric of the community but when the
heat is on it's "We// that's not me, I'm not like that. n There's
this horrible division of responsibilities - presenting people
as either guilty or innocent victims. It all comes down to
society's hatred and mistrust of human sexual expression and
variety of experience. There's a heavy layering of morolism
and Judea-Christian values that supports the status quo and
heterosexist crop. We're still bottling this.
There's a real lack of direct dues about time frames in
the tape.
Yes. Is it happening in the theatre or what? I'm representing a larger framework in terms of location, time, and
relationships. Some of these ore symbolic. It's illustrating
levels of contact, and isn't that what defines people's
sexuality? Let's face it, it's what you do when you have contact
in a sexual way. We hove to emphasize that sex is okay and
still a good thing. The media hype with its old lessons of
morality has some people struggling to not be crippled by
fear and self-hatred. In the tape people group off and there's
a nostalgia, a real angst because, before there was a real
celebration around sexuality that certainly isn't there
anymore. Now there's a real hesitancy, a reticence about
sexual expression. When the two guys sit over coffee and talk,
it's as significant an encounter as when one ofthe character's
Yes, it's emotional fallout that we're just beginning to
feel. In the seventies there was a culture of immediacy and
satisfaction, where do I get my next pair of 501 jeans? That's
been turned upside down and there are going ta be people
who don't know how to cope or deal with it. I'm speaking of
common experience, including myself. It's a new game in
town.
~
"Quarantine of the Mind"
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
7
�National
REQUIEM. FOR GAETAN
The following "fake" video script was originally written
almost two years ago as a contribution to a Queer Media
issue of Square Peg, a British quarterly exploring lesbian and
gay culture. The editors had requested an essay addressing
the relative wealth and health of lesbian and gay video
production in Canada. Certainly the subject was warranted:
Canadian video art had become a predictable programming
block on the circuit of queer film/video festivals in the States
and Europe. Indeed, the curators of Only Human, a large
international survey of video art addressing issues of sexuality
(presented atthe 1987 American Film Institute Video Festival)
confessed that they were faced with three interlocking
programming dilemmas that were messing up their assumptions of equitable balance: too much gay/lesbian content;
too much AIDS content; and too much Canadian work!
(Luckily for all, they decided to embrace inequity).
In trying to meet the editors mandate, I decided that
channel-hopping as a literary device would better serve the
subject, than attempting any sort of authoritative overview.
The arbitrary truth of clicking through fragments of a deeply
fragmented culture seemed more appropriate than trying to
string together in awkward linear fashion a few of the
conflicted factors that produce our culture, and culture (like
yoghurt) our productions. In no particular order: "Canadian"
movie stars, customs censorship, quarantine legislation, born
again TV, art critics who speak for artists, AIDS politics, safer
sex...
Regarding Requiem for Gaetan nearly two years later,
I'm predictably struck by how little, and how much, has
changed. Anti-gay violence, spurred on by the AIDS crisis,
continues to escalate. Family Ties is no longer on the air. And
the Band Played On by Randy Shilts became a best-seller,
and the mini-series rights were snapped up by the producers
of Dynasty. Jim Bakker is in jail. The Smiths broke up. The
AIDS numbers (of cases, of deaths) have doubled, literally.
Above all, an AIDS activist movement has emerged which is
fighting forthe rights of people living with AIDS, securing new
treatments and protesting discrimination.
Predictably, this fake video script didn't sit still. The
safersex-ads-by-famous-dead-artists were produced as interludes for The Pink Pimpernel, a tape I made this year
focusing on the struggle for AIDS treatment drugs. The elusive
Gaetan Dugas will be the subject of a forth-coming feature
film: a murder-mystery-musical exploring (and hopefully
exploding) the search for the "source" of AIDS.
It has become commonplace to note that the rich critical
discourse exploring AIDS and its representations (of which
this issue of Video Guide is a part) has in turn triggered an
awakening of complex critical theory addressing lesbian and
gay culture(s). Long gone are the seventies when cultural
homophobia was (somew~at) out of fashion and gay critics
seemed unable to get beyond the notions of "stereotypes"
and "positive role models". Nearly gone are the eighties,
when an ascendent right-wing and a hysterical mass media
succeeded in re-pathologizing gay desire in distinctly
nineteenth century terms, conflating our sex with disease,
danger and death. ls it this exceedingly polarized representational agenda which has forced us to sharpen our
critical tools, to subject "queer art" to the same theoretical
scrutiny that feminist theory (via Lacon, Barthes, etc.) has
demanded of women's art? Certainly AIDS has become, as
Jan Grover noted, a call to arms for a new generation of gay
men armed to the teeth with the dubious pleasures and
dangers of post-modernist theory, the results of which are to
be witnessed in the placards for AIDS demos, in the safer-sex
performance cabarets, in the outpouring of video art addressing the epidemic. Certainly the urgency of the moment
has forced people to both work faster and think harder.
Certainly questions of efficacy become more pressing when
the terms are literally life and death. Certainly the safety of
traditional cultural forms of inquiry (like the overview essay
addressing queer Canadian video art) become much more
problematic than they already were. Certainly the fragmented address of channel-hopping seems more appropriate to address the very queer place this fag still finds
himself in.
John Greyson is a Toronto video artist whose 19 tapes
and films include "Urinal", "The World Is Sick (sic)", and "The
ADS Epidemic". He recently co-curated a 6-hour video compilation of 22 AIDS tapes entitled Video Against AIDS, which
is available for next to nothing from: V/Tape Distribution,
416-863-9897. Special rotes for AIDS groups.
An item in the TV Guide catches my eye. A documentary
on the life and times of Gaetan Dugas, the French Canadian
airline steward reputed to be the infamous Patient Zero, the
man who brought AIDS to America. The page is torn though,
so I can't read the channel listing. It started five minutes ago.
I scan the channels with my clicker looking for it.
Channel 2: ... Lorne Green (a Canadian), dolled up as
the Marquis de Sade, turns to glare into the camera and
whisper profoundly (with an atrocious French accent) : "There
is no better way to know death than to link it to some licentious
image". CLICK
8
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
Is a Bore (boom boom)
Channel 3 :... camera surveys stairwell, panning over
As in "I've seen it all
splintered wood, broken plaster, debris. TV voice-over: "Last
night, a bomb ripped apart the stairwell of this well-known
a hundred times before" (boom boom)
Vancouver lesbian and gay bookstore. Although no-one was
CLICK
injured, an anonymous caller has claimed responsibility and
threatens to bomb the store again". Cut to TV journalist,
Channel 11 :... Talkshow host turns to camera: ''Today
standing in front of the cash register. "Little Sisters manager
we are joined by two art critics from London and New York,
says the bomb is probably connected to the controversial , who have agreed to appear on the condition that their
anonymity be preserved. We'll call them Mary and Peter (not
AIDS quarantine legislation enacted by B.C.'s Socred governtheir real names) for convenience sake". Cut to medium shot
ment yesterday" ... CLICK
revealing man and woman in shadow, their faces obscured.
Channel 4: ... head and shoulder shot of a hot young
Host turns to them "Mary you recently visited Toronto. How
stud in a leather jacket moaning in pre-orgasmic ecstasy.
would you characterise video art production there right
Camera tilts down and dollys around to hip-level side view
now?"
to reveal that he is wearing a condom while receiving a
Mary: Quite healthy, I suppose. Of course, many of the
blow-job. Freeze-frame text over image: "Andy Warhol says
artists still seem to be obsessed with sex, with sexual politics.
Live Out Your Fantasies with Safer Sex" ...CLICK
The Toronto Sex School, if you will (to quote one of our
Channels 5 and 6 (for some reason my cable tuner is
colleagues), remains unprecedented.
stuck between them) :...David Main of l 00 Huntley Street
(Toronto's own PTL Club) welcomes Jim and Tammy Bakker
Host: What's so special about Toronto? Peter?
for a "Just Say No To Drugs, Sex, AIDS, Adultery, Alcohol,
Tobacco and Adultery" Special. Sound and image cuts in with
Peter: Well, the issues of state censorship have obviously
concert footage of the Smiths on the other channel singing:
played
a central role. Not only is the provincial film and video
"Boyfriend in a coma. I know. I know its serious ... There were
censorship continuing, and continuing to resisted, but also,
times when I could have murdered him ... Do you really think
Canadian customs continue to seize tapes and magazines,
he'll pull through?" (At first glance, I think this might be the
especially those with gay content. The famous courtcases, of
Gaetan Dugas documentary because Jim holds up the Nacourse, revolve around the censoring of safer-sex ads in porn
tional Enquirer issue with Gaetan on the cover. It turns out
magazines. And now new federal legislation has been
there was also a story about Jim and Tam my in that
proposed which would virtually criminalize c;my image of
issue) ... CLICK
more than one naked person, no matter what their
preference. All these factors have helped video artists to band
Channel 7: ... Alex (the yuppy star of Family Ties played
together and fight for their rights by producing tapes about
by Michael J. Fox, a Canadian) is sitting at the kitchen table
sex and sexuality.
checking out the stock market. Mallory (his TV sister played
by someone, not a Canadian) enters, drops a book down on
Mary: I think also the presence of string feminist, gay
the table. Alex (picking it up): What's this.. you're actually
and lesbian movements has had an impact and the fact that
reading? (canned laughter) Gee, Mall, I didn't know you
the arts community, especially the alternative and media arts
knew how. (more laughter)
groups, have worked closely with these movements. For gay
artists, I think the struggles of the seventies and eighties were
Mallory: I'm reviewing it for my English class. It's that
a real inspiration - the trials of Body Politic which was an
book by Randy Shilts "And the Band Played On" - you know,
important gay liberation magazine, the baths raids, he washthe one that got such excellent reviews in both the straight
room and park arrests. Also, the internal struggles around
and gay press. (laughter)
pornography and racism, for instance.
Alex; But Mallory, what can you say .a bout it? There
aren't any .pictures) (laughter)
Mallory: Actually my angle is analyzing why it received
so much acclaim at this time. I want to explore the books
double messages: the simultaneous critiquing and validation
of the mainstream medical establishment;the appropriation
of gay liberation discourse to buttress deeply conservative
positions; and finally, his dangerously reactionary views
concerning sexuality an its regulation.
Alex: Gee, Mallory, are you on drugs or something
(laughter)
Mallory: Right now I'm working on how he constructs
the Gaetan Dugas story, turning him into a dangerous, exotic
Patient Zero, a latter-day Typhoid Mary. In particular, the fact
that he's Quebecois is perfect - not American, exotic, Other,
but still not too Other, because then Shilts would have been
called racist.
Alex: Whatever gets you off, Mall I (laughter) ...CLICK
Channel 8: ... Grainy, black and white image of two
naked men blowing smoke over each others bodies through
straws. Freeze-frame. text over image: "Jean Genet says Live
Out Your Fantasies .. With Safer Sex" ... CLICK
Channel 9 :... concert footage of Dionne Warwick and
Burt Bacharach on stage singing "That's what friends are
for." Cut to demonstrators picketing outside a concert hall in
Vancouver, chanting "That's NOT what friends are for".
Camera pulls out to reveal a TV correspondent speaking into
camera (same as Channel 3 - must be same show). ''This
celebrity fundraiser for British Columbia's Socred Party is
being picketed by angry gay demonstrators. They feel
Bacharach and Warwick, two celebrities who have helped in
the fight against AIDS, are being used to cleanse the image
of conservative Socreds, who passed controversial AIDS
quarantine legislation in December." Camera cuts to confrontation between protesters and indignant concert
goers... CLICK
Channell O: ...long shot of smoky nightclub. Craig Russell (star of Outrageous! a Canadian) is onstage, doing his
celebrated impersonation of Tallulah Bankhead:
Baudrillard (boom boom)
Host: Who are these gay video artists?
Peter: Well, I suppose we can name them - though I
wonder if they would appreciate such a narrow definition of
their work. Still - David Mcintosh, Colin Campbell, Rowley
Mossop and Tom Balatka, Michael Balser, Midi Onodera,
Richard Fung, Marusia Bociurkiw, Magaret Moores, Almerinda Trassavos, David Maclean ...
Mary: But I think it's also important to name straight
feminist artists, like Lisa Steele or Tanya Mars or the Clichettes, or men like Clive Robertson, Kim Tomczak, Rodney
Werden, because these people all work together...
Host: What impact has AIDS had on these artists?
Mary: Less perhaps than their counterparts in New York
or London - but then Toronto is still a year behind in terms
of response - in all of Canada there are less than 1500
cases as of last week ...CLICK
Channel 12: ... "ln news updates tonight, Air Canada has
filed a libel suit against Randy Shilts, a uthor of And the Band
Played On. Air Canada claims their image has been tarnished by the book' s claim that Patient Zero was Air Canada
flight attendant Gaetan Dugas ...CLICK
Channel 13: (seems to be the same show as Channel
11 )...medium shot of Peter and Mary in shadow. Mary is
talking.
Mary:" ... and of course, they' re all very defensive about
being Canadian, always pointing out second-rate movie stars
who are Canadian, that sort of thing. It's a rather predictable
inferiority complex, playing out neo-colonial past and
present, feeling they can't possibly compete with work being
done in London or New York or California.
Peter: I agree, and I think it at least partially explains
their predilection for fragmented narrative strategies. You
understand, their insecurities make them collage together
several stories at once,and they never adequately conclude
them. Closure requires confidence after all. Also, their addiction to quotation of popular and commercial sources, like
Hollywood. The self-conscious use of parody, or satire - they
never make emphatic or direct statements, everything is
displaced and diffused.
�National
Mory: It's as thought they're terrified of committing
themselves, so often they put their words into unsuitable
character's mouths. Often there's this disjuncture - the
character is o fool saying something quite seriously. A sort of
perverse ventriloquism.
Host: Con you tell us why you hove to protect your
identities?
Peter: Well, it's not easy being o critic from New York or
London these days. The Canadians don't seem to appreciate
our interests in their work.
Mory: And we've both hod death threats for writing
about the bod acting that seems to characterise their
topes ...CLICK
Channel 14: ... Man attempts to seduce o straight-backed wooden chair. Choir refuses. (I recognize man os Claude
Jutra, a French Canadian, reprising his role in A Choiry Tole.)
Mon tries again, to no avail. Mon offers condoms to chair,
chair is interested Man puts condoms on four legs of the chair,
they roll around on the floor together. Freeze-frame. Text
over image: "Norman Maclaren and Claude Jutra say Live
Out Your Fantasies - With Safer Sex" ... CLICK
Channel 15: ... close-up of Gaetan Dugas, the black and
white photo from the National Enquirer. o disembodied
voice, a woman, bitter and clipped, a Quebecoise. "Look,
I've done o lot of research on my own. I've talked with maybe
two dozen specialists, here, in the U.S., in Europe. They all
say there's no such thing as patient zero. It doesn't make
sense medically, the epidemiology is all wrong. The cluster
groups around the continent, and the numbers, indicate no
one person could hove been responsible. Plus all the new
stuff about co-factors, about syphilis. And l'vetold o thousand
reporters - but do you think anyone printed it? Noto chance.
They just wont o photo of Patient Zero's mother. So forget
it."
Music fades, credits begin to roll. I've missed the whole
documentary. Maybe they'll repeat it later in the week. I
phone the station but the line is busy. On the screen, it says:
"All the facts and stories in the preceding program ore true."
I click my set bock to Channel 2, to Lorne Green as the
~
Marquis de Sode.
"THE WORLD IS
SICK (SIC)"
Review by Mark Turrel
"The World is Sick(sic)", by John Greyson
In the vacuum of relevant state, scientific, medical and
corporate action, to meet the diverse needs of PLWA's
(Persons Living With AIDS) and those frontline communities
facing the AIDS crisis, there has been on unprecedented
international response from grassroots organizations attempting to fill the void and transform the mechanisms of
health core and education. If video con indeed serve in the
mobilization, analysis, and documentation of this important
development, then John Greyson's The World Is Sick(sic)
successfully inserts itself into this process, in several ways.
The disclaimer that commences The World is Sick(sic)
introduces the producer's position to the subject, almost
intimate in setting up o conscious exchange between
producer ond viewer: "There ore many different versions of
what actually happened in Montreal; this unauthorized
author-centric version should be viewed with caution." A
layered dynamic tokes place in which the authority of the
official conference documented is refused, while the viewer
is constantly challenged to deny the authority of Greyson's
subjective refroming. This possibility of self-determination
demands that viewers become octive(ist) in formulating their
understanding of the subject and echos activist Simon
Wotney's statement in the tape that calls on PLWA's internotionollyto "refuse the authority of medico/ researchers, refuse
to accept the authority of the state."
Greyson elaborates further on his post employment 1 of
the images, mechanisms and language of the mainstream,
and frames this documentary of the Vth International Conference on AIDS with a humorous parody of news coverage
by C.B.C.'s The Journal, synthesizing o critique both of the
AIDS establishment ond the representation of AIDS in the
media. The role of reporter Andrea Austin Sibley (David
Roche) structurally links the tape and facilitates the scathing
critique of journalism's biases, language and conventions, its
assignment of authority to the state's scientific and medical
"experts", and its traditional distaste for "those scruffy activists" (as Ms. Sibley puts it). Though trying to maintain the
placatory media calm of her reporting intact, the
beleaguered journalist's descriptions of the state's and
science's selfless research efforts, are constantly interrupted
by the presence of the AIDS activists in attendance, thereby
calling the bluff on rampant AIDS careerism and government
negligence.
As documentary of the strategic intervention of AIDS
activists at the Vth International Conference on Al OS, the tape
lends itself to transforming the "face" of Al OS representation
through interviews, statements and performances, with an
international, multi-racial and mixed gender collection of
AIDS activists and community representatives. A sense of the
global proportions of the crisis is established, thereby challenging the usual North American narcissism that prevails in
coverage of AIDS. Paradoxically, the some footage informs
us of the need for appropriate approaches to education and
healthcare in the specific local community it is aimed at.
An overview of the diverse group representatives present
at the conference, include AIDS activists from England,
Mexico, Trinidad, Thailand, South Africa, U.S. and Canada,
with representatives from specific groups - prostitutes,
transsexuals, and those who use I. V. drugs - from Australia,
Canada, and the U.S .. This provided o long overdue forum
for the concerns and needs of affected communities ignored
by the state and/or misrepresented in mainstream media.
Contrasted in o unapologetically pointed manner, is
coverage of the official conference itself. Brian Mulroney is
depicted mouthing words that, in the context of both the
presence of the activists, and the tape itself, sound like
generalized, inane platitudes. Greyson puts to use o sort of
guerilla tactic in his camera work and post-production. A
banner - "Mulroney, You've Left Us to Die" - occupies the
lower half ofthe screen and a computer-generated Pinnochio
nose sprouts from his face, belying his words. Introduced as
part of the heroic struggle to find o cure for AIDS, are
interviews with unsuspecting corporate representatives from
the Conference's massive trade show for pharmaceutical
and medical technology. They divulge information on multimillion dollar profits, soaring projected sales figures, and
anticipated shares of the "market".
In the framing and defacement of Mulroney's image,
and the manipulation of the corporate representatives, ·
Greyson merrily enters a thought provoking realm of visual
activism. Akin to propaganda; pretensions of journalistic
ethics and mythical objectivity ore dispensed with and made
expedient to the urgency or necessity of relaying information.
It differs from propaganda in that the viewer becomes
consciously privy to the act of the message's construction,
rather than manipulated by its finished presentation. In much
of The World is Sick(sic), there pervades a playful sense of
representational revenge. Revenge not only against the AIDS
establishment, but also against the mass media. Wrth a track
record of sensationalism, racism, and homophobia, the
media hos ployed the role of little more than an opportunistic
infection, for those coping with illness.
Greyson's dramatization cleverly illustrates how both
literally and metaphorically the stage in Montreal was seized,
as the battalions of reporters and cameras captured the
activists' media stunt, creating an unprecedented opportunity
for the airing of grievances and demands.
Dense with information, The World is Sick(sic) is initially
overwhelming, but ovoids boring the viewer with rhetoric.
Rother, it seduces with o dynamic, colourful, visual barrage
of computer manipulated backdrops to interviews, keying,
and a constant shifting bock and forth between documentary
and humorous narrative. An original upbeat score demands
#AIDS Action nowH, o coll for activism presented with the
catchy hook of o music video. It suggests, almost, an attempt
to "glamorize" political activism, possibly marketing the notion to a consumer public with little patience for the traditional
didacticism of left-wing dodos.
The World is Sick(sic) has the potential to subvert, inform,
entertain, and politicize on otherwise decentralized, scattered
population to whom activism is o remote phenomenon. Yet
here we encounter the still unresolved conflicts inherent in the
prodoction and distribution of independent video: Will this
tape reach its potential audience? Another target audience
could be community groups already engaged in AIDS activism - presenting a positive picture of the range of
strategies different groups have adopted so far, and
demonstrating the manipulation of media that formed the
basis of the Montreal intervention.
Akin to seeing the "emperor's new clothes" from o more
knowing perspective, is Greyson's re"representation of the
media, AIDS establishment and the pomp of the Montreal
conference. Thus informed, having participated in this
decoding of authority, one is invited to participate in an active
response to the deadly moss deceptions induced by state and
media. If silence equals death, then this work at the very least,
creates o context and history for the activism of raising one's
voice and affirming the possibility of life in a future with AIDS.
1
"The Pink Pimpernel", by John <..;;reyson
Urine/, Moscow Does Not Believe In Queers, The ADS
Epidemic, The Perils of Pedagogy, Kipling Meets the Cowboys, The Jungle Boy.
~
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
9
�Global
CONSTRUCTING
DOCUMENTARY
by Alexandra
Juhasz
"Prostitutes, Risk, and AIDS", by Alexandra Juhasz
The AIDS crisis is not merely a crisis in health, but one
of authority. To claim authority over AIDS justifies distance:
distance from contagion, from the "kinds of people" who ore
sick, from their differences, from their desperation, and from
responsibility for a crisis of biological origin but social protraction. By analyzing on NBC Special News Report Life, Death,
and AIDS (aired on January 21, 1986), I will discuss how the
moss media hos claimed authority over this crisis through a
controlling and distancing discourse. The implication of the
media's hold on AIDS ore more for reaching than the hours
pegged for news specials; for the television is on authority
which constructs, interprets, and thus contains and controls,
the social, political, economic, personal and medical. "It is in
the world of representation that we manage our fear of
disease, isolating it as surely as if we had placed it in
quarantine," cautions historian Sander Gilman, in AIDS and
Syphilis: The Iconography of Disease.•
I wish to consider the ways in which the codes and form
of television documentary work to advance the mainstream
media's agenda concerning AIDS; that a cautious and distanced relationship ta this crisis is permissible. Perhaps
surprisingly, documentary form has only recently been discussed critically, rather, it is usually taken as given that
documentary faithfully records real events for the lofty purposes of education or enlightenment. But, form that erases
itself still constructs meaning; and form that is hidden is only
vanished through familiarity. I would assert that the organizing principles of documentary have been so hard to see
because they reflect the basic power relations of dominant
culture. Thus, for example, the mainstream media's account
of AIDS perpetuates already exist~nt hierarchies of authority
in its very construction, if not also in rhetorical design.
Contrasting the formal and ideological constructions of Life,
Death and AIDS with those of alternative AIDS documentary
will help to illuminate the manufactured codes which the
mainstream dons as "natural" to present its "truthful" renditions of a subjective and political discourse about AIDS. If
alternative AIDS media wishes to contradict and re-define the
all-powerful but all-irresponsible agenda of the dominant
media regarding AIDS, a firm understanding of the formal
organization of mainstream representation is a most primary
tactic for mounting this oppositional practise.
AIDS documentaries, in general, mimic and confirm the
social formations upon which they report. Film and video,
mediums of mechanical reproduction, are most commonly
seen in documentary production to "reflect" reality. Although
the relationship between this reflection and truth and/or
objectivity has been challenged within the academy, as well
as within more popular productions like The Thin Blue Line,
The David Letterman Show and Broadcast News, most news
and documentary productions still bank upon the spectator's
willing disbelief about the constructedness and bias of
television reportage. TV soys, and spectators believe, that the
camera records what is out there to see. In a society where
hierarchies of power define all social relations, it is not
surprising then that the documentation of the AIDS crisis
reflects the already operating systems of power relations
which define the meanings and workings of this disease, and
society in general. Because, to date, AIDS has been a disease
whose course has moved largely along lines of race, class,
and sexual behaviour, the media need only report "realisti- ,
cally" what exists in the natural world to legitimize the
rankings of power found in their already working definitions
of the socially "ill" and "healthy".
Life, Death and AIDS depicts Tom Brokaw asking questions of a wall of four video monitors, each holding the head
of an expert. Only white, male experts' heads fill its monitors.
In mainstream documentary's terms, this can be explained
not as sexism or racism, but as the unbiased reportage of the
world-out-there - a sexist, racist place where women and
10
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
people of color ore under-represented in the ranks of experts.
But, there ore alternatives to the prime-time logic that insists
that the existing, dominant structures are the only possible
organizations of power. For example, the videotape Women
and AIDS, a tape I produced for GMHC's Living With AIDS
Show, with Jeon Corlomusto, reflects a world where the only
experts ore women, many of whom are women of color.
Professional women easily take the seats of their white, male
peers in the tape's typical talking heads shots. Similarly in
GMHC's Work Your Body and PWA Power, both made by
Carlomusto and Gregg Bordowitz, the experts of the tape ore
PWA's, who speak their needs and issues with force,
knowledge and insight.
Unfortunately, rectifying the imbalance of authority is
not always a matter of merely recognizing who doesn't speak
and making it possible for them to do so. For there are deeply
imbedded societal constraints which strongly withhold
authority of voice from many individuals. These constraints
are re-confirmed in television documentary where interviews
ore granted to those who always speak publicly. For example,
in Life, Death and AIDS, there is a limited line-up of individuals
who are granted the privilege to speak about AIDS: scientific
experts, doctors, a PWA (Person With AIDS) who was infected
through a contaminated blood transfusion, three gay male
PWAs, and archetypal Americans (firefighters, PTA Moms,
construction workers). The many people affected by AIDS,
but left unaccounted for in mainstream documentaries like
Life, Death and AIDS, ore those who ore never allowed the
power of speech in our society: poor people of color (especially women) who ore referred to, minimally, in the show by
blurred images of "ghetto" streets; mothers of infected
children, who ore infected themselves, but who ore represented only vicariously by the doe-eyed images of sick babies;
prostitutes and l.V. drug users whose status as "criminals"
ensure not their invisibility, but voyeuristic, confrontational,
and only sometimes "consensual" images; gay teenagers,
who, like all teenagers ore at a real risk for infection, but who
have always been silenced. In his article The Spectacle of
AIDS, Simon Wotney discusses the implications of
mainstream reportage which guarantees that the majority of
PWAs are rarely seen: This disappearance is strategic, and
faithfully duplicates the positions the social groups most
vulnerable to HN found themselves in before the epidemic
began.
The project of the alternative media becomes the complicated task of being at once sensitive to, while striving to
alter, the power relations which limit public articulation in our
society. So, for example, as it is true that it is particularly
difficult for women to speak in patriarchal culture, it is also
true that underthe right conditions, women con and do speak
quite powerfully. There ore many strategies by which the
alternative media con create safe spaces from which women
feel comfortable speaking. In Women and AIDS, for instance,
the voice of a woman who is identified as "Anita: A Woman
Who Is HIV Positive", is accompanied not by her face, but by
images of women grocery shopping, walking on city streets,
coring for their children. This tactic allows the hitherto-invisible woman into the production, while still respecting her
fears of discrimination (especially against her children) if she
would be identified on television. Another strategy is used in
The Second Epidemic, produced by Amber Hollibaugh for the
New York City Commission on Human Rights AIDS Discrimination Unit. Here, one sequence is devoted to the words
and image of Margie Rivero, a Puerto Rican woman who
speaks candidly about her experiences with AIDS. The voice
of one brave woman expresses her experience, while taking
on the weight of all of her silenced sisters as well. Similarly,
a videomaker like Carol Leigh, a prostitutes rights and AIDS
activist, makes tapes where she speaks for a large community
of women who (like l.V. drug users) ore silenced because
speaking about their concerns ond needs regarding AIDS
also exposes them to prosecution fortheir "illegal" behaviour.
In the few coses where the mainstream media trains its
cameras on the disenfranchised, it assumes that this is
enough to compensate for the imbalances of public discourse. However, the "realistic" images created by turning
on network cameras, perpetuate, not contradict, the real
power relations they record . The talking-head interview is a
case in point. This documentary staple is never, in fact, merely
o head making words, on unidentified language source.
Tolking heads hove professions and ranks which flash over
their features as titles. They are filmed in rooms, houses, and
offices which reflect their social standing and position. They
are gendered. They have facial features which identify ethnicity. They have diverse relationships to spoken English accents, lingo, vocabulary, age, media-savvy. In o society
where authority is more often gauged by the trappings of
doss, race, and gender, than by the content or specificity of
one's argument, hierarchies of authority are immediately
assumed when o camera is turned on to record a head talking
in its' reality. Life, Death and AIDS again perpetuates the
position that the camera has only the power to record, ond
not to create, an individual's relationship to authority in its
talking-head interviews with PWAs.
There are several PWAs pictured in their "real", but
coded, talking-head-backdrops over the course of the hour
long news special. The show's most lovely PWA by far, that
darling of the mainstream media, the "innocent victim" of
AIDS, is Amy, a suburban married woman who was a
recipient of a contaminated blood transfusion; and, who is
interviewed with her blue-eyeshadowed, pretty face, seated
next to her husband by a roaring hearth in their suburban
home. Unlike this woman, the first gay male PWA presented
is not shown in his home. Rother, he is interviewed seated in
a hospital room. But not for long. Quickly, a still image cuts
over his continuing voice. In the image, he is dressed in a
hospital gown. He stands in a sterile, grey room with steel
medical equipment. A doctor stares into his eyes. Certainly,
the image is "real", but why this particularly real space of
discomfort and disempowerment as the natural space for the
not-so-innocent gay man with AIDS? The l.V. drug-users in
the tape, "honestly" depicted in their world, are interviewed
in on empty, burned-out, city lot - their home is the dirty,
fenced-in space where they shoot drugs.
In all three cases the camera more honestly reflects the
program' s assumptions and prejudices about its interviewees
than it does their worlds and words. There are alternatives to
the biased but "true" reflections of reality that have been
created in Life, Death and AIDS. For instance, the crew could
have sought a different place for interviewing the gay male
PWA: his suburban house, as tidy, neat and lovely as any
straight blood recipient's. Gay men live in houses too.
Similarly, the l.V. drug users could have been interviewed
feeling their most safe, comfortable and in control - not
when they are sick ond shooting up to feel better - but in their
own apartments.
Thus for, I have tried to discuss how the social divisions
which rule our society can be either reflected or challenged
by a documentary recording of these "real" relations. However, most of the media's operations of ideology ore worked
through the much more subtle, and therefore dangerous,
manipulations of form. The formal organization of a work
communicates as much, if not more, than the words being
spoken. A close analysis of-the introductory segment of life,
Death, and AIDS displays the way that the authoritative voice
of the piece is established formally. Ultimately, the voice of
this program will subtly enforce for its intended "general
public" audience that they, in opposition to an undefined but
understood other, need not be overly concerned about AIDS.
At the time of the program's production in January
1986, the media was finding itself in a difficult predicament.
The earlier, easily understandable, I'm-not-at-risk-and-youare structure of AIDS-risk definition was no longer quite so
�Global
AUTHORITY:
FORM AND AIDS
"The Second Epidemic", by Amber Hollibaugh and Aliso Lebow
clear cut, now that irrefutable scientific evidence was being
released which proved that heterosexuals were at risk for
AIDS. How could the media inform its audience that all were
at risk while assuring each individual television viewer (the
potential customer who can never be worried or angered
enough to turn off the TV and stop being primed to buy) not
to worry? In Life, Death, and AIDS we watch NBC take on
the difficult task of discussing the relative risk for "normal
Americans", while at the same time convincing them of their
relative safety, and their concurrent non-response.
How is this worked formally? The show begins with the
image of a thin tall woman, dressed to party, with high brown
ha ir. Her male friend is touching her protectively from behind.
"Remington Steele will not be seen tonight so that we can
bring you the following report. What has already been
introduced in these "insignificant" five seconds? First, we arc
being forced to miss a night of high hetero-romance-andmystery so that NBC's "we" can bring the audience "you"
something more serious, less enjoyable, and luckily only a
special report. Next week, and for many following, we' ll have
Remington Steele again. The thwarted crimes and deals of
wealthy blonds is ultimately much more important to NBC's
"we" and to us too. NBC the network, the force that rules the
programming flow, tells us its attitude towards the "Special":
begrudged, sighing tolerance: for this one special night we' ll
all be serious: enter a computer-generated screen of grey
with small black shapes forming jail-bar-like lines.
because there is only an infinitesimal amounts of the virus in
saliva. Martha Gever confirms this in her analysis of alternative media on AIDS, Picture of Sickness: Stuart Marshall's
Bright Eyes:
"Each news story, investigative report, panel discussion,
talk show, or "realistic" drama about AIDS circulated by the
moss media contributes to the shape of the narrative by which
the epidemic is made comprehensible to "the public" ... And
what the mass media has produced reveals its complicity in
constructing th e very fe ars it presumes judiciously to
mediate."
Life, Death and AIDS feeds our fears and says we' re right
to be wrong.
11
Then, Tom Brokaw's voice sounds as a photograph of
Rock Hudson lifts into the upper left corner of the grey grid
screen. Neither are identified, but both are to be recognized
and accorded their respective authority. "They were actors,
teachers, scientists, bartenders. And then, there were those
who never had a chance to be anything, opens Brokaw.
Hudson is joined on the grey field with the images of three
more unidentified adults, constructing o square of photos. A
photo of a little baby flips onto the square' s centre. The voice
a nd images are telling us two things: all these individuals
represented in photographs ore dead - "they were"; and
these who died were doing totally normal and blameless
things until they died, one of them merely being a baby.
11
"In the end," continues Brokaw, "they were oil victims
of AIDS." The five faces fade into an image of a crowd of
people walking on a city street: TV's representation of the
mainstream. "In a way, we ore oil victims of fear and private
anxiety." These words are accompanied by portrait-shots of
individual Americans: a cowboy with a hot, a woman in a car
with babies. We now know much about the show' s agenda :
l )it wishes to let us know that normal, blameless people have
died of AIDS, so that 2)we know that, as members of the
mainstream universal crowd referred to in the street image,
we should have some fear and anxiety, but that 3)as individual, unique, normal people, the identifiable faces of
American, each of us is different from the 11victims 11 of AIDS
because we have to worry only about worry and not about
death.
The show then does the unpardonable. For a good five
minutes Tam Brokaw speaks the fears and anxieties of
"normal" Americans without dispelling them: "Worry about
AIDS is port of being a parent now", "Police, firemen, hospital
workers, deal with their own fears", "Even some of the faithful
ore frightened about receiving communion through a common cup." These wards are accompanied by predictable
images: mothers at a PTA meeting, police learning how to
give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation though a protective mask,
a priest holding up the communion chalice. Brokaw speaks
"our" irrational fear about AIDS; the images illustrate and
confirm our wrong-headedness. Nothing interrupts this flow
of idiocy to allay these uninformed and needless fears:
children are not at risk of infection at school, you cannot get
AIDS through mouth-ta-mouth or sharing a common cup
Brokaw then tells us what we Americans said in polls
about AIDS fears. We' re worried. Boom, boom, boom,
boom, goes the sound track. An image of the Statue of Liberty
comes up. (Worry, but don't worry, this is the land of the
free.) Then, the words: NBC News Special Report. (Worry,
but don't worry, this is the land of NBC News) Finally, at last,
the title: LIFE. New word: DEATH. And then covering these
biggies over slightly: AND AIDS. (Think about AIDS just as
you do about life and death: worry but don't worry.) Once
again, the ever unidentified voice of TV-land: "Here again is
Tom Brokaw." The magic hand of TV raises the lights, and
there, in fact, is Tom Brokaw, again, just as promised, this
time seated on a circular, carpeted platform in a high-tech
chair: "Good Evening," he says, safe and alone in a soundstudio. "Our hope is to de-mystify this disease. We will consult
leading experts to answer your questions about AIDS." Tom's
going to answer our questions about life, he'll tell us all about
death, then he' ll de-mystify us on AIDS.
Finally, ten minutes after the Remington-Steele-pardon
the field is set; the show tells us how its going to tell to us. At
the top is NBC: controlling our vision, turning up the lights,
paying Tom Brokaw. Trust the TV. Coming a close second is
Tom and us. Sure, sometimes we' re wrong-headed, but it's
best to be cautious. Tom's advice for us, stick with the
Americans: cowboys, PTA Moms, firefighters. Then come the
experts. We'll listen to ' em, but we' ll a lways trust good old
American distrust more than any fancy-dancy professor or
doctor. You gotta be sceptical, take care of yourself and your
own.
Why all this time and trouble to create a space of
scepticism? The program let us know that, really, Brokaw
can't demystify us about life, death or AIDS - what is he,
God, after all? And so, therefore, Life, Death and AIDS
argues that AIDS, like life's other big and great mysteries, has
no answers, only questions. NBC handles this issue as it does
all other major political crises: positions the issue into a place
of mystery and cosmic solutions, therefore maintaining a
de-politicized audience who believes that only God can
intervene (or at least multi-national superpowers) and tells
the audience that the right way to handle an issue with no
answers (life, nuclear war, poverty, death, racism, AIDS) is to
rely on your instincts, your gut. NBC has pre-arranged an
hour where the audience, and Tom Brokaw, have been
granted permission to evaluate this issue from the gut - the
sexist, racist, homophobic, frightened way that they always
do. The form legitimizes its prejudice.
Now enter PWAs. Unlike Brokaw, who exists on the
carpeted platform, unlike the experts, who exist in TV
monitors in Brokaw's module, even unlike the normal
Americans asking the uninformed questions who are shot live
on-the-street - the gay male PWAs, (who live with one of the
doctor's in a monitor and are introduced only as
"Dr.Volberding's patients") ore given their own, special format: the pre-recorded mini-report by NBC's Science Correspondent. This totally controlled, pre-packaged form is the
documentary code's version of the sterilized, segregated
space of quarantine : no worry of live mishaps, embarrassing
spills or smells, unsightly scars or blemishes, it's not live, it's
controlled and edited. Here we meet the married blood
recipient in her cosy home, the "junkies" of the surveillance
camera, the brief images of prostitutes observed from afar,
and the strange and mysterious Africans.
Need it be mentioned that the camera and microphone
treat each of these symbolic AIDS "victims" differently in NBC
AIDS reportage? The lady gets to introduce herself: "Hi, I'm
Amy. I have AIDS." She is also allowed a steady tripod
two-shot with her husband. The l.V. drug users are never
allowed a name, they are condemned by the words of the
judgemental voice-over the science correspondent, and
when they are allowed to talk, it is in response to one of the
crew members who shout questions at them from a safe
distance. The camera is either too-close, or too high, watching them as distinct body parts, and not human beings. The
prostitutes and Africans imaged in the program are not even
granted the privilege of an interview, let alone a steady,
centred shot. They are caught unawares by a camera as far
way from them as possible while still able to vaguely catch
an image. The words we hear with these images, are of
course, the frightened and punitive voice of the science
correspondent.
The program concludes with Brokaws words: "If you ore
heterosexual and don't live a freewheeling lifestyle ... vour
chances are 1/1 ,000,000 ... All of us, of course, hope there
will be a vaccine ... I'm Tom Brokaw, for all of us at NBC
News. Good night." The message: all of us (us who are not
infected, us at NBC News) need not worry, but we do hope
that those who do need to worry get a vaccine soon. We
don't like them, but we are Christians. But, how do alot of
"us" feel when we hear NBC's message? According to Suki
Pots in her article Needed (For Women and Children):
"While block and Hispanic women ore disproportionately and increasingly affected by AIDS, the media insensitively
and incorrectly tells us that the heterosexual spread of AIDS
is not really a threat. How does a block or Hispanic woman
feel when she hears this?"
The black and Hispanic women who are actively confronting AIDS in their communities, and perhaps in their
homes, are not the people for whom TV is made. Therefore,
for such women to see a PWA on TV, even if it is someone
who looks like them, is to see someone to be disliked and
mistrusted. Besides being incorrect and misinformed, this is,
more dangerously, not at all an effective strategy for the
dissemination of risk-reduction education to the populations
most at risk. But clearly, saving people's lives is not the
mainstream's agenda.
Alternative media makers must learn from the dominant
media - learning what not to do, learn how to show the
same crisis differently, learn how to help people by providing
information not evaluation. Alternative media makers must
call into question the social divisions and prejudices inscribed
into mainstream documentary. We must talk to each distinct
11
us" of TV-land, making community specific programming
addressing the specific needs of the many people affected by
AIDS. The trajectory of control over AIDS is governed by
access ta speech and control over images: the powers of
defining, naming, showing. We can speak and we con make
images. We can re-cast the hierarchy of authority over AIDS
with new images that re-figure the meaning and trajectory
of this disease.
• The citations in this article are all from the collection of
essays AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism, ed. Douglas
Crimp '(Boston: MIT Press, 1988).
I I
II
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
11
�Global
IN CONVERSATION
IN CONVERSATION
with Isaac Julien
and Pratibha Parmar
with Isaac Julien
and Pratibha Parmar
Block filmmakers, Isaac Julien and Protibho Parmar,
discuss the making of their respective films: This Is Not An
Aids Advertisement and Refroming Aids.
Originally printed in Square Peg, London, 1988.
Isaac: Could you tell us a little bit about your introduction
to filmmaking and the context that you see yourself in.
Protibha : I become interested in filmmoking quite a long
time ago, but I never felt that, as a Block woman, I hod access
to the process or production of fi lmmoking. It was very much
as a consumer that I took port in film . My background was
in written and academic work around race, gender ·a nd
sexuality. I initially became involved in filmmoking as a
researcher for documentaries around different aspects of the
Black struggle in Britain. They were both broadcast and
non-broadcast productions; some for Channel 4, and some
independent productions. The whole mystique around how
programmes come together, how films ore mode was blown,
in a sense, and I become hooked - I felt I wonted to become
a producer of images. I wanted to make my images of Asian
women because I was fed up with the stereotyped images I
saw in film and photography.
Before film though, you'd written seminal pieces in "The
Empire Strikes Back" and were one of the initiators of Sheba
Feminist Press as a racially-mixed publisher, so in various
ways you've combotted the media and created your own
spaces, where you could do these - so film is a continuation
of that work.
Very much so. I' m not in the process of becoming a
filmmaker in a vacuum, I've come from a background in
writing and publishing, which sought to make Block women's
writing much more available. I've always been involved with
images, whether through the written word or visual images,
creating spaces which hove been denied to us, and challenging the marginalisation and tokenism that goes on.
Your debut film "Emergence" marries those two activities
together.
Emergence come out of my personal need to soy something visually about what I'd termed the Diaspora experiences
of the different Block communities. I tried to show through
their creative work, the interventions which different Block
women hove mode in their various artistic fields. There's
Audre Lorde, on Afro ~Americon feminist poet, a Guyanese
Chinese poet named Meiling Jin, Sutopo Biswos, an Asian
artist and Mono Hotoum, a Palestinian performance artist. I
sow links between their work. I wonted to bring them together
through the film . It was very much about challenging the
notion of Block women as objects; we're there as subjects of
our own making. The form in which the film was mode and
the language it's trying to create is a move away from the·
traditional mainstream types of documentary. It doesn't hove
a voice-over, there's a prose poem that links it, something I
wrote which describes my vision of the connections between
these women. The video was self-funded and couldn't hove
been mode without the support of the Block Audio Film
Collective.
Your film "Refroming Aids" becomes a set of parallel
questions around race, gender and identity. Why did you
make the film?
There are going to be a lot of people who are very
surprised that as an Asian woman, I've made a film which is
looking at Aids and hos not just Block women's voices but
·white gay men and white women talking as well. I wont to
challenge the whole notion of what we as Block lesbian
filmmakers ore supposed to make just by definition of who
we ore, our identities. People have expectation boundaries of
your identity. But we've got other things to soy, we live in a
much broader scenario. Our territory should be as brood as
possible.
about the experiences of lesbians and gay men in the
borough, to show the kinds of initiatives the council was
making in meeting the needs of lesbians and gay men. I felt
although that was important, the political moment for me
was defined much more by what hos been happening as a
result of Aids, especially the backlash. Lost summer, to do
anything around our community, the politics hod to be about
Aids, how Aids hos fuelled the backlash against us. I wonted
to create a space where different lesbians and gays could toll<
about the content of that backlash, showing how Block
lesbians and Block gay men hove been affected, soy, specifically around immigration, where Aids hos been used to
further restrict the entry of Block people into the country. I use
the images the media hos created of the disease, but show
that we're not just toking that on passively, that there ore
photographers and filmmakers creating our own representations. These ore not necessarily to do with Aids but ore
a response against that media image. I also tried to point out
the historical links between ideas about racial difference,
social difference and sexuality. In British colonial history,
homosexuality was seen as a disease, and colour too, where
racial types other than white ore seen as outside the norm.
OK Aids hos created the backlash; but, it is used in existing
historical context, using prejudices, notions of racial types,
sexual types and sexuality. It's not new; there's a strong
·
history to these ideas.
where work like "Passion of Remembrance" comes in where
you enter the dialogue with the Black community on topics
around sexual an gender identity.
We 've also worked together on a piece for The Media
Show called "Media Representations of Haringey". That tape
started to explore some of the contexts for the backlash we
envisaged, with the pre-election campaign centred around
sexuality, race, and specifically around education, using
those references to describe how undesirable voting for
Labour would be. It was the early representations of Aids and
the "Don't do it" type posters, coupled with the Tory posters:
propagandist, using images and representations of sexuality
to celebrate love and desire.
That's why I work at Sankofo, the Black film collective.
My reference point compared with other gay filmmakers is
totally different. "Reframing Aids" for example will be different from a Channel 4 programme precisely due to different
experiences, how they manifest themselves in subiectivities,
Black subiectivities. I know a lot of white gay filmmakers - we
are not talking about a separatist world - it's to state that
these multiplicities of identity do exist within the gay movement, and we're bringing those things together on our own
terms. The white gay film community has to take those things
on. Divisions are sometimes there, although I'm a part of both
the white gay and the Black gay film communities, I've had
to make a choice.
This ls Not An Aids Advertisement is important as a tape
because it shows the multiplicity of identities within the gay
culture, you show Block and white gay men, different groups
of gay men etc.
In constructing desirable representations of gay men at
a time when others equate gay men with notions of illness
and disease, which we can't deny is happening to our
communities, we ore seeing a response to those dominant
messages, which say you should feel guilty about your
desires. The basic hidden message of safe sex in many cases
is no sex - an anti-sex message in a post-sex climate which
we seem to be inhabiting. Our filmmaking is a reply to all
those adverts and billboards. The first part of "This Is Not An
Aids Ad" contains images of death, sensuality and loss - it
occupies the same space as other pieces. There's an
American tape called "Testing the Limits" which has a very
politically-activist agenda, but asks: how can you describe
loss of friends or the total redirection we are taking in our
identity, which we all have to negotiate now. Our tapes take
a stance; there's an edge to them. I felt a responsibility to
respond as a gay Black filmmaker. There are analytical or
theoretical response:s to the representation of Aids, which
people like you, Stuart Marshall and Simon Watney are
doing, then there are pieces which are more ambivalent and
emotional like the work of Connie Giannaris or John
Greyson. This work is more celebratory and is in a sense not
responding directly to that dominant image, but is setting its
own brackets. I'm quite interested in the emotional, which is
Groce Bailey in "Reframing AIDS" by Protibho Parmar
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
It would be a different move to try to talk about relationships between, say, the Black Qay communities and the white
gay community, or the Black communities and Black lesbian
communities. All these are slightly fictionalised in the sense ·
that they're all culturoi terms, there are lots of crossover areas
and dialogues taking place constantly, but it's on whose
terms ...
We see our own references, we don't wont to use the
white lesbian or gay communities as our reference. Both of
us come from different political traditions - I've been involved
with the Block movement -we both feel to a degree that the
white lesbian and gay community hos been our main reference point, but we've not sought to prioritise our energies
into challenging the quite prevalent racism we've found there.
I feel more a port of a Block film network with virtually
no contact with other lesbian filmmakers. That's been my
area of support - people like Isaac and the Block Audio Film
Collective.
Why is that? It's not imperative, but you get support from
where you can. Other white gay filmmakers have helped me,
but it's been difficult at times. I've had problems with absences of Black representation in "gay movies", or even if that
representation is there, it's within a silence which is
problematic. You have support from white gay filmmakers
but it sometimes diminishes - you start challenging too much
or occupying a position they don't feel you should occupy,
where they can't feel sorry for you! A lot of support comes
from Black theoreticians, not all gay, but sometimes your
most vicious attacks come from sections of the black community. Different scenarios will develop around areas where
a certain amount of tokenism can exist when you don't need
that tokenism any more.
Funding hos been so difficult for me because Sonkofo is
funded by Channel 4 through a commissioning editor, so
unlike most other lesbian and gay filmmakers it hos not been
so hard. The lost scenario represents some of these anxieties
where we ore competing for funding and bottling against
censorship.
I'm in quite a different situation as on independent,
individual filmmaker. It's only in the lost year or so that it's
been easier, but I took the challenge to become a freelance
filmmaker. I've been lucky so for because some people know
me and my work and I've been approached to either research
or make these films. To try to get bits of funding is not that
difficult, but getting full funding for proper productions is very
hard - and it's very time-consuming making applications!
There's such a tight boundary as to who gets funding and
who doesn't. As on individual it's much harder than as port
of, soy, a Block film workshop. Within that there's all the
who-knows-who, and having to struggle against, for example, men who ore anti-Block, anti-feminist and within
mainstream funding agencies. It creates very volatile situations, especially for lesbian and gay filmmake rs. With the
advent of the Clouse• it will only be more difficult to make
films. Films like Reframing Aids couldn't be mode in the future
if this becomes low.
I was originally approached by Converse Pictures to
direct and research a video called Out In Lambeth, to be
"Young, gay and pro'ud" "Policing the classrooms" and "Sex
education taught in schools" and so forth - a whole hidden
agenda specifically around race and sex. It was important
then to make "Reframing Aids" to re-contextualize the representations of sexuality and race, to show them being re-invented. I tried to combat it through "This ls Not An Aids
Advertisement" which is an ad for gay desires. I'm being a
12
It's caused a lot of raised emotions and discussion
putting Block gay sexuality on the Block political agenda. It
doesn't attempt to speak to the white gay community; you
start to speak to the Block community. It' s a break away from
other films which ore always a response to demands from
the white community.
Guest Editor's Note: Protibho is referring to Clouse 28,
a Local Government Bill in England, that hos since been
passed into low. The low bans the "promotion" of
homosexuality. The wording leaves interpretation of
"promoting homosexuality" completely open. The low also
stops local governments from funding any gay person or
group thought to promote homosexuality.
�Global
"MINING THE.ORO DEL BARRIO"
A COMMUNITY APPROACH TO AIDS EDUCATION
Using film or video for education is nothing new. We all
remember fondly the moment when the teacher would walk
in the classroom pushing a cart from the AV department and
announce that instead of class, a film or video would be
shown. It always seemed to make the hour go faster and the
learning process an enjoyable one.
The power of the medium is particularly well suited to
minority health education and even more so to AIDS education. This is because effective AIDS education directed at
minorities requires a show and tell medium that can also role
model positive behaviour change while reflecting the language, culture, values, and lifestyle of the target audience.
This is especially important for minority communities
because they are usually left out of the traditional media
channels. Government agencies will often translate materials
in order to save money and the result is, almost inevitably, a
useless one. People simply cannot relate what they are being
taught (to their lives), and the educational message falls on
deaf ears. A documentary full of facts and data may be of
interest to a white person whose educational and social level
match the expectations of the documentary's producer;
however, the same documentary will probably put a Central
American refugee to sleep, even if it is well translated.
At the core of the community learning process lies the
principles of empowerment or the validating of a people's
ability to develop understanding relevant to their needs. This
may sound simple, but it is an essential concept for minority
communities whose life experience has been the opposite.
Breaking the barrier of powerlessness, which is created by a
dominant culture that continually states "you cannot", is basic
to developing healthy communities.
This is where community based videos come in. Most
media presents images of the dominant culture, and the
general feeling within a minority is that of worthlessness. The
opposite occurs when they see their lives represented on the
screen. This not only validates their cultural experience, but
becomes a mirror of their reality where they can see themselves, their family and their friends reflected. A minority
group that rarely sees itself on the screen will feel extremely
empowered by the images alone. It says "you, and your
culture are worthwhile".
Within the Latino community, social and moral values
have been traditionally taught through stories which are
repeated from generation to generation. That tradition is
founded in the Amerindian cultures which, contrary to
European history, maintained traditions and values through
oral history. We like to hear stories, and we like to learn when
there is a story involved.
Because of this important value, we believe that the use
of a dramatic framework tan be the most effective format in
Latino AIDS education. It is also the best framework, because
it can create positive role models or characters whose positive
actions result in a better outcome.
"Ojos Que No Ven", by Jose Gutierrez and Jose Verqe/in
knowledge and experience. This knowledge is then applied
to the creative process. This process has three benefits: first
it enriches and ensures the cultural accuracy of your characters and story, second it becomes a tool for community
empowerment, and third, it gives concrete dramatic elements
with which to build the story. Many of the lines used in Ojos
are taken almost literally from the testimonies.
Once the story and the characters were conceived and
a first draft screenplay written by scriptwriter Rodrigo Reyes,
the script was submitted to a series of focus groups or
community review panels, that included both health
educators and a representative sample of the target
audience. This is a key element of the process because you
can test your material and your creative ideas against reality.
There is no one better than the people who will be watching
the video to tell you whether it is appropriate for them.
But using a dramatic structure does not guarantee a
culturally appropriate video. Creating such films or videos
requires a marriage between a community based agency,
who provides direct access to the community; and, a
producer who is sensitive to the issues and who has the
cultural background to ensure that the piece to be produced
will have the necessary cultural relevance.
The end product of this process, is a video that is sensitive
to the needs of the health educator an to the needs of the
community. The video has been extremely successful with
Latino audiences because the video reflects their reality. This
identification process would have been unlikely had the
community not participated in its creation.
In order for AIDS education film and video to make an
impact on minorities, they must combine cultural sensitivity
with a format that will draw in and involve their target
audience. Community based development and production,
with ongoing community involvement, are essential to the
process. The resulting material is an educational video that
serves as a tool for empowering the individual and the
community.
ADINFINITUM FILMS
221 Liberty Street.
San Francisco, CA 94114
U.S.A. (415) 558-9023
Community involvement is perhaps the key element that
guarantees creating a sensitive video. As a case history, one
concrete example is our AIDS educational video entitled Ojos
Que No Ven or Eyes That Foil To See . This video was
produced by Adinfinitum Films Bilingual Film & Video for
lnsituto Familiar de la Raza, and was the first AIDS video
made in Spanish by and for the latino population. The video
utilizes the popular telenovela format and follows the lives of
several neighbours in .a Latino barrio who, in one way or
another, are at risk of becoming infected with the AIDS virus.
In an entertaining and often humorous way, the audience
learns the facts about AIDS. However, the story is not solely
about AIDS; but, also about family and community relations,
about destroying myths and replacing them with facts, and
above all, about a people becoming empowered to improve
their lives in the face of a crisis.
Although the plot of Ojos was a fictitious one, most of
the stories came from real life, and all the characters are
archetypes of real people. It was a process in which
filmmakers went out to the community, camera in hand,
collecting testimonies that later were included in the treatment
or story line. For instance, we had decided that the main
protagonist would be Dona Rosa, the mother of a young gay
man and an adolescent girl. Consequently, we interviewed
many Latino women with these characteristics and created a
composite character. We also used some oftheir experiences
as a basis for dramatic development. This was a perfect
example of what our executive producer, Yolanda Ronquillo,
calls "mining el oro del barrio", or "mining the
neighbourhood's gold"; the harvesting of a people's
11
,
"Ojos Que No Ven by Jose Gutierrez and Jose Verge/in
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
13
�Global
VIDEO AND THE VTH INTERNATIONAL
ACCESSIBILITY OR ABSTRACTION?
The role that video plays within a contemporary context
of AIDS, and as a socio-cultural/socio-political communication tool, has become a predominant theme in the discourse
on the representation of AIDS. As a training mode, a means
of mediation, a tool for analysis, and as an instrument of
intervention, video was primordial. The so-called video
revolution and AIDS activism, especially in North America,
have gone hand in hand. Issues of the ease of production,
the role of television in cultural diffusion and, more importantly, accessibility, have been cited to explain this
phenomenon. But does video fulfil this role? If so, how might
that process best be facilitated? What conclusions might be
drawn from the use of video at the Vth International Conference on AIDS? Was there a serious exchange made
between scientists and artists, or between the aesthetic activists and the communities represented at the conference, or
between the Conference and Montrealers?
The Vth International Conference on AIDS held in
Montreal in June 1989, sought to expand the horizons of
scientific exchange and AIDS. In an attempt to rectify the
Americo-centrism and narrowly defined bio-medical sciences
that have characterized the previous four conferences, the
Canadian conference organizers endeavoured to facilitate
cross-fertilization. To make the conference much more interdisciplinary, the programming consisted of nine modules,
one of which was defined as audio-visual presentations. In
each of the modules a greater international representation
was undertaken to help delegates to see AIDS in terms of a
global epidemic.
local preoccupation to favour French material and the wish
to include various pan-Canadian material. General considerations had to be made for image and sound quality, but
we wished to address a sense of relevance and target
audience possibilities by providing wide-ranging options
throughout a spectrum of aesthetics-activism-information.
The committee was interested in providing a programme
that was not parallel, but complementary to, the programming of the other eight modules to ensure minimal thematic
conflict. Individual slots of maximum ninety minutes were
constructed on various themes. The selections were made so
as to encourage comparisons and critical functioning and yet
"fit" within time restrictions.
The Monday programme, for example, began with a
session on Counselling which included a twenty minute video
from Britain and an hour video from Ruanda. The second
session, Sex, Politics and History, as well as the third, Women
and AIDS, were a pastiche of some of Video Against AIDS
with o Canadian Public Health Association and Westcoast
Canadian tape. The other sessions programmed through the
week included PWA Power (Persons With AIDS), Discrimination, Loss and Mourning, Activism and Cultural Resistance,
Video Clips (spots), Core givers, and Prevention .
By presenting an audio-visual module in the official
programming, and by including an arts and AIDS component
(SIDART), video presentations were an integral part of this
attempt to increase accessibility and fecund exchange. This
article, an introspection made by one of the organizers of the
audio-visual presentations, briefly describes this process as
well as addressing the potentials and limitations of such an
attempt.
The AV module was established late in the process of the
organization of the Conference. The response to international solicitation through letters sent through various AIDS networks was at first very slow, and the working committee
turned to actively search out videos to fill perceived or real
programming categories. As the conference approached,
more and more videos poured in. The selection for programming became a larger and larger collective headache.
General selection criteria served as general guidelines.
The AV committee sought to vary production origins so
that independent as well as mainstream works were represented; that community-based productions were seen
alongside institutional productions. Because of the international considerations, a wide representation of national and
linguistic origins seemed essential. This included an obvious
"Refroming AIDS", By Pratibho Parmar
During any single time slot at the conference, there were
at least fifteen options for delegates. The programming had
to be constructed to avoid thematic overlap and permit a
daily flow of ideas and exchange. On the final day of the
conference, for instance, a conference delegate could have
gone to the morning oral session on Innovations in AIDS
education and prevention, an early afternoon oral session on
HIV testing and counselling in AIDS prevention, before finishing the afternoon with a video session on prevention which
included videos from three countries: a video for IV drug
users, one for sex trade workers, one for gay men, one for
health care workers, and one for youth.
The interaction of video and the Vth International Conference also included noon hour sessions on various themes.
Three, in particular, Erotica, Sofer Sex and Behaviour
Cosmo",
14
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
- Video Against AIDS
Video Against AIDS
Change, HIV and Ideas: Theatre as o Transmission Mode,
and Music, Performance, and Social Change, used videos to
juxtapose theory with practice. The theatre session included
a video from South Africa which reenacted the use of oversize
puppets in AIDS education. In the third session, a video with
Californian sex trade activist, Carol Leigh-Scarlet Harlot, and
a video by Helarion Ngeuma, popular Gabon singer, were
programmed with an audio tape by New York's Michael
Callen, a slide show from Zambia and a performance by a
mime troop from Trinidad.
The reaction to the sessions, both video and noon hour,
was enthusiastic and extremely positive. Most overflowed with
avid spectators. These official sessions, moreover, were
paralleled with evening round-table discussions by a wide
range of artists and aesthetic activists including videastes,
filmmakers, authors, producers, and critics.
French and Spanish sessions were included in the week.
Interwoven with evening films were a Creole video session,
a session on women and AIDS, a session on culturnl activism
and community development, and a session juxtaposing a
New Zealand Film, Death In the Family, with a video on long
time PWA activist and former Vancouver PWA Coalition
president, Kevin Brown.
"Doctors, Liars and Women : AIDS Activist Say No to
"A", by Andre Burke -
The quantity and variety of work and ideas presented
make it impossible to summarize each session. Much of the
discussion that followed the talks, although insightful, consisted of berating and badgering. People were too often more
concerned with getting their own preoccupations and frustrations out, than discussing with the ideas and products of
presenters. Homophobia constituted the most consistent
point of discussion. These question periods did serve, however, as a ventilation period and a time for periphery analysis
of particular aspects of the main Conference (such as the
video show in the opening ceremonies showing six teenagers
- verging on angels - from around the world) .
Some of the highlights might be discussed in terms of
three aspects of video: cultural practice, educational practice
and aesthetic practice.
Given the overwhelming surfeit of American videos, the
fact that the majority of delegates were American, and a
predominant ethnocentrism amongst Americans present (as
typified in Larry Kramer's post-conference article in the
Village Voice, We come to teach, not to /earn) it is extremely
difficult to discuss video as a cultural practice that is somehow
distinguishable from American cultural practice. One of the
dominant recurring themes of the week, however, was the
necessity of cultural or community specificity in AIDS aesthetic
activism. Californian Jan Zita Grover most eloquently dealt
with this idea, concluding her talk, "until individual artists ally
themselves more consistently with groups already
knowledgeable of and committed to fighting highly specific
local bottles for treatment and against discrimination, most
of their efforts will remain little more than o decorative
commodity."
VIDEO AND THE STH INTERNATIONAL
�Global
CONFERENCE ON AIDS:
by Ken Morrison
The noon hour session on eroticism provided insightful
reflections on a specific example of cultural practice: porn
video. Bernard Arcand (Quebec city anthropologist) forcefully argued that a "a society which generates pornography is
probably best suited to face on epidemic such as AIDSN.
Cindy Patton (author and Boston community education
manager), citing examples of specific programmes on which
she works, observed that the slowly proliferating virus and
the remarkable forms of rapid communication, the microscopic and the global, are mutual metaphors. The former,
she noted, risks the production of pan-cultural homogeneity.
She contended that "sexually explicit materials must circulate
within the borders of a microcultureN, but the "use of traditional routes of sexual language con be used as a highly
effective discourse for social change". Simon Watney (British
author and AIDS aesthetic activist) talked about the "crisis of
management of sexuality in western cultureN. He asserts that
educational materials must be developed in the context of
"diversity, choice and what Michel Foucault calls the 'practices of freedom'N in order to deal effectively with all consensual erotic needs. Gregg Bordowitz (Gay Men's Health Crisis)
introduced examples of his recent educational porn saying
"getting the message out is a cultural project which necessitates forms of direct action". Wieland Speck, Germon
filmmaker, showed recent works: some for preceding regular
porn features and one, done in conjunction with the National
AIDS Community Organization, with well-known artists
"visibly" involved in the production to facilitate its acceptance
for use in group discussions.
The evening session on television provided numerous
insights on the use of video as an educational tool. Moderator
Simon Watney set the tone in his opening remarks by
maligning the pervasive practices which, for motives of
"Se Met KoN, by Patricia Benoit - Video Against AIDS
moralism and bigotry, attempt to scare people into patterns
of sexual behaviour, and finish by putting people at risk by
refusing to recognize diversity or by presenting HIV as part
of ordinary life. Shane Lunny, independent Vancouver
producer, evoked the power of drama and presented segments of a recent video for youth. Jon Baggaley, followed
quickly, contending that "drama con be useful but unequivocally not in the case of health campaignsN. Neither the
terrorism or seduction of the slick advertising agencies gives
positive results to a resistant a udience whereas slight humour
or simple, affectation-less, plain speaking messages have
been shown over and over again to be most effective.
Henning Jorgenson presented several clips from a Danish
National Campaign Think Twice about condom usage. These
clips were full of humour and were extremely well received
by those present. Jurg Shaub presented examples from a
Swiss national campaign.
Diffusion mechanisms are indeed a major problem
when discussing video. Television is not necessarily open to
alternative visions. The Conference, moreover, did little to
question or to suggest alternative means of diffusion.
Granted, there was a large attempt to open dissemination:
videos were shown J o delegates on overflow screens
th.roughout lunch hour and, for Montrealers in general, video
clips were shown throughout the week in the bars around
Montreal. Weiland Speck, moreover, talked at length of
prefixing porn videos with short clips. But a larger social space
for videos needs to be found. In the long run it serves no one
that videastes show/tell simply to each other.
Measuring incestuous activity and artistic integrity will be
a continual dilemma, but given the potential power of video
and the devastation caused by AIDS, the time seems ripe for
more self scrutiny and social conscientiousness. Lastly, there
is an enormous need for alternatives to American standards
and practices. Some of the ways that this might be achieved
is through hooking into international networks and exchanges, through encouraging and programming more local
Canad~an and Third World productions, and through concentrating on notions of community specificity.
"The Second Epidemic", by Alisa Lebow and Amber
Hollibaugh
Accessibility as a measuring stick, the Vth International
Conference on AIDS serves to show the shortcomings in
much of the available AIDS video material and in most of the
diffusion mechanisms at present.
Paula Treickler outlined the "seven deadly sins" of network television coverage of AIDS. These included oversimplification, fear and power mongering, a primitive approach to representation, primitive notions of identity, narcissism, cultural imperialism, and what she called the Uriah
Heap Syndrome (obsequious humility and massive arrogance) . Pratibha Parmar concluded the session talking
about the social context of sexuality, racism, and sexism in
Britain when making her video Reframing AIDS. She raised
concerns about the racism that is produced in gay and lesbian
activism and discussed the parochialism inherent in North
American and European AIDS representation and activism.
There is, she enunciated, a definite absence of internationalism in the discussion around AIDS.
Although video as an aesthetic practice related to AIDS
was not specifically discussed during the conference or
SI DART; video, as mentioned, has been primordial in the ·
cultural visualisation and verbalisation of AIDS. Within the
videos presented at the conference, moreover, we saw
several options for video forms. Western videos presented
were often characterized either by traditional documentary
forms or by the use of superimposition. Using images from
dominant mediums (especially television), results in the juxtaposition of images and ideas which attemptto present AIDS
within a larger context. Often these videos functioned in terms
of breaking up the narrative in an aesthetic form of
deconstruction. Many of the videos from the Third World, on
the other hand, did not reflect dominant Western aesthetic
standards and were therefore often less popular.
Th~ video presentations at the Vth International Conference on AIDS seem, on first regard, to hove been a
success. But upon closer examination, is this necessarily the
case? Between dull didactic documentary and indigestible
disjointed deconstruction, where is the accessibility?
"The ADS Epidemic", by John Greyson
IfOUND APACK
OF CONDOMS
-,,
UNDER THE VERANDA ..
\
Given the majority of the videos made available to the
Conference, there is a definite need for imaginative and
digestible alternatives to most of the AIDS videos of the past
few years. That being said, one must mention some of the
numerous exceptions to this rule, such as many of those
presented in Video Against AIDS - John Greyson' s The Ads
Epidemic or the videos shown from Denmark, for example.
-
CONFERENCE ON AIDS:
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
15
....
�Global
PINNED AND WRIGGLING: HOW SHALL I PRESUME?
I have learned the hard way how powerful is the person
wielding a video camera.
I became the cynical adult that I am today in the Fall of
1982 and video was the straw that broke this particular
camel's back. I was diagnosed with AIDS in the Summer of
'82 and by Fall had joined the first support group for people
with AIDS ever formed in New York City. At the time, the
American public could not have been less interested in the
fact that a mysterious, deadly disease was making "queers"
drop like flies. A group of us decided that we needed to put
a human face on the disease in order to make the American
public force the government to respond to the crisis.
There was a bitter debate which almost split the fragile
support group. Many people with AIDS argued that television
would only sensationalize AIDS, presenting us as pathetic
victims devoid of humanity. Those of us who eventually went
public argued that while it was true that the media was
sensationalistic, we might be able to harness its tremendous
power to manipulate feeling and public opinion in a positive
way. We thought we understood the risks of taking on the
media machine. Little did we know.
My trial by fire took place in the Fall of 1982. I agreed
to do an interview for CBS National News. A crew of four
showed up at the building where the support group met.
Despite the foct that we had made it clear that they couldn't
photograph the actual group (since most of its members were
adamantly opposed to being publicly identified), they
pleaded and cajoled to be permitted to photograph the group
in progress. They said they'd be willing to put bars over the
eyes so that people wouldn't be recognizable. We were smart
enough not to fall for that one. The three of us who were
willing to go public took the crew into the back room and did
interviews separately.
I remember being secretly thrilled. This was the big time!
I vaguely recognized the woman who was going to interview
me. She must be "famous"! I was impressed to be the focus
of all the frenzy.
The crew set up the lights and took meter readings. A
microphone was tastefully concealed beneath my tie. They
checked sound levels. The famous interviewer touched up her
own make up, but didn't offer to put make up on me.
Looking back, there may have been two reasons why I
wasn't made up: (1) they might have been afraid of catching
AIDS from touching me; (2) as I was to learn, the harsh lights
necessary for video can make a person look very sick and
washed out. Given the topic of the segment, this may have
been the desired effect.
The interview began and I was asked for the first time
the "how does it fee/ to know you're going to die" question
which would be repeated hundreds of times by different
interviewers over the years. I was vaguely aware that someone was writing down the questions she was asking, but I was
more acutely aware of the cameraman aiming this nuge
camera at me.
When she asked her last question, I was ecstatic. I
thought: this is a piece of cake; I really got a chance to say
what was on my mind. I started to unpin my microphone and
she shouted that I shouldn't move because they had to finish
the shoot. I said, I thought we were finished. And she
explained that they now had to film her asking the questions
and get some reaction shots and B-roll.
I was stunned. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks
that there was only one camera in the room and that it had
been focused on me the whole time. Incredulous, I watched
for the first time the way news is usually generated. I saw the
interviewer get several cracks at asking the questions which
her assistant had written down for her. But the questions were
slightly different than the one's I'd answered. I realized with
horror that these modified questions were going to be edited
into the piece and that most Americans wouldn't realize that
the question I would be shown answering was not the
question I had been asked.
As I sat there being mauled by the process, I mentally
reviewed every news broadcost I'd ever seen in the 27 years
I'd been alive. Until that moment, it had never occurred to
me when I was watching an interview or a documentary that
there weren't always two cameras - one recording the
questioner and one recording the person being questioned.
It was my first hint of how news and images and people are
16
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
Michael Callen in "The World is Sick(sicr, by John Greyson
manipulated by video.
When the story aired that night, the first shock was haw
short the segment was: 90 seconds! My portion of the
interview had taken a half hour, and all that was presented
was a 20 second sound byte consisting of two different
thoughts edited together, as if one flowed from the other.
Ishould have known better. Certainly the release I signed
should have tipped me off that the power imbalance between
the camera and the person being videotaped is about as
great as that which exists between a landlord and a person
desperate to find a habitable apartment in Manhattan at a
reasonable rent. I am regularly asked to sign away all my
rights, in perpetuity, and to specifically acknowledge that the
interviewer has the right to do anything s/he sees fit with my
words and image.
Actually, I can be quite mischievous. I know how to speak
in such a way that it is extremely difficult for an editor to twist
my remarks. I sprinkle qualifying phrases throughout my
remarks in an attempt to imbed the context in the footage.
If I'm mid-sentence and I realize that what I've just said could
easily be taken out of context, I'll sneeze or pick my nose or
wave at the camera and say "I'd like to start over, ·please."
I have learned to do my homework before I go before
the camera. Whenever I'm interviewed, I always decide on
one or two points I want to make. I then translate these points
into quotable sound bytes, and no matter what question(s)
I'm asked, I find a way to get my own points across. I've
become quite smooth at it. For example, whenever the
inevitable "How does it feel" question comes, I now use it as
an opportunity to introduce whatever I want to talk about. I
just pause dramatically and say, "You know, that reminds me
of... " and then proceed to drop in my sound byte.
The whole concept of a sound byte amuses me. Interviewers live for sound bytes and I've become adept at
knowing when I've said something that will end up in the final
cut. Most interviewers are completely disinterested in me and
what I have to say. For them, this is just another story another job to do. They've usually preconceived of the
segment and simply need me to keep talking until I say
something which can be twisted to fit the preconceived story.
Ican usually tell when I've given them what they want because
they often smile slightly.
One sound byte anecdote is particularly amusing. I was
being interviewed by someone who had previously worked
in radio. I was her first interview on camera. While the lights
were being set up, we chatted about the story and I said a
number of things that got her very excited. But when we
actually started filming, she didn't feel that the answers I gave
were as good as the ones I'd given during our informal chat.
So she kept asking the same question over and over and
finally began mouthing the words she wanted me to say while
I was speaking. This was very disorienting, since I don't read
lips. I turned to the cameraman and said, "Maybe you should
just interview her, since she seems to know more about what
it's like to live with AIDS than I apparently do."
My favourite part of the video process is getting B-roll. I
find it hilarious and love nothing more than walking in my
neighbourhood or doing the dishes with a camera following
me around while I try to look inconspicuous and ignore the
camera. Actually, I am annoyed that no mainstream
television station has been willing to include any clips of me
being physical or affectionate with my (male) lover. During
the filming of B-roll, they always tell me to be natural - to
just do what I usually do and ignore the camera. Well, what
I usually do around my home is soak up the healing presence
of my lover. I'm like a heat-seeking missile in his presence.
But the moment I touch him in any way which implies that
we're sexual or that we love each other, the producer always
says "Well, I think we've got enough 8-roll now.". Apparently,
gayness is still not fit for prime time. We wouldn't want to
scare the horses, now, would we?
�Global
by Michael Callen
I love the fact that European TV crews understand that
people who sell their souls on camera should be recompensed like the prostitutes we often are. If I'm going to put
up with a video crew rearranging my furniture, shutting off
my telephone and a ir conditioner and blowing my fuses, I
should at least get something for my trouble. But American
television crews never pay. It is presumed that in America,
one does it for the glory. What is amusing is that the
explanation given by American crews for not paying for an
interview is that doing so would imply that people were simply
saying what they were being paid to say. This implies that
American journalism is somehow more honest and truthful
because subjects are not paid for their interviews. The real
joke is that the European system of paying is actually more
honest because it emphasizes that most media is simply a
business, and that business is primarily entertainment, not
the pursuit of truth.
Theory amuses me. I love to read it. My idea of a good
time is to sit on the john with the latest volume of postFreudian, neo-Foucaultian French Feminist anti-essentialist
film theory and laugh my head off. What are these people
talking about?
So I am aware that there is a common language of
deconstruction popular among the video avant guard, but I
don't really understand it. So if in my ignorance I have tread
on or naively restate cherished principles, forgive me. My
knowledge about the "corrosive power" of video is first hand,
the result of being regularly constructed as an "AIDS victim"
for the amusement of various video crews and the 6 o'clock
news. I have had to learn the hard way that with video, seeing
should not necessarily be believing.
One has to put up with video because we live in a moving
picture age and images have the power to shape how people
think about, and respond to AIDS. As editor of the People
with AIDS Newsline, I worked closely with lesbian photographer Jane Rosett. We were very conscious of how the
images of people with AIDS published in the newsletter subtly
shaped readers' perceptions about the lived experience of
having AIDS. We made a conscious choice to use the power
of propaganda inherent in photographs to challenge the
prevailing image that AIDS is only about dying. We published
pictures about people who were living with AIDS. And we
made a commitment to illustrating the diversity of AIDS by
publishing photos of woman, people of colour and children.
In an introductory essay to Surviving and Thriving With
AIDS: Collected Wisdom (Volume 2), Jane articulated the
philosophy which guided our choice of images. Although the
following was written about still photographs, the observations apply with even greater force to video, which in a sense,
is simply a series of still pictures strung together:
"For some reason, we believe what we see in a way that
we do not believe what we read ... When we read someone's
words we know them to be an opinion; but when we
see ... photos, we accept them as fact. [P]hotos are ... overcredited as somehow portraying 'the' truth as opposed to
merely 'one' truth. Because we do not question them enough,
photos carry an inordinate and corrosive power which can
be dangerous, especiaf/y when used to tell stories about
AIDS. Dangerous and destructive to the dignity and diversity
of all people with AIDS, none of whom can actually be
pigeonholed into a single image. [We need] to have our
critical guard up and question when we '.read' [images]."
Most people who view video are not aware of the video
editor's tremendous power to manipulate context and content - of, as you would no doubt say, constructing reality.
When I began my bizarre career as a publicly identified
person with AIDS, I was a typical, trusting child of the late
SO' s. Raised on a steady diet of TV. As a midwesterner of
simple faith, I was shielded from the way the world really
works. Like most Americans, I actually believed what I saw
on television because, well, seeing was believing, right? I was
precocious and clever enough to be instinctively suspicious of
anything I read, but for some reason, this natural scepticism
did not extend to television.
I knew that words on a page were edited and censored;
and the main problem with reading was that you couldn't
judge the sincerity of the writer because you couldn't see
her/his face. This is what is so deceptive about video. Because
you can see the face of the person speaking, you think you
can have greater confidence in your judgement about the
sincerity of what you heard and saw. But what is missing, and .
so misleading, is the silent but deadly presence of the video
editor. Rarely does one stop to think that the all-important
context of what the talking head is saying is lying somewhere
on the cutting room floor.
•••
My problems with video aren't limited to what ends up
on the screen; I've had my share of discrimination and abuse
from the crew itself. The most recent instance occurred when
I went to NBC Studios to do an interview about long term
survival. I was asked to wait in one of the guest lounges by myself. I was quite aware that the guests for other
segments were all together in another room. I was aware that
assistants were taking the other guests to have make-up put
on; I wasn't offered the option of make-up. Several
newscasters (some of them famous) poked their heads in to
say hello and were very friendly, but I was aware that I was
being isolated. But because I felt it was very important to get
the message out that not everyone with AIDS dies, I decided
1not to make a stink.
Eventually they came to get me for my live segment and
took me into the studio. I sat and chatted amiably with the
interviewer, with whom I had worked in the past. Out of the
shadows appeared a soundman who tossed a microphone
at me and told me to pin it on myself. I noticed that he was
wearing rubber gloves. I have never met a sound person who
didn't prefer to pin the microphone on a guest him or herself.
I asked him to please do it for me. He refused. The producer
was waving frantically that our segment was supposed to start
in one minute. I looked around the studio and all the people
who had been so friendly to me moments before were
looking down at the ground, pretending that what was
happening wasn't really happening. The woman who was
about to interview me pretended to fix her hair.
I was faced with a terrible choice. I could storm off the
set, I could get angry on camera, or I could swallow my anger,
pin the microphone on and use my minute of airtime to
spread a little hope. Shaking with anger, I chose the latter
course. But I left the studio and immediately called the ACLU.
As a result, NBC was forced to agree to educate its employees
about AIDS.
I should also mention some good experiences, mostly
with non-commercial video. Groups such as the Testing the
Limits Video Collective in New York City and video artists like
John Greyson, Jean Carlomusto and Greg Bordowitz are
acutely aware of how the power of video has been turned
against people with AIDS. These and other politically sensitive
video artists have worked tirelessly to harness the power of
video for the good of people with AIDS.
One example illustrates the point that there is nothing
inherently evil about video; it can be used as a powerful tool
for positive change. I recall how sensitively I was treated by
my friend Stuart Marshall when he did his AIDS video, Bright
Eyes. He actually included me in the process of creating the
video and we had many discussions, theoretical and practical. He discussed the concept with me beforehand and told
me how my segment would fit in the finished project.
He also pointed out something that had never occurred
to me. Originally, he wanted me to simply recreate a speech
I had given in Congress. He wanted to film me in some
ornate, impressive court room he had identified as the ideal
location. But when the government who had given permission to film in the courtroom found out that it was an AIDS
documentary, they decided Stuart couldn't film there. So he
hit upon a brilliant, radical idea. He filmed me giving my
speech while walking in a beautiful rose garden. When he
told me that the location had been switched to a garden, I
was initially disoriented. What was the purpose of giving a
serious speech while walking outdoors?
He explained that most people with AIDS were filmed in
settings that pathologize them - usually in a hospital or
being examined by their doctor. Neither of us could think of
a single example where a person with AIDS who looked
healthy was shown outdoors, much less in a beautiful setting
which didn't suggest disease and death. Stuart said he
wanted to startle the viewer with a new context; he wanted
to emphasize visually as well as aurally that I was living with
AIDS, not dying from it.
Most commercial television and video explicitly and
implicitly reinforce the message that people with AIDS are
victims, and that AIDS is invariably fatal. The founding
statement of the PWA self-empowerment movement (know
as the Denver Principles) is quite eloquent on the need to
constantly challenge the image of people with AIDS as
victims:
"We condemn affempts to label us as 'victims', which
implies defeat; and we ore only occasionally 'patients' which
implies passivity, helplessness and dependence upon the care
of others. We are 'people with AIDS'."
I was at the founding of the people with AIDS self-empowerment movement in Denver, Colorado, in 1983. When
the California contingent insisted that we make part of our
manifesto the demand that we be referred to as "people with
AIDS" instead of "AIDS victims", I must confess that I rolled
my eyes heavenward. How California, I thought.
But time has proven them right. Americans, whose ability
to think has been desiccated by decades of television and its
ten-second-sound-byte mentality, think in one-word descriptors. Someone on the TV screen must be labelled: a feminist,
a communist, a homosexual, an AIDS victim. The difference
between the descriptors person with AIDS and AIDS victim
seems subtle until one watches oneself on TV. To see oneself
on screen and have the words AIDS victim flash magically
underneath has a very different feel about it than when the
description person with AIDS appears. Its very cumbersomeness is startling and makes the viewer ask: "Person? Why
person? Of course he's a person ... " . In that moment, we
achieve a small but impqrtant victory. Viewers are forced to
be conscious, if only for a moment, that we are people first.
•••
I don't like being constructed by video, but I'm unwilling
to allow my personal displeasure to keep me from constantly
challenging America's conceptualization of AIDS and people
living with AIDS. I do what I can to control how I am presented
on video and trust that anyone with half a brain understands
that most of what they see on TV is prepacked pap.
I loathe being pinned and wriggling, formulated in a
f1Xed image by some video editor. I hate to see the context
and complexity of my views distorted. AIDS is an incredibly
complex issue. It is the nature of television and video to shove
off complexity, and so most video presentations of AIDS
suffers from this tension. Ya plays, ya take your chances, I
suppose. But how shall I presume?
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VIDEO GUIDE1989
17
�Global
MAKING IT: AIDS ACTIVIST TELEVISION
"They Are Lost To Vision Altogether", by Tom Kalin
by Jean
I convinced my employer, Gay Men's Health Crisis, to
send a crew down to Washington to document the events of
the weekend for the Living With AIDS Show. We hod a
demoralizing experience at the . Names Project Memorial
Quilt. As we waited for two hours to get a place on the cherry
picker, (the crone that lifts camera people high enough to get
a wide shot of the quilt), we were constantly "bumped" from
each successive passenger load in order ta let the network
media up. Finally, it was our turn, but the National March
representatives who were operating the cherry picker radically reduced our time so that more network media could get
up there. We barely got our shot.
We then headed over to the rally to get a space on the
media bleachers; but, we were stopped as we went onto the
bleachers by another representative of the National Morch
on Washington. He said: "You can 't go up there until all of
the major media crews have a place. Then if there's room
we'll /et others up." I lost it. "Look", I said, "I've been doing
a show for people with AIDS for the past two years. Where
have they been? Now, they're up on the bleachers and I'm
on the ground/". The representative shrugged his shoulders
and said "I'm just doing my job. ".
Being treated as a second class citizen, not by the
dominant media; but, by the organizers af the Notional Goy
and Lesbian Morch on Washington was truly disheartening.
Although people are starting to take notice of AIDS Activism
and alternative media, there ore pervasive attitudes that the
network media, or the gallery art world, ore still the sacred
cows in terms of being accepted or "making it".
The past several years have witnessed a steady escalation of attacks an the rights of gays and lesbians. The
Hardwick decision on sodomy hos been handed down. Street
violence is up. The AIDS crisis hos shown us what it is like to
be treated as a disposable population, or on invisible one.
Now the U.S. Senate is actively suppressing art work that
depicts the gay and lesbian experience. The assumption is
that by legalizing our oppression they will silence us and drive
us underground. Not so. As AIDS activists become more
informed and effective, individuals and groups ore adopting
more pro-active strategies. We will continue to protest the
censorship af the Helms initiatives.
18
-
Video Against A IDS
Carlomusto
Washington D.C. , October 1987. The Notional Morch
on Washington for Goy and Lesbian Rights.
-
"Danny", by Stoshu Kybartas
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
We shouldn't forget that Robert Mapplethorpe's images
of homoeroticism and S/M weren't the first ones that Helms
went after. Two days ofter the Notional March on
Washington in 1987, Senator Jesse Helms launched an
attack on the Goy Men' s Health Crisis for printing the Sofer
Sex Comix. Censorship is wrong whether its aimed at the
Corcoran Gallery or at on AIDS Service provider. The fight
against censorship in the arts should include supporting
a lternative forms of cultural production. As marginalized
populations we need to think of alternative forums for
presenting information. Public access coble is one of the ways
we con toke direct action to end the AIDS crisis.
As of August 1989, over 90,000 people hove been
diagnosed with AIDS in the United States a lone. City, State
a nd Federal government hove done little to effectively meet
the needs of those who lives ore threatened by AIDS. In the
face of this growing crisis, a political AIDS activist movement
hos sprung up a ll over the country to fight government
inaction on AIDS. All over the country we have seen how AIDS
exacerbates a lready existing problems. AIDS will probably be
one of the catalysts that brings a notional health core policy
to the United States. The AIDS crisis a lso forces us to think
more about democratizing the media. Too few corporations
have control of the information in this country and they ore
getting larger and fewer. How can we expect the dominant
media to break through the racist, sexist and homophobic
government in which it mutually invests?
In contrast to network television, AIDS activist television ·
explores the possibility of production within the context of an
activist movement. Gross root media production is port of the
process of constantly defining and presenting our movement.
The Living With AIDS Show is an example of a growing
number of AIDS Activist media production. Living With AIDS
is devoted entirely to ending the AIDS crisis. The show is
co-produced by Gregg Bordowitz and myself. Our strategy
is to present life saving information about treatments, safer
sex, IV drug use; to document the efforts of AIDS activists and
to provide on analysis of the political, social and economic
conditions that hove allowed AIDS to reach pandemic
proportions. We hove people speaking for themselves about
their experiences. They ore addressing others like themselves
who could benefit from a shoring of knowledge and survival
strategies. The programs central philosophy is that we ore all
living with AIDS.
Activist television such as Living With AIDS doesn't speak
to a "general public" that is presumed to be white,
heterosexual, middle-class mole. Activist television doesn't
homogenize material; it speaks to specifically affected
populations. It is geared to do this because it is created by
these very communities. Living With AIDS not only produces
work; also we curate the works from other community based
organizations such as the Brooklyn AIDS Task Force or LUC ES
(a coalition of latino community activists). We've shown
collectively produced works such as Testing the Limits and
Damned Interfering Video Activist's (DIVA TV) Target City
Holl. We've a lso curated work done in a more personal
framework like Tom Kolin' s They ore Lost To Vision Altogether, Stashu Kobotus' Dann y and Issac Julien' s This Is
Not An AIDS Advertisement.
Recently Ted Koe ppel did a show on Nightline ca lled A
Revolution In A Box in which he hailed the potentia l of small
fo rmat video camcorders. Of course, th roughout on hour of
sensationalizing the prospect of the camcorder, there was
something too threatening to examine - public access
television. The idea that a group can exist a nd generate its
own cultural production outside of the dominant culture is too
hot for even the most liberal producer to handle.
Nightline showed people in Poland's Solidarity movement using small format video as on organizing tool, but it
would not recognize the potential of public access coble.
Over 54% of homes in the U.S. are wired for cable. Many
cable systems have at least one public access channel. These
ore open to anyone living or working in that community, thus,
there is the opportunity for people to present the concerns of
their own communities. Nightline also chose to ignore the
struggle of coble access advocates all over the country who
are trying to get the cable franchises to honour their mandates to provide public access television facilities. The subtext
of Nightline's Revolution in a Box was clear - revolution is fine
as long as it is somewhere else.
As AIDS activists become more informed and effective,
we ore exploring the social, economic and ideological implications of making media. These strategies not only include
toking our activism to the streets. We also need to bring it
bock into the homes. Coble access television provides this
link. Freed from the chains of the network media that
constantly suppress and distort our identities, we can explore
the ways we can use television to present our experiences.
�Global
MEDIA NElWORK
An Educational Guide on AIDS Video/Film
by Maria Maggenti, Robyn Hutt, and Sandra Elgar
Ask any independent media producer if they are satisfied
with the distribution of their work and their answer will almost
always be a resounding "NO".
Ask any community organizer or educator if they are
satisfied with the resources available to access information
on "alternative" media and their answers will be equally
negative.
the guide ; in what context it should be used; pointing out
strengths and weaknesses; and suggesting possible audiences. They are the "reviewers" referred to in many ofthe entries
of the guide and their vision, knowledge, and front- line
experience created the standards by which work was included
or rejected.
One organization that is attempting to overcome some
of the disparities between the producers and the consumers
of independent media is Media Network. Located in New
York City, Media Network was "founded on the belief thot
media profoundly influences the woy we see ourselves ond
the world around us." One of their mandates has been ta
produce user-friendly guides to issue-oriented, cultural and
political media. They have produced guides addressing a
wide ronge of topics, from reproductive rights to nuclear
disarmament. Their most recent project, which will be completed before the end of the year, is an educational guide to
responsible and culturally sensitive AIDS film and videotapes.
In January of this year, Media Network distributed nationally a questionnaire which listed over two hundred AIDS
related films and videos. The community groups who
received this questionnaire listed the films and videos which
they are familiar with and could recommend for use in other
communities. It was evident from the responses that the
majority of independently produced projects were not reaching these organizations and subsequently their constituents.
The material in this guide is unique in that it is a
compilation of work that is often hard to find, not well known,
or not widely distributed. It is also unique because every tape
in this guide was assessed by a series of community screenings. Hundreds of hours of film and video were reviewed in
New York City. Participants included People With AIDS, ARC
and HIV sero-positivity, AIDS educators, healthcare professionals, AIDS activists, community organizers, and independent producers. The screenings were loosely divided into
such categories as Women, Adolescents, IV Drug Use,
Coping and Activism. Reviewers evaluated approximately ten
tapes, stating whether or not the tape should be included in
AIDSFILMS LIBRARY
Few effective prevention education programs are being
targeted to people of colour living in urban areas - the
populations hardest hit by AIDS. In the absence of a vaccine,
behaviour change is our only hope of stopping the spread of
HIV. Yet there are very few programs to teach these behaviour changes and fewer that are targeted specifically at
those who need them most.
Vida is a twenty minute AIDS prevention education film
for adult Latinos, produced by AIDSFILMS, a non-profit
education company. Vida pictures the process of empowerment in the life of Elsie, a young single mother, who is forced
to consider her own risk of HIV infection when a former close
friend becomes sick with AIDS. Inspired by the importance of
family in her life, and prompted to take care of herself by a
close friend, Elsie gives her new boyfriend "the hardest
choice" - no sex without condoms. Vido vividly portrays
Latino women within their own communities - at work, in
their homes, at the beauty parlour - reflecting cultural
traditions and relationships which play a vital role in personal
choice and the process of empowerment.
Are You With Me? portrays the relationship between a
mother and her 19 year old daughter and the relationship
both women have with the men in their lives. While effectively
naming the importance of family in African American communities, Are You With Me? also takes on the questions of
condom negotiation, changing sexual habits, and the differences and similarities between two generations of women.
Are You With Me? positively portrays women taking control
"Testing the Limits (Pt. 1)", Testing the Limits Collective
The material in this guide is a wide ranging and urgent
response to the failures of mainstream media to de_al with the
AIDS crisis. The community of video and filmmakers who
have come out of the AIDS crisis have created work that, by
and large, self-consciously attempts to contradict and challenge mainstream assumptions about sex in the age of AIDS,
political fortitude in the age of AIDS, and PWA self-empowerment in the age of AIDS. This takes the form of short, explicit
safer sex tapes for gay men, straight couples and lesbians as
well as longer, more ambitious documentaries that chronicle
the burgeoning AIDS activist movement and the politics of
the epidemic. In addition, as the crisis itself expands and
intensifies, affecting especially communities of colour and
women, there are more and more tapes designed by, for,
and about the particular experiences of Black people, Latin
people, and women affected by AIDS.
Like the People With AIDS self-empowerment movement, alternative AIDS media has often taken as its premise
the necessity of self-representation and self-determination.
Thus, many of the best tapes and films in this guide came
from the inside, as opposed to the curious and often
frightened outside, that informs" mainstream media approaches to AIDS. Yet there are gaps - work that deals with
gay white men still predominates and work that examines
that particular experience of lesbians in the AIDS crisis is still
far from complete. Material designed for communities of
colour is not always empowering or accurate and sometimes
falls prey to stereotype and prejudice. And though women
are the fastest growing group of people with HIV infection
and AIDS, there are still far too few tapes that address women
and women's needs. However, the great strength of alternative media is that it often springs directly from the communities affected by AIDS; and thus, often presents information that is not only genuine and accurate, but often on the
cutting edge of what is happening in the many communities
that are the AIDS community.
This guide is designed as a resource for those individuals
and groups who wish to develop programs about AIDS that
serve not only to inform but to provoke, enlighten, enrage,
and engage audiences. Entries are organized in a simple,
alphabetical format. The index is divided by both subject and
intended audience. Written entries often close with "viewing
suggestions" that offer a possible combination of material
facilitating a dialogue on the diversity arid complexity of an
issue.
By including material which is provocative, empowering,
educational and inspiring, Media Network has attempted to
create a guide that is useful for as many community-based
organizations as possible. Hopefully, this guide will prove to
be a valuable resources for both the communities affected
by AIDS and the independent producers whose work is a
response to that crisis.
AIDS Prevention Education Programs
of their sexual health within the traditions and conventions of
their own communities.
By portraying believable urban teenagers within their
own community settings, Seriously Fresh provides culturally
tailored skills training and scenarios of personal empowerment intended to help teenagers make life saving changes
in behaviour. Recognizing the complex inter-relationship of
issues such as substance abuse, sexuality or peer pressure,
Seriously Fresh adopts a fast-paced range of styles to depict
a range of issues and individuals in a series of related
vignettes.
-Vida, Are You With Me?, and Seriously Fresh are part of
The AIDSFI LM Library, a collection of short prevention films
targeted specifically at urban African American, and Latino,
gay, bisexual, and straight adolescents and adults. The films
are designed to "trigger" emotional and problem-solving
responses in the viewer, and model effective behaviourial
solutions-to those dilemmas. Thus each film helps the viewer
develop a repertory of social and emotional skills for initiating
and maintaining safer sexual and drug use practices, which
they can use when similar situations occur in real life.
To be most effective, AIDSFILMS' prevention programs
are framed in imagery and language that demonstrate
behaviour, are emotionally compelling, and consistent with
the popular television and movies, cultural traditions,
celebrations and interpersonal dynamics these groups
choose to view and live out. These films are written, directed
and produced by members of communities of colour. Finally,
the AIDSFILMS Library is performance based - actively
demanding that porticiponts rehearse and improve the social, psychological and practical skills through which behaviour changes.
The AIDSFILMS Library is being produced by AIDSFILMS,
the not-for-profit education corporation responsible for
producing the critically acclaimed nationally televised films,
AIDS: Changing the Rules, hosted by Ron Reagan, Beverly
Johnson, and Ruben Blades and El Sido: Combiondo Los
Reglos, hosted by Esai Morales, Maria Conchita Alonso, and
Ruben Blades. AIDSFILMS works directly with both an extensive network of community based agencies and individuals;
and, outstanding African American and Latino talent to
research, develop, write and direct each targeted film.
--
-
AIDSFILMS will distribute these films and their accompanying collateral materials an~ discussion guides through a
wide network of affiliations with city and state health departments, social services agencies, and family planning clinics.
For more information contact:
AIDSFILMS
50 West 34th Street, Suite #686
New York, N.Y. 10001
Phone (212)629 6288
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
19
.
�Global
SOME NOTES ON
"Testing the Limits (Pt. 1)", Testing the Limits Collective
In a recent protest at the New York Stock Exchange,
Thursday, September 14th, ACT UP* New York demanded
that Borroughs-Wellcome drop the price of AZT. The day
before the protest a producer from a weekly news program,
anxious to have access to this "hot news item", contacted us,
Testing the Limits, to purchase our footage from this event.
Underlining the fact that this protest did not come out of a
void, we suggested that she preview footage from events
which place the Stock Exchange protest within a larger
political context.
On Monday, September 18th, Borroughs-Wellcome announced that it would lower the price of the drug by 20% (still
only a token amount). Later this month the same news
program will open with a segment which discusses profiteering by pharmaceutical companies in relation to potentially
life saving drugs and feature PWAs and other AIDS activists
on its panel of "experts". Ten years into the AIDS pandemic
the influence of marginal communities is being felt at the
centre.
When we refer to centrality/marginality we are basing
this on the suspicion that what is at the centre often hides a
repression. In order to ensure that the status quo remain
intact, those groups who are considered marginal are excluded from the "public discourse". It is true that inhabitants
of the margins ore otcasionally invited into the centre (as the
previous anecdote illustrates). Indeed, the mainstream relies
on counter culture for innovation. The strongest brand of
centralization, however, allows in only terms which could by
accommodated within an argument based on consistency.
As AIDS activists our objective is not to achieve token inclusion
- a ten second slot on the 6 o'clock news - but to radically
affect change.
It would be naive to assume that we are revolutionizing
the system. We still live in a market economy, pharmaceutical
companies continue to make decisions based on profit margins, politicians continue to endorse racist, sexist, and
homophobic legislation which reflects a New Right agenda,
and mainstream media continue to run stories which reiterate
government press releases rather than critiquing their inaction. But we must acknowledge the inroads which are being
made and recognize that the distinction between the centre
and the margins is not as absolute as those in power would
have us believe. Although we do not have the vast resources
or economic stability required to reach a mass audience in a
short period of time, marginal groups, directly and indirectly,
can affect change.
Historically, successful challenges to the status quo
emerge from a collective grassroots response, rather than an
individual effort. In addition to direct action groups, community-based clinics and researchers, and advocacy groups,
independent producers have responded collectively to the
AIDS epidemic. To illustrate this response we will focus on
three New York based media collectives, DIVA TV, Gran Fury
and Testing the Limits Collective. 01'/e should note that
collective production is not limited to these groups nor to New
York City. We hove chosen to write about those groups with
whom we are most familiar) .
Recently there has been a marked interest in cultural
empowerment and the AIDS crisis. We have spoken, ·
alongside other media activists, on panels with such titles as
20
VIDEO GUiDE 1989
AIDS Art Activism: Cultural Empowerment, and AIDS Media:
Counter-Representations. In every instance we are referred
to, and represent ourselves, as producers of alternative
media. This raises the question of what is alternative media;
what are we alternative to and where are we situated.
Setting ourselves up as an alternative, presupposes that
we are the other - we are producing from the margins (as
women we have always functioned from the margins, so this
position is only too familiar) . And in this instance, dominant
media or mass communications are at the centre. This
seemingly negative assumption situates us in a reactive, never
pro-active, position. However, by employing deconstructivist
strategies - appropriating popular conventions from the
mainstream - we recontextualize familiar paradigms. Within
this structure we create our own voices and images. As
conscious producers of agit-prop, our work does not simply
function as a critique - it is used as a tool for community organizing. Challenging the notion that the centre offers the
official explanation, members within communities affected by
AIDS become their own voices of authority. We are no longer
content to sit back and comment on the failure of the press
to understand the impact of AIDS in our communities.
Testing the Limits is a collective of independent media
producers which formed to document emerging forms of
activism arising out of people's responses to massive discrimination, lack of education, pharmaceutical profiteering,
unavailability of healthcare and treatments, and government
inaction in the global AIDS epidemic. Over the last three years
we have amassed over three hundred hours of material
comprised of forums, protests, community outreach, testimony and interviews which constitutes a history of the AIDS
movement which would have otherwise gone undocumented. In addition to producing documentaries, educational videos, and commissioned tapes, we make our material
available to other producers (independent, cable, and network) and community groups.
Just recently we conducted an interview with volunteers
from the People With AIDS Coalition hotline for our forthcoming documentary. This hotline is unique in that it consists
entirely of people with AIDS. It is their philosophy that the
ultimate authorities on AIDS ore those who ore directly
affected by the disease. Several days after the shoot, members of Testing the Limits and PWA Coalition volunteers
viewed the dailies and collectively decided the way in which
they would be represented in our documentary. Subsequently, the coordinator of the hotline is now assembling,
from this material, a short training tape which will be used to
educated new volunteers. This illustrates some of the possible
levels of activism which con occur within one shoot. People
with AIDS can directly affect the construction of their own
images and educate their own communities. Thus, a voice is
facilitated for communities who have been historically denied
access to or representation by dominant media. To be
oppressed is to live without a voice: the potential for disenfranchised communities to organize through the introduction of media should not be underestimated.
We should note that Testing the Limits has been working
within the AIDS activist movement for over three years. We
are not suggesting that acknowledgement from the affected
communities happens without responsible representation of
and/or direct involvement with those communities.
Our primary goal for Testing the Limits: NYC (Port One)
was to create an organizing tape by activists, for activists.
Our decision to produce a broadcast quality tape did not so
much reflect our mandate, as it demonstrated our naive
enthusiasm. We were committed to making every effort
possible to get the information "out there". The response to
the documentary (and to such documentaries coming out of
the AIDS activist community as Women and AIDS [Carlomusto/Juhasz], Doctors, Liars, and Women [Corlomusto/Maggenti]) far surpassed our greatest expectations.
As our strategy for production is documentation through
participation, so too is our distribution strategy - the majority
of our distribution is handled by the collective itself. Although
the art community was the first to respond to Testing the
Limits: NYC (Part One), our initial distribution effort targeted
groups working within the diverse communities affected by
AIDS (many of whom were documented in the tape) . Since
the tape's completion, it has been screened in such varying
settings as; community centres, healthcare clinics, colleges,
universities, galleries, museums, lesbian and gay bars, film
festivals, cable and broadcast television. It continues to be
used for community outreach, and in many instances has
been screened when new direct action groups are forming .
Through such widespread distribution, many communities
· are introduced to grassroots efforts which traditionally go
unnoticed.
One of our goals for community-based distribution is to
disseminate information to as many forums as possible
outside the circuit of commercial cinema. The viewing of our
tapes is just one part of the experience of a screening. Equally
as important as the information contained in our tape, is that
screenings can facilitate a context for diverse groups of
people to come together who might ordinarily never meet. It
is at this point that a screening can provoke participation by
providing a context for discussion.
Growing out of the AIDS activist movement is a new
wave of activist generated media. Most of the members of
Testing the Limits are participating members of ACT UP.
Similarly, Gran Fury and DIVA TV have emerged from its
general membership. DIVA TV is, in fact, an affinity group
within ACT UP, which formed specifically to provide countersurveillance and documentation of the March 28th, 1989,
Target City Holl protest. And this group hos continued to
produce work as a loose association of individuals committed
to media activism.
Over the past two decades there has been increased
access to the tools of mass communication - in part, a result
of the creation and dissemination of less expensive, more
portable film and video equipment. This new technology has
heightened production of independent media at the community level. DIVA TV use their media production as a tool
for direct action. Most members of DIVA TV own or have
access to small format equipment (VHS Camcorders, video-8
and super 8 cameras). Unlike Testing the Limits, they require
almost no budget for production. This enables them to quickly
produce a variety of short tapes which are then circulated
within the AIDS activist community. However, their tapes are
not limited to this community, they have been screened in
galleries and on a weekly Manhattan cable show Living With
AIDS, produced by Gay Men's Health Crisis. Although this
group does not necessarily produce each tape collectively,
they meet regularly to view rushes and tapes in progress in
�Global
COLLECTIVE PRODUCTION
"Testing the Limits (Pt. 1)", Testing the Limits Collective
order to share ideas and footage. Their tapes reflect the
multiplicity of images and view points obtainable only when
many cameras are shooting the same event. For instance,
the tape they produced from the Target City Hall demonstration was ordered into three distinct sections. Some women in
the group chose to document women's involvement in civil
disobedience. As they interviewed women being released
from jail, the story emerged of how their civil rights had been
violated by verbal harassment and illegal strip searches (this
abuse was limited exclusively to the women arrested). This
material was edited into one portion of the tape focusing on
women. Another section was shot in a cinema verite style as
the camera person followed one particular affinity group
throughout the entire action. The final section is a broader
analysis of the entire ev~nt. Although this protest received
coverage on almost every network new program in New York
City, DIVA TV's footage was not a reflection on, but rather,
part of the protest itself.
While DIVA TV and Testing the Limits documented/participated in the City Hall action, members of Gran Fury
distributed, to office bound pedestrians, free copies of The
New York Crimes; not to be confused with The New York
Times. Earlier that morning this same paper was placed in
Times vending boxes in the surrounding area. Gran Fury
meticulously reproduced the papers front and bock cover.
But with articles written under such headlines os: "N.Y.
HOSPITALS IN RUINS; CITY HALL TO BLAME", "WOMEN
AND AIDS : OUR GOVERNMENT'S WILFUL NEGLECT",
"WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE OF COLOR? RACE EFFECTS SURVIVAL " , "AIDS AND MONEY : HEALTHCARE OR
WEALTHCARE?" for the first time, readers of The New York
Times actually received accurate AIDS information. This is
only one example of the way in which Gran Fury appropriates
mainstream conventions for an activist message.
Gran Fury consciously works outside a conventional art
gallery context. This philosophy is powerfully articulated in
the centrefold of a catalogue from the show AIDS: The Artists'
Response. "WITH 47,524 DEAD, ART IS NOT ENOUGH. Our
culture gives artists permission to name oppression, a permission denied those oppressed. Outside the pages of this
catalogue, permission is being seized by many communities
to save their own lives. WE URGE YOU TO TAKE COLLECTIVE
DIRECT ACTION TO END THE AIDS CRISIS."
It is impossible to walk more than two blocks in the city
without coming across some remnant of their work. Placed
over a sexist advertisement for Johnny Walker Scotch is a
florescent yellow sticker, "MEN USE CONDOMS OR BEAT
IT", covering the coin slot of a pay telephone is a bright red
handprint with the message; "THE GOVERNMENT HAS
BLOOD ON ITS HANDS ONE AIDS DEATH EVERY HALF
HOUR". Cleverly using advertising strategies much of their
work falls within the parameters of consumptive art. Their
messages can be read on billboards, bus advertisements,
posters, t-shirts, buttons and stickers. (It is important to
acknowledge that most of the profits from sales [many items,
such as stickers and posters, are given away) go directly to
ACT UP). Recently buses in the San Francisco area and in the
boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan have been
sporting a Gran Fury ad which is a direct appropriation of
the United Colors of Bennetton ad campaign. Using signifiers
which are immediately understood within the paradigms of
advertising, they insert a sign conceived to inform a broad
public and provoke action. Pictured are three couples kissing;
a man and a woman, two men, and two women. Above these
couples are the words, "KISSING DOESN'T KILL: GREED
AND INDIFFERENCE DO". In addition is a rejOinder which
reads, "CORPORATE GREED, GOVERNMENT INACTION,
AND PYBLIC INDIFFERENCE MAKE AIDS A POLITICAL
CRISIS". · Much interest has been stirred by Gran Fury's
"Bennetton" ad. It has been reported that Bennetton has
received phone calls requesting their Gran Fury Department.
To say the least, they were surprised to discover that they
have been associated with an ad campaign which they
perceive to be promoting homosexuality. People are taking
notice.
mainstream. I feel that I am helping to build a movement that
is mine rather than fit into somebody else's."
*ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), a diverse,
non-partisan group united in anger and committed to direct
action to end the global AIDS epidemic.
ENDNOTES
1Gayatri Spivak, "Explanation and Culture: Marginalia,"
In Other Worlds Essays in Cultural Politics, Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc., N.Y., N.Y. 1988, pg. 114.
2
It was shocking for us to discover that the ad provoked
outrage, not for its message, but for depicting a black man
kissing a white woman.
We would like ta thank David Meieran for his contin11P.ci
w~~
~
In a city which assaults us relentlessly with sexist,
heterosexist, classist, racist, homophobic images, it is empowering to realize that thousands of people are confronted
daily with messages of popular resistance.
In the preceding discussion we have attempted to
demonstrate how marginal communities are affecting
change. But we must note that the premise upon which this
article is based does assume a certain white middle-class
bias. This is unavoidable as that is our experience and it would
be false to assume that we can speak from any other context,
consequently certain presumptions must be recognized. If a
community or a group from a community did indeed have a
d~sire to produce their own images they would not necessarily
have the means to do so. Video has radically altered the face
of community-based media production. Substantial inroads ·
have been made by communities with regard to media
activism. But we must not delude ourselves, thinking that what
is affordable or accessible to one group is similarly affordable
or accessible to all groups. However, creative, often collective, strategies are being tried all the time: victories may be
hard won but change is imminent.
Speaking at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
town meeting in Washington, D.C., Maxine Wolfe, a member
of ACT UP, articulated a growing sentiment among AIDS
activists; "For the first time, rather than feeling that I am ·
reading from exclusion and responding from the margins, I
feel that I am acting from my center but not from the
VIDEO
GUIDE
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
21
�Global
DO IT!
by Jean Carlomusto
and Gregg Bordowitz
"Midnight Snack", by Jeon Carlomusto and Gregg Bor dowitz, GMHC.
Safer Sex Porn For Girls and Boys Comes of Age
Reprinted from Out Week, August 28, 1989
The scene is o kitchen. Middle of the night. A guy gets
up to get o snack. As he probes the refrigerotor, he is joined
by his lover who gives him o rim job through o dental dam .
One of the guys then licks whipped cream off the other's
balls. Finally, one rolls o condom onto the other's cock,
squirts honey all over it and sucks the hard, candied cock.
In o living room, o woman is lying on the couch watching .
television and masturbating with o vibrator. She looks up to
see another woman standing over her holding o towel which
she unfolds to reveal dental dams, gloves, sex lube and o
dildo. One girl goes down on the other, using o dental dam.
The other dons o glove and proceeds to finger-fuck her
partner.
This is our job. As the audio/visual deportment of the
Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), we're charged with the
task of producing safer sex video educational materials for
the purpose of getting the message out that you can have
hot sex without placing yourself at risk for AIDS. These videos
are to be instructional. They have to demonstrate how specific
acts, such as anal, vaginal and oral sex, can be made safer.
The material has to be culturally relevant - rendered in ways
meaningful to specific audiences. Lastly, the material has to
exist in a form that makes it easy to distribute as widely as
possible. And, with all this to consider, we still have to make
the girls wet and the guys ho rd. Not the easiest task. But we' re
driven. To start, we had to come to a clear "safer sex"
definition.
Safer sex of course is a means of disease prevention. But
too often discussions of safer sex are reduced to debates
solely about various modes of HIV transmission - debates
which overlook the fact that there are many other sexuallytransmitted diseases and viruses that may compromise one's
immune system. Safer sex then is a set of individual decisions
one makes about one's sexual life in view of one's health
concerns. And since pleasure - the ultimate goal - also
contributes to one's well-being, the message has to make
clear that any sexual act can be made safer; that we can
safely get laid, get it on, get off and do it!
--
The safer sex videos we produce are a series of "shorts",
approximately five minutes each. The shorts are like music
videos - extremely slick images rapidly edited in a variety of
ways, on different formats, to resemble some of the most
current trends in video production. The shorts are non-narrative in structure, and dialogue is kept to a minimum, as
every explicit scene is guaranteed hot and explosive.
Each video is designed by a task group which chooses
the scene, the situation and the acts to be performed. Each
group produces a short with specific community or audience
in mind. There is a Black men's task group, a Latino task
group and a lesbian task group. In addition, there are
scenarios developed to represent the many ways we all get
turned on: anonymous sexual encounte·rs (two boys meet and
fuck safely in a public bathroom); bisexuality (two girls and
two guys get it on safely sharing sex toys as they work out an
infinite number of possibilities); sadomasochism (heavy
bondage and discipline between two BIG MEN) ; and drag (a
drag queen fucks her hairdresser before the show. Safely, of
course.)
22
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
A guy in cop drag is showing his nightstick to o construction worker-type. The construction worker rolls o condom
down the shaft of his night stick, squirts lube on it and bends
over. The cop sticks it up the workers ass. Then the roles
switch. The worker uses leather straps to put the cop in
bondage. He puts o condom on his erect cock and ass fucks
the cop. When finished, he puts on o glove and fist fucks the
cop. End.
Although we will all admit to having fantasies, few of us
ever disclose what it is exactly that is running through our
heads as we make love or masturbate. We are very protective
of our fantasies for obvious reasons. Our partner may feel
threatened if the fantasies don't involve him or her, or we
fear that bringing these dark fantasies into the open will
somehow lessen their clandestine allure. We internalize our
own brand of homophobia that shies away from images of
sex because they seem inappropriate. Instead, these images
are locked in our minds where they stay suppressed, except
during moments when we want to fan the coals. As safer sex
educational video makers, we must employ fantasy to teach
about sex.
The recognition of lesbian sexuality, as well as the Centre
for Disease Control's persistent refusal to include data on
woman-to-woman transmission of HIV, were the primary
motivations in creating the lesbian safer sex video Current
Flow. Lesbian identified sex positive imagery is scarce. While
there are hundreds of porn tapes for gay men, there are few
created for lesbians. Although many videotapes depicting
lesbian sex created for straight men are available on the
shelves of even the most mundane video rental stores, only
a few tapes trickle in from the West Coast mode for, by and
about women . And even fewer of these deal with safer sex
for lesbians.
This is both oppressive and dangerous because in order
to educate lesbians about safer sex we have to establish what
it is. Saying "use a dental dam" is not the same as saying
"use a condom" since many women don't even know what
a dental dam is. And how could they possibly know? It is a
latex square manufactured for dentists performing oral
surgery! (People such as Denise Ribble and the women of
ACT UP's Women's Caucus are getting the word out hat this
little square of latex can preventtransmission of HIV and other
sexually-transmitted diseases and viruses in vaginal/cervical
fluids, or in menstrual blood. This task is enormous.) Our goal
was to show some ways lesbians could have safer sex acts.
In o short for black men who have sex with other men,
directed by Charles Brack, o businessman gets into a cob.
The driver flirts with him. He reciprocates. When they arrive
at the destination, the man in the suit can't find his wallet.
Searching his pockets for money he finds some condoms. The
driver accepts this currency and fucks his fare on the back
seat. Taxi!
Undoubtedly, the AIDS crisis necessitated revolutionary
action by the lesbian and gay community. Countering the
repressive forces behind the state-sponsored "just say no"
campaigns, the community produced its own discourse about
sexuality. Now, with this experience in mind, safer sex education must be developed to address ever-widening circles of
people among the communities hardest hit by AIDS. Resources must be made available for communities to develop their
own forms of education.
The purpose of the shorts is to function as advertisements
for safer sex. They can be used in bars. They can be
distributed to supplement other porn tapes as trailers. They
can be compiled onto one tape and edited with supplemental
information in a video safer sex workshop. Lastly, they can
be presented at safer sex teach-ins as the instructors find
appropriate.
Safer sex educational video is a form of direct action.
We recognize that sexuality cuts across socially-constructed
boundaries between races, classes and genders. We make
representations that legitimate specific acts - anal, vaginal,
oral sex - and we create an atmosphere conducive to sexual
experimentation. In the face of increasing censorship amidst
a morally conservative climate, we militantly advocate sex in beds, kitchens, bars, restrooms, taxis, anywhere you want.
If it's safer sex, do it! That's the message.
I
I
II ;! I •IJ'l ! :r{·l I1'2 #:Ill
OPEN HOUSEi
Friday, December O ne
Noon to Five P.M .
1
Sat urd ay, December Two
Eleven A .M . to Five P.M .
Come help us celebrate the official
opening of our new offices at
1272 Richards Street
.,.. Spea kers, Videos, Poster Displav
Call 687-S220 for more information
FILMSI
Friday, December One
,,..THE BOYS IN THE BAND
Saturday, December Two
,,..PARTING GLANCES
M idnight screenings
Pacific Cinematheque
·1131 Howe Street
Suggested donation per film: S4
All proceeds go to
WORLD
AIDS
DAY
DECEMBER ONE, 1989 If.
�Global
"SPREAD THE WORD"
Interview with Australian producer Tracey Moffatt
by Sue Jenkins
Tracey Moffatt of Australia, was recently in Vancouver
for the In Visible Colours International Film and Video Festival
- organized by Women In Focus and The National Film
Board - where several of her videos were screened. ("A
Change of Face", "Nice Coloured Girls","Watch Out'', "Solid
Women", "Spread the Word")
Sue Jenkins: Could you tell me about how you first got
involved in visual media?
Tracey Moffatt: I studied filmmaking at the Queensland
College of the Arts in Brisbane, Australia. In 1983, I moved
to live in Sydney and worked as an independent photographer and filmmaker, producing my own projects and
photographic exhibitions, as well as projects for Aboriginal
organizations. In my own work, in the three mediums of
photography, film, and video, I'm trying to depart from a
realist representation of Black Australia. For example, I'm not
wanting to produce conventional documentaries or dramas
about Aboriginal people. I'm continually trying to explore film
form . When I talk about or present my work, as I have at this
Festival I like to include my health videos because I consider
them as important as my art video and film.
You produced "Spread the Word" three years ago?
Yes, it was partly a response to the Australian
government's Grim Reaper commercials. People needed
something informative, that didn't scare them. I was approached by the Aboriginal Medical Services who asked me
to produce a video that would educate Aboriginal people
about AIDS. The title comes from an AMS poster that reads
"Spread the Word, Not the Disease". The messages in the
tape are very clear, and misconceptions are thoroughly
discussed. I was told to assume that they knew nothing about
AIDS, so that's how I approached the it.
You are well established as an independent producer
working in Australian television, so it follows that they would
ask you to do it. How did you go about your research?
Pat Swan, an Aboriginal psychiatric nurse with the
Aboriginal Medical Services, and a doctor, gave me the facts
on AIDS, and I wrote the script, and produced it. Although,
the information in the tape could probably be updated
somewhat, it's still effective in getting basic messages across.
The tape has been well received. It's been sent to all the
Aboriginal organizations in Australia, including community
groups and art centres, and medical services screen it in their
waiting rooms. For some it's purely educational, for others
it's entertainment. People can get together and watch it on
their home VCR' s.
It's a very colourful video! You used a blue screen
studio ...
Yes, I like being in the studio, and using chroma-key. In
the studio situation there's a lot of control, and I like it that
way. It took us two days to shoot Spread the Word. All the
people involved were non-actors who I casted because White
casting agents aren't connected to Aboriginal people.
Did you have a lot of control over how and what you
shot, and the editing of the video?
Yes and no. I had to have the script approved by the
entire staff of the Aboriginal Medical Services. Although I
originally had the gay boy appearing as the first character in
the video, I eventually re-arranged the order because there
was concern that this character might offend the Christian
black community. It was actually a very collective process.
Everyone at the AMS was involved, but after awhile, I just had
to say "Okay, that's it - no more changes, I've got to finish
this video!"
What was the budget for this production?
We had $30,000 to work with. The video (9 min) cost
$1 7 ,000 to make, and we used the rest of the money to make
posters, and dubs for distribution. The World Health Organization has bought 1000 copies of Spread the Word to
distribute in English-speaking African countries that can not
afford to make their own videos. The video is meant for
Australian Aboriginals, but at least African people are able to
have black people talking to them about AIDS.
We had a huge opening and a good press conference
when the video was finished. The white press gave us very
positive coverage, as did the Aboriginal press.
So, you might be asked to do another video on AIDS, an
update ...
a voice for
Vancouver's
lesbian
and
gay
community
••
Angles
welcomes
new writers
and artists
Yes, well I do act as a consultant for all kinds of projects,
and I'd certainly be interested in helping out, though I haven't
been approached yet. I have just completed a video about
Hepatitis B and immunization called It's Up To You. It educates people about the dangers of Hepatitis B and the
importance of immunization. This virus is running rampant
in the Australian Aboriginal community, probably due to
living conditions, lack of hygiene, and then unprotected sex
with an infected partner.
1170 Bute Street
Vancouver
V6E 1Z6
Can you tell me a little about Sydney, Australia and some
,of the current attitudes around the AIDS crisis?
688-0265
Well, Sydney is the 2nd largest gay city in the world, after
San Francisco. In February, we have a huge Gay Mardi Gras
Festival that goes all the way up Oxford Street. For awhile
back there, it got a little quiet, but there's since bee11 a
resurgence of gay pride. Lots of people come to the Festival,
families ... everyone. In Australia, we have freely available
condoms, and free disposable needles in some pharmacies.
There's even condom earrings!
ULISES CARRION
1941 - 1989
"/ don't understand why people still have problems
about what is art and what isn't... AI/ of it already existed.. .what artists have done is to give intention to those
existing forms and placed them in a historical context.. .I pick
out of my reality those elements which are important to
me .. peop/e, media, processes ... / don't work with material or
objects anymore, but with cultural phenomena ... Don't you
think that my gesture, my choice of Lilia Prado, is just as
arbitrary as Duchamp's gesture?
.. .Lilia Prado is my readymade!"
- excerpt from Video In Schedule of Events, April/BS
Lilia Prado was a Mexican film star during Carrion's
youth. The tape Lilia Prado - Superstar is a mix of documentary and acted accounts of the Lilia Prado Superstar Festiyal
which Carrion organized in Holland in 1984. It concentrates
on the complexity of events around the "star" syndrome.
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
23
�--
-
~--
Global
SAFER
SEX
SAFER SEX is anything you do that does
not involve the exchange of sexual fluids
between partners.
Protected intercourse means fucking with a
condom on, before any penetration - vaginal and/or anal.
The latex condom creates a barrier and helps prevent the
transmission of the Human lmmuno deficient virus (HIV) and
other sexually transmitted diseases (STD's).
Masturbation, or jerking off alone or with another
person (or persons!) is perfectly safe because no sexual fluid
gets inside the other partner(s).
Kissing, as deep as you want to go is not a risk for
HIV transmission. It is possible to pick up other germs (mono,
herpes) from mouth to mouth contact.
A condom can only be unrolled and used once. If you
stop to take a break or take it off - start fresh with a new
one.
2. Minimal possibility of HIV transmission
Every few minutes check and feel for the bottom ring of
the condom, or if the sensations change while you are
screwing, stop and check that the condom hasn't broken or
slipped off... lf it has, start fresh and use more water-based
lube, or try something else ...
It' s safer to ejaculate or cum outside of your partner,
even if you do wear a condom during penetration and
intercourse. Sexual fluids outside or on a body pose no risk.
This information is reprinted from a pamphlet from AlbS
Vancouver, a non-profit community organization that
provides support services to people with HIV and AIDS, and
education and prevention to the public. For more information
about Sofer Sex or AIDS coll AIDS Vancouver Helpline 687AIDS.
Squeeze any air out of the top of the condom, leaving
space for the cum to go.
Massage, body rubbing and other skin-to-skin stuff
is perfectly safe. Before there could be a risk of HIV transmission, the sexual fluids of one partner would have to get into
the other person's open bloodstream, inside their anus, penis
or vagina. Try using warm oils and lotions between you just be sure to clean up any oil before using condoms
later... oil and rubber don't mix.
Some condoms come prelubed with gel or a fine dry
powder. You'll need to use lots more water soluble lubricants
(KY Gel, K Gel, Probe) to prevent friction and increase
pleasure. Never use any oil based lubricants (vaseline, baby
oil, hand lotion) since oil damages the condom and causes
it to break.
Gently unroll the condom down the penis, smoothing
any air out the bottom.
After sex, hold the base of the condom. Withdraw gently
and throw the used condom in the garbage.
frame. Check out some of the other hidden spots: ears,
necks, armpits, breasts, nipples, ankles, feet - the list goes
on and on ...
You have to have an erection before you try to put on
the condom. If the penis isn't hard, it's too early.
Acting out fantasies is a dream come true! Pick
Avoid any penetration before you have the condom on.
Disease can be transmitted without orgasm or ejaculation.
a time when you will be uninterrupted (depending on the
fantasy) and set the stage. Make sure all sex toys (dildoes
etc.) are cleaned with hot water and soap (or a wash of l /l 0
bleach) before sharing and inserting inside the other partner.
Better still, use individual condoms or get enough toys so
everyone gets their own!
It's all in how you say it:
• Safer, safe: means the things you do hove little or no risk
of spreading HIV.
• HIV, Human lmmlino deficiency Virus: The virus thought to
cause AIDS.
• STD's Sexually Transmitted Disease: There ore more than
30 dangerous diseases that con be spread when having
unprotected intercourse. HIV may top the list, but there ore
epidemics of syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhoea, hepatitis and
others.
• Oral sex means any kind of mouth contact with your
partner's sexual organs (penis, vagina).
• Sexual intercourse or fucking means penetration of the
vagina or onus (rectum) .
• Cum is the sexual fluids of a man or woman, before orgasm
for lubrication or ofter orgasm when semen is ejaculated from
the man. The actual moment of orgasm is sometimes called
Ncumming".
Condoms when used properly are the only
effective protection against both disease and
pregnancy. They come in different textures,
colours and even flavours. Try out different
brands and find the ones you like best. Because they are made of rubber, condoms
stretch - onesizefitsall. Therearebrandsthat
have a snug fit, and there are extra thick
quality, ideal for anal sex.
Every condom in North America is electronically tested
before its sold - most breaks and failures ore due to human
error. A safe is only as good as the user.
Most boxes of condoms have a clearly marked "expiry
date" on the outside. If they are stored in a cool, dry, place
they will last 2 or 3 more years.
Don't keep condoms in your wallet, car, or pocket too
long. Changes in temperature and handling can cause them
to break down later, when you want them to work.
Open the package carefully, first pushing the ring of the
condom away from the corner you're tearing. Watch out for
sharp rings and fingernails!
24
VIDEO GUIDE1989
Theoretical risk ............ ... ......... ....... ..... ............ ......... .. yes
Evidence of transmission ......... .... ....... ........ ..... ..... .... none
Low possibility of HIV transmission
Theoretical risk ...... ..... ........ ......... ..... ............. .. ......... .. yes
Evidence of transmission ......... .. ........ ......... .. ... ... .. ... .. small
3. Very high possibility of HIV transmission
Nonoxynol-9 is a spermicide chemical that also hurts or
kills HIV and some other viruses. There hasn't been much
research about long term use and side effects.
Because the anal tissues
are highly absorbative, it may be dangerous, over time, to
use this kind of chemical. If you use condoms well, and cum
outside your partner's body there isn't much chance of
exposure to the tissues where transmission occurs.
Oral sex is safest when you create a latex barrier with
condoms or dental dams. As long as there are no sores,
ulcers or bleeding in your mouth, going down on someone
without a latex barrier is a low risk for HIV infection. Wait an
hour after flossing before giving a blow job.
Skin is the largest organ of the body and covers a wide
Theoretical risk. .... ........ ......... ......... ....... ... ....... ..... ... . none
Evidence of transmission ... ... ...... ... ... ...... .. .. .... .... .... .... none
If the man is not circumcised, pull the foreskin back. A
small dab of water-based lube on the head of any penis will
add sensation and pleasure.
Condoms only unroll one way, so check which side is
up, and which way goes down.
UNSAFE
SEX
UNSAFE SEX is having penetration and intercourse
(anal and vaginal) without a latex condom. This puts both
partners at risk for any STD'S the other person may have.
EXPOSURE TO SEXUAL FLUIDS during oral sex
from a man or woman (even swallowi ng) is a low risk for HIV,
but it could put you at risk for other diseases: herpes simplex,
syphilis, and gonorrhoea.
ORAL ANAL CONTACT, or rimming, is when the
mouth or tongue make contact with the anus, and can put
someone at risk for hepatitis, parasites and other germs.
DIRECT CONTACT WITH BLOOD from another
person should always be avoided, and treated carefully.
Fresh flowing blood has to get directly into someone else's
bloodstream before there is a chance of HIV transmission.
Blood can carry lots of other risks - hepatitis is 100 times
easier to get.
SAFE SEX GUIDELINES FOR LESBIANS
Most lesbians do not have a high risk of contracting or
transmitting the HIV virus at this time. For lesbians, learning
and practising safe sex is the healthiest way to stay sexually
active and prevent AIDS from growing in our community.
Lesbians at Risk for AIDS
l . Lesbians who share needles or any other paraphernalia
(spoons, works, syringe) when using IV drugs. This is the
single most important risk category for lesbians.
2. Lesbians who have had unprotected sexual contact with :
- men who have been actively gay or bisexual since 1979,
- people of either sex whose sexual histories are unknown,
- people who use IV drugs,
- people who are hemophiliac, or who have received blood
transfusions between 1979 and 1985.
3. Lesbians who have received blood transfusions or blood
products between 1979 and 1985.
Theoretical risk ...... ........................ ....... .. ... .. .... .... .... . high
Evidence of transmission ... ....... ..... ... ............. ........ .... high
Sofer Sex Guidelines for Lesbians
No possibility of transmission of HIV: Massage, hugging,
social (dry) kissing, voyeurism, masturbation, frottage or
tribadism (body-to-body rubbing), exhibitionism, body licking
and kissing (except mucosa! linings), erotic bathing or
showering, unshared sex toys, nipple stimulation (without
drawing blood), external urination, external defecation,
receiving cunnilingus with a barrier•, receiving anilingus with
a barrier, S/M or virtually any other activity that does not
involve the exchange of body fluids.
Minimal possibility of transmission of HIV: Wet kissing,
. performing cunnilingus without a barrier outside menstruation, receiving cunnilingus without a barrier, performing
cunnilingus with a barrier, performing or receiving anilingus
without a barrier•, finger-fucking (giving or receiving) with or
without latex glove, fisting• (inserting or receiving) with glove,
ingestion of feces.
Low possibility of Transmission of HIV: performing cunn i Ii n g us without a barrier during menstruation,
sadomasochistic activity where blood is drawn and proper
blood precautions are followed**.
Very high possibility of transmission of HIV: Sharing sex
toys without proper cleaning or without protection (i.e. use a
condom and remove and replace ,if shoring), sharing drug
injecting equipment (or works) or skin piercing needles
without proper cleaning•••, finger-fucking (both giving and
receiving) without gloves, when hands have cuts and
abrasions.
Breast milk is a proven vehicle of HIV transmission from
mother to baby, although it' s thought to occur rarely.
• barrier - It's easy to make a latex barrier from a
condom. Using scissors, cut off the reservoir tip, and cut
along the condom. Now you hove a square piece of
transparent latex. Otherwise, dental dams ore available from
your dentist! Finger cots ore available at most major pharmacies and the wholesale price is $3.25 for 144 finger cots.
• onilingus without a barrier : con put someone at risk
for other diseoses:herpes simplex, syphilis, and gonorrhoea.
•• blood precautions: prevention of the exchange of
blood, and avoidance of blood on the partner's body.
*** cleaning with hot water and soap or a wash of 1I10
bleach
Additional note - Fisting: "The practice of inserting the
hand or fist into the rectum or vagina, is not by itself on
e fficient means o f HIV transmission. However, studies indicate a high level of correlation between receptive manual
intercourse and HIV infection. This is due to the extensive
trauma which fisting causes the anal or vaginal canal ... if
followed by the use of shored sex toys, fisting results in a very
favourable environment for HIV transmission. This is so even
ofter a single episode. The trauma to the mucous lining may
lost for several weeks ofter the event". (Canadian AIDS
Society)
If you have sex with men, learn about, and always use
a condom.
If you have a new sexual partner, learn about her history,
and share your own. Do either of you fit a high risk description? Your responsibility is as vital as your new lover's to reveal
important information about exposure.
AIDS antibody test ; Certain specific AIDS antibodies
tests con help you find out whether the AIDS antibodies ore
present in your system. You con coll your health deportment
and ask where you con get on anonymous AIDS antibody test
that will be as specific as possible to your concerns.
This information comes from three sources : the
Women's AIDS Network/San Francisco AIDS Foundation, a
pamphlet by Mr.and Ms. Leather of Vancouver, and
predominantly from the Canadian AIDS Society's Safer Sex
Guidelines: A Resource Document for Educators and Counsellors/1989 (a 43 page document with numerous appen dices) . If you are confused (and in B.C.) call AIDS Vancouver' s
helpline at 687-2437, or the B.C. Centre of Disease Control
at 660-6170 (828 West l 0th Avenue).
SAFE SEX ENVELOPES supplied by AIDS VANCOUVER and
the P.W.A. Society.
Condoms courtesy of the B.C. Centre for disease control.
l . No possibility of HIV transmission
�''ALL PLAYER
LD
H
BE
ER ''
....
MIND ALTERED
MEDIA
©
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
25
�•
World Health Orpni:ation
Regional Office for the Amt:rias/
Telephone:
Teleliax:
Pan .~erian Saniwy Bureau
Telex:
:3td
;25.
Sireet. N.W.
Washmgrcn. D.C. 2003i
United States of America
THIRD ANNUAL Ams CONFERENCE
An Interprofessional Continuing Education Program
For Health Professionals, Educators and Counsellors
•
(The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power]
November 26, 27, 28, 1989
UBC
~
RGHT BACK. RGHT AIDS!: ACTIVIST WORK ·1 first
became aware of ACT UP wrote curator
Bill Olander of The New Museum (New York),
like many other New Yorkers, when I saw a poster
appear on lower Broadway with the equation:
SILENCE= DEATH. Accompanying these words,
sited on a black background, was a pink trianglethe symbol of homosexual persecution during the
Nazi period and, since the 1960s, the emblem of gay
liberation. For anyone conversant with this
iconography, there was no question that this was a
poster designed to provoke and heighten awareness
of the AIDS crisis. To me, it was more then that it
was among the most significant works of art that
had yet been done which was inspired and
produced within the arms of the crisis.11
Hyatt Regency Hotel
655 Burrard Street
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Division of Continuing Education in the Health Sciences
The University of British Columbia
NAT EVENTS
SEE TI-IE QUILT AND UNDERSTAND
Suppon The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt
•
AIDS VancouverThe NAMES Project
#509- 1033 Davie Sttcet
Vancouver, BC V6E- IM7
(604) 687-2437
GLOBAL EVENTS
The 4th lntemational /"~
Contemporary Art Fair ..r~. \r-.·.i,
December 7-11, 1989 · · ·
Los Angeles
Convention Center
•
Worid Health Organuat10n
Regional Office ior the Eastern
POBoxl5li
Alexandm :1511
Egypt
\liorid Health C~i:auo~
Telephone:
Teleiax:
Telex:
ietepnone:
R~1ona1 ...)ff1ce ror !'Kluttl·~t .~1a
Teleiax:
~·aric:i Heaim House
M~terranean Teie."<:
lncirao=ma Estat•
~cma Gandhi R<>ad
'-'ew Delhi ; ! OOC2
lndia
•
World Health Ory.iru:anon
. Teleph.>ne:
Regional Office ior the ~iestem Pactiic Tei.ia>e:
PO Box 2932
Teiex:
1099 Manila
Philippines
48-202 23. '48-202 24
1:03) '48-38 916
5'!028, 54684
33 1· ;504
i9 \l J}l-S6Ci
3 l ·6; •.J95
521-8421
(63Z ) 521-1036
276;2
AIDS
A worldw;de effort will stop it
VENUES
Donations to:
The Canida Quilt wu the bnin-child ofHaligonian Plul McNait, who iYd seen The Quill
on television and decided IO volunteer hil nelp 11 ilS Bosion stop. Paul came blck resolved
to orglllize a UlUI' nonh of the bonier. an a:·bitnry line of demarcation 1n the face of a disease
that knows no boundaries. The Canida Quill tour began in early June in Halifu and has
'1opped in MonllCll, Onawa. Toronto. Winnipeg and Calgary before arriving in Vanc~uver.
Canlldian panels will have been added aloog 1he way, and upon the 1our's completion will
form a new Quill comprised solely of Canadian oanels. as many as three itundred in all. sadly
represenang only approximately~~ of all those Canadians who have died of AICS.
(202) 861-3200
(202) ID-5971
248 338or+400S7
SllENCE= DEATH
William Olander
inaugural endeavor. tho Fund has made a
con1ribution in Bilrs name to ACT UP-tho
AIDS Coalition To Unloash Power-while its
affiliate organization, Gran Fury. is contribut·
voRt<-Bill Olander, Senior Curator al
Tho New Museum ol Contemporary Art in
New York died on March 18 from complica-
NEW
tions of AIOS His rteep concern for anists
and their work, his unorthodolll and incisfve
CORPORATE GREED,
GOVERNMENT INACTION,
AND PUBLIC INDIFFERENCE
MAKE AIDS APOLITICAL CRISIS
ing to thl!t Museum a neon rendering of their
now famous "Silence= Death· symbol. Origi·
nally a part ol ACT UP"s hr rhe Record
Show...• curated by Bill for tho Museum's
Window on Broadway in 1987, the neon sign ·
will be a umi·permanenr installation in rhe
Museum'• lobby, visible through tho lobby
window from the street.
approach to cur a ring, and his commitment to
the Museum have made 1 lasting impact
Ir. recognition of his provocative curerorial ..ision. The New Museum hes esllb·
lished lh• William Olander Memorial Fund
for 1ho purchase and support ol works and
projac1' in 1he fields ol pho1ography, video,
performance and culhlral activism. As its
-from a letter by Marcia Tucker.
New Museum Oirtttor
PUBLIC INFORMATION by GRAN FURY is conceived to inform a broad public and provoke direct action
to end the AIDS crisis.
Over 2,500 guests will attend a spectacular $150ticket Gala Preview on December 6th of ART/LA89 The
4th International Contemporary Art Fair. Los Angeles
Pediatric AIDS Consortium, supporting children and
mothers with AIDS will benefit.
)
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.
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World Health Organi zation
Global Programme o n Al OS
Health Promotion Unit
~
-
What is
World AIDS Day?
World AIDS Day i.s a day on
CREATIVE TIME CITYWIDE is made possible with
public funds from the National Endowment of the Arts,
New York State Council on the Arts, New York City
Department of Cultural Affairs,and with private support
from the Chase Manhattan Bank, Chemical Bank,
Citibank, Con Edison, The Cowles Charitable Trust, LEF
Foundation, Mobil Foundation, Philip Morris Companies,
Inc., The Plumsock Fund, and Creative Time's Members
and Friends.
OAIOa'
0 /~'\ ()
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whichcocxpandandscrengthen
the worldwide effort to stop ~ ~
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AIDS. It means talking about
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HIV infection and AIDS. car- • ~
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ing for people with HIV infection and AIDS. and learning
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aboutAlDSrosustainandrein~CE ~ S
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force the global effort to stop its
spread.
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BOL INT
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SYMBOL
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J "lease cut me on >he Worlci .•IDS Doy moiling lisr.
:i 1 om already on rhe mailing 1ist.
?•ease send me o Worlci P.IDS '::oy Action Kil ;n: :J ~nglish
N<:me
Orqonizanon
~dciress
I om planning !he following -~sl
r.,, Worid AIDS Ooy:
L----------------------~
World Health Organi:ation
20. Avenue Appia
CH-11 l1 Geneva 27
Swtaerland
Telephone:
Tela:
Tele&x:
791-2111
415416
791.0746
• World Health Orpnization
Regional Office for Airica
Telephone:
83-38-60
Tel=
5217 or 5364
•
POBoxNo. 6
Br=aville
Cmgo
26
:J French
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
Just for the Record is a television show that was first
broadcast in May of 1987. Its conception was fuelled by
a defeat of a city ordinance which would have banned
discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. This
defeat - by a vote of 5-2 - served as a compelling
reminder of the overwhelming amount of fear, hatred
and ignorance in the public attitude towards
homosexuality.
Just for the Record is intended to be educational,
informative and entertaining. It is aimed directly at the
gay community, but strives to be of value to the community as a whole.
Since its inception, 37 programs, each 30 minutes
long, have been aired on the New Orleans Public Access
Channel. We have covered a broad spectrum of topics,
concentrating mainly on local issues. We have also
covered various issues concerning AIDS.
For more information write: JFTR, P.O. Box 3768,
New Orleans, LA 70177, USA
�SCANNING SCANNING SCANNING GUIDE
DISTRIBUTE
STD
Y9.~J.t{P
Street
Smarts
INNER CITY
151 Gerrard Street East,
Toronto, Ontario M5A 2E4
(416) 922-3335.
STD Street Smarts is a 30-minute educational video
produced by, for and with "street youth" by the STD
Prevention Project of Youthlink-lnner City. With frank
language and explicit imagery this video addresses difficult issues such as sex and injection drug use in the age
of AIDS. It is non-judgemental in its portrayal of young
people acquiring, using, and sharing knowledge about
safe sex and needle use.
STD Street Smarts is accompanied by a comprehensive facilitators' manual.
It is available for $20/copy (including manual) from
Youthlink-lnner City (cheques or money orders should be
made payable to Youthlink-lnner City.
V!TAPE
Our goal at Dawn House Society is therefore to
establish a free-standing hospice in order to provide
compassionate and dignified care to those persons in
the final stages of Al DS . Dawn House Society will
provide a viable option for Al DS patients where none
currently exists west of Toronto, realizing that
when one's disease is no longer responsive to the
traditional aims of cure and prolongation of life,
providing care and comfort can be just as significant.
To obtain further information, please write or
call:
Dawn House Society
1130 Jervis Street
Vancouver, B.C.
V6E2C7
BOOKS
..
CANADIAN
AIDS
...
.
SOCIETY
§!2
Please enclose payment with order {price
includes postage and handling). Make
cheque/money order payable to: Canadian
AIDS Society. Send to : CAS Distribution ,
SOCIET!:
CANADIENNE Box 55, Stn F, Toronto, ON M4Y 2L4,
Canada.
DU SIDA
(604) 688-3955
SEXUALLY-
TRANSMITTED
DISEASES
AND1HEUSE
NETWORK
OF CONDOMS
Carter Products, 6600 Kitimat Road, Mississauga,
Ontario LSN IL9
+
The Video Data Bank
We are very proud to announce a new VHS video
compilation entitled VIDEO AGAINST AIDS - a three
tape six hour collection of some of the most inciteful,
informative and moving works on AIDS by independent
producers. VIDEO AGAINST AIDS comes complete with
a full set of program notes written by Bill Horrigan and
John Greyson with cassette jackets designed by Gran
Fury. Request your free brochure.
This three program set is for purchase only in VHS.
VTAPE
VIDEO DATA BANK
183 Bathurst Street, 1 at Floor
Toronto, Ontario MST 2R7
(416) 863-9897
280 South Columbus Drive
Chicago, llllnols
USA 60603
or call toll tree:
1~
[The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power]
E'l ~ ~·l il lift
0 I ha¥e enclooed a check for
-
$20
-
$.'J()
-
$100
_other
D Please acid IT\V name to :p.1r mailing list
ACT UP, 496-A Hudson Street, Suite G4, NYC 10014
8lExACliiii°ifi
From 1986 to 1988 the World Health Organization
helped establish a foundation for concerted action. At the
national level, AIDS committees have been formed in
virtually all countries and active collaboration with WHO .
has been realized in support of national programme ·
development in over 150 countries. AIDS information
and education are of major significance in all of these
programmes.
--
A worldwide effort will stop it.
TESTING THE LIMITS, a collective of lesbians,
gays, and straights. formed to document AIDS
actMsm-people's responses to government
Inaction on AIDS. The collective Is committed
to alternative media production which supports the efforts of all people affected by AIDS.
For purchase or rental of tapes, donations.
or more Information, send to:
Artist Milton Glaser designed this AIDS symbol and
poster for WHO. Printer's slicks and camera-ready copy
of the poster and information brochure AIDS: A
worldwide effort will stop it are available in French,
English and Spanish (brochure and poster) and in Russian, Arabic and Chinese (poster only) for reproduction
by AIDS health promotion programmes. Other art work
to symbolize the phrase Na worldwide effort will stop itH
is in preparation.
If vou wish to be added to the mailing list for AIDS Health Promonon ExclJ•ng•pleese fill
this form and retum to WHO/SPA. CH-1211 Geneva 27. Swi12ettand.
......£
J09TITU
31 W. 26th St.. 4th Floo~
New York NY, 10010
(212) 545-7120
-
INSTITUTION - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - AOORESS
STREET
STAT£
COUNTllY
LANGUAGE
PWA
COALITION
l\HO
Naflonal Hospice Organiz:mton
VANCOUVER
P.O. Box 136,
1215 Davie Street,
Vancouver, B.C. V6E 1N4
On behalf of the Board and Members of the Vancouver Persons With Al DS Society and the Advocacy
Committee, we would like to thank you for your
support of the "Fantasy AIDS Rally".
This rally and the support it generated was very
encouraging to everyone involved. A better tonic than
a month of A.Z.T . Thanks again for your participation and commitment.
A tax receipt can be issued for any donation over
$20 to the Vancouver PWA Society .
~
/0°~fDs I /
~S~f"O;
v;I)
Oo
The International Development Research Cen1:e is a
public corporation created by the Parliament of Canada
in 1970 to support research designed to adopt science
and technology to the needs of developing countries. The
Centre's activity is concentrated in six sectors: agriculture,
food and nutritional sciences; health sciences; information sciences; social sciences; earth and engineering
sciences; and communications. IDRC is financed solely
by the Parliament of Canada; its policies, however, are
set by on international Board of Governors. The Centre's
headquarters are in Ottawa, Canada. Regional offices
are located in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and thlr"Middle
East.
Please direct requests for information about IDRC
and is activities to the IDRC office in your region.
ll•ad Offict
IDRC, P.O. !lox 8500, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada KlC 3H9
R•gional Offict for Southu•t and Ea•t A•I•
•
IDRC. Tanglin P.O. !lox IOI, Singapore9t24, Republic of Singapore
R•gional Off let for South A•la
IDRC, 11 Jor Bagh, New Delhi 110003, India
TESTING THE LIMITS
RESOURCE
.
A Resource Document for Educators and
Counsellors
The National Hospice Organization updates its
a·udiovisual catalogue on programs that deal with many
aspects of core for the terminally ill.
We are searching for programs that include, but ore
not exclusive to, the following categories: counselling,
social services, bereavement, AIDS, nursing and clinical
issues, financial planning, management and volunteer
development.
Would you please send us either a catalogue of your
productions or fill out that attached form for programs
that would be appropriate for inclusion in the publication.
Mail to: National Hospice Organization
1901 North fort t1ger Dr .• Suite 307
Arl1n9ton, YA 22209
Attn: Audiovisual Catalogue
Rtgional OHict for E.. lrm and Southtm Africa
IDRC, P.O . Box 62084, Nairobi. Kenya
Regional OHict for th• Middlt Ea•I and North Africa
llJRC/CRDI, P.O. !lox I~ Orman, Cl7.a, Cairo, Egypt
Rrgional OHict for W~l and Ctnlral Africa
CRDI, 8.P. 11007, CD Annexe, Dakar, Senegal
Rrgional Ollie• for Uitin Amtrica and th• Caribbran
CllD, Apartado Mrro 53016, llogotl, D.E.. Colombia
Learning AIDS
The long-awaited
and completely up-to-date edition
of the only reference source of its kindlisting over 1,700 AIDS educational
and reference tools
Published by
The American Foundation for AIDS Research
Issue Price: $24.95
R.R. BOvVKER
THE INFORMATION REFERENCE
CQ\1PANY
·~~:
' 7 ·: 'B
245 West Seventeenth Street
New York. NY 10011~1
1-800-521-8110
--·
-.·
.
'4""\~
in Canada, 1-800-537-8416
in New York, Alaska, Hawaii
call collect: (212)-337-6934
.ioi~~J.~'
~- ..::~ ·
... ' '
~~~4MR
~
/
14,R
World: R.R. Bowker (U .K.) Ltd.
P.O. Box88,
Borough Green, Kent TN15 8PH,
England. Telex: 95678 Fax: 0732 884079
VIDEO GUIDE 1989
27
�1102 Hoiner Street
Vancouver, B.C.
~·
-
1102 HOMER STREET
VANCOUVER, B.C. V6B 2X6
(604) 688-4336
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vancouver
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Video Guide - World AIDS Day Issue - Vol 10, No 3-4, Issue 48
Subject
The topic of the resource
HIV/AIDS Video Activism
Description
An account of the resource
The Satellite Video Exchange Society (now VIVO, incorporated 1973) was the first video exchange library, and one of the earliest international video centres and Canadian artist-run centres. Its founding mandate was to facilitate international information exchange through a public video library and to provided access to video equipment, basic workshops, and published a magazine, Video Guide, distributed internationally. This 1989 issue of Video Guide is dedicated to HIV/AIDS video activism to mark World AIDS Day.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
VIVO Media Arts Centre
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
http://archive.vivomediaarts.com/video-guide/
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
VIVO Media Arts Centre
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
November 1989
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Newsprint
Language
A language of the resource
English
Bill Vander Zalm
John Greyson
Quarantine
Safe Sex
V International AIDS Conference
Vancouver PWA Society
Video
Video Against AIDS
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Toronto
Subject
The topic of the resource
AIDS activism in Toronto
Description
An account of the resource
A history of AIDS activism in Toronto.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Art and AIDS: Representing a Crisis (Rites June 1989)
Description
An account of the resource
A recap of recent debates spurred by exhibitions and conferences discussing art, activism, and HIV/AIDS in Canada and the US.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colman Jones
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Rites Magazine
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
June 1989
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Newpaper
Language
A language of the resource
English
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Text
��
Physical Object
An inanimate, three-dimensional object or substance. Note that digital representations of, or surrogates for, these objects should use Moving Image, Still Image, Text or one of the other types.
Dublin Core
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Title
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SIDART Postcard Invitation
Subject
The topic of the resource
V International AIDS Conference
Description
An account of the resource
<span>Bilingual program for the arts and culture program entitled SIDART organized by Ken Morrison at the V International AIDS Conference in Montreal. This was the first time a cultural component was included at the bi-annual International HIV/AIDS Conference. The conference proceedings from SIDART were formulated in the book </span><em><a href="https://e-artexte.ca/id/eprint/6455/">A Leap in the Dark: AIDS, Art, and Contemporary Cultures</a> </em><span>edited by Allan Klusacek and Ken Morrison.</span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ken Morrison
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://agq.qc.ca/fonds-archives/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Les Archives Gaies du Quebec - Ken Morrison Collection</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
Summer 1989
Relation
A related resource
<div id="dublin-core-relation" class="element">
<div class="element-text">SIDART mentioned in Tom Waugh transcript (<a href="https://aidsactivisthistory.ca/interviews/montreal-interviews/#Waugh" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">T60</a>)</div>
</div>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Postcard
Language
A language of the resource
English / French
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Postcard
art and activism
Montreal
SIDART
V International AIDS Conference
-
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Text
��
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Montreal
Physical Object
An inanimate, three-dimensional object or substance. Note that digital representations of, or surrogates for, these objects should use Moving Image, Still Image, Text or one of the other types.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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SIDART Program
Subject
The topic of the resource
V International AIDS Conference
Description
An account of the resource
Bilingual program for the arts and culture program entitled SIDART organized by Ken Morrison at the V International AIDS Conference in Montreal. This was the first time a cultural component was included at the bi-annual International HIV/AIDS Conference. The conference proceedings from SIDART were formulated in the book <em><a href="https://e-artexte.ca/id/eprint/6455/">A Leap in the Dark: AIDS, Art, and Contemporary Cultures</a> </em>edited by Allan Klusacek and Ken Morrison.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ken Morrison
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://agq.qc.ca/fonds-archives/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Les Archives Gaies du Quebec - Ken Morrison Collection</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
Summer 1989
Relation
A related resource
SIDART mentioned in Tom Waugh transcript (<a href="https://aidsactivisthistory.ca/interviews/montreal-interviews/#Waugh" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">T60</a>)
Language
A language of the resource
English / French
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Program
art and activism
Montreal
SIDART
V International AIDS Conference
-
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Text
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Toronto
Subject
The topic of the resource
AIDS activism in Toronto
Description
An account of the resource
A history of AIDS activism in Toronto.
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
poster
Dublin Core
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Title
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AIDS ACTION NOW! Poster - "Women Get AIDS Too!"
Subject
The topic of the resource
AIDS ACTION NOW!
Description
An account of the resource
An AIDS ACTION NOW! poster for the World AIDS Day demonstration in Toronto in 1990, that asks why women with AIDS don't get the services they need.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
AIDS ACTION NOW!
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
December 1990
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
poster
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Still Image
AIDS ACTION NOW!
Women
World AIDS Day Demonstration
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/14511/archive/files/9c7c2f128131308d06ae38737450ce74.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=MUsF7VJ2npbkfbw4LQ7JcK1zmUK2xRnm1g3sPFhKm%7Ew0IIUs0CAyJewUy0NFDcj2wm3vmNhoESht84C89wYWFlGsDnBkxcTq4bolZwrwkNtVtCWRvIwsDrXJPK-qhkCKFam12%7EyjjlcVTL2nwFhviwMepkkzZW69SnE-RyKwPhuyc7JFC2fRXTXxF77V3gau7yo7uHbJui18aPIdn%7EfvWqVSZX1YZv3wKTggvSIyHzkrJoFHjY-DvEGKNlgYa4Hpdzzk7LU9CJ7fP-hJpOdXNrAkSKFTxJQikQQjwS%7EBFA%7E50J5LjvVbcivVQ4Fu3a95Po7QmITj7oTp9ZZ0vesh6A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
af41fc2bcfa92bc340125cbe84929b5b
PDF Text
Text
�CINEMA AND THE SE X TRADE
AN INTERVIEW WITH GWENDOLYN
_.OI.ri_t. .
f_n,......_r.. _
BY GARY POPOVlCIl
Co r ..
be hoi1 i...... Thoy
didn't.Mno holp .....
_
'" '" ha .. ODIOW
'l"'<IOtiIuto 00" and on r",
Ion ... tIwIlhat, ,inoo I woo
In .... Induo<ry. They
16. I ..... ...., involv«! in
..... oed tho ir>duoIry
otultw.. tho
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hat tho _
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...... "'''''' nepti ...
,nit" "'"'
•• .. ,bvd) . ... haolowat<lou-.. I.
rot p""r heavy ....... nd tho IBM 01
NO' A Lo.o Story. r'mlnl,Is ... ..
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and _
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Not A tow s..", sew; , d
oomobody out 01. .... ... ironment
and LooIo; .... 10 Now York Cilyand
"".. pod be< into thio borriblo,
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UbHolOd and ..{railed _ .."....0<1
by tho "pori.nee; olio', lurni", """r
• no .. lMf. 1<"•• '"*ry po.....,.,..""
22
April 1990
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In
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ohould do tbio. Whot ... -sod
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What do ..... _
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eon '"' help? But tia buio .tlllude
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Whon I orpn'-..Itho PnX_
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Th. promioo _ . "Wha' do
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u.... In IIuD"Uo
. , HalIwalI', collay. \hotIJn
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LIF1' New,letter
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tho
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on<! • _
..
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f....u..., _ . So.
aU
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otnIodit ............... I _
ovtn .... it LhrvuIh my projector.
....... thor thin, tho copo hod
doono.Iou..,. j:O"O/:I&II b'_ u..,._
•. ....... _ didn't iu>ow
_
I..,.... ...
Ibo IiIm _ ooud< it MclIO!rfl.bo<
";111 _ .. ki n. . . pot ItI oc:uuplo 01
plt_ And I dlt:b\'1 know that, ODd
.. ['m rollinc It, II ".. inlo my
with ...-.IdnJ!&pO and
w-up ...,l'I-oaUnjNqj ·...... 1
_
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by
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ha.. lt, u..,. find out ito !'rom tboI>
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tho PJ' -umo, 10 .... I • Uooir
1'n>oI.itll\OO bo...
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"""" pooItion t o ' - pooopio _
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_ _ ... II\It tho p....... u .. 10 tho
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oo .......... u..,..,.
0Dd,..,..'D pi Iho _ _ OA I>im.
J .... Qop tha """""" In yOUr "'O\!lb
and olip il on him. Moot _n .. ill
__ • oondo .... But, it'. 0t\Jy ot tho
p1·.kt .... , _
...,..in
bar:o and do _ _ ..... Tboo/.',
pari 01., job. And tho _ _•
W9U, W9U, no [woo.t!o:In·'''OJIIIo
lnoult h ... b, -..-ina:. """don.. bul
if oho ubd ... 10 • ..,. ....""" ....
_,. So.It'.
10 do
thoir Iauoodty _ pi<l< up Lhoir-'-'
u..
Iib._""..
April 1990
23
�Md ..·.. Lbo_u..' ..... .., ....,
Lht
and moJ.o Lhtm .....
d
•
iL 1t"",loaI<io.Lbom.pri_.Lbo
........ oimod '" Lbo - . '" bur
Lbo_ '
• y.... """, ..... ,..,
_ • ......,m.n..o.p ....... olI
wiLhou._
n-. ........ _ ..
1Iut........... f ..... N_ Y....
CiIr. "'" ... 11M Condo ... 0,. Se • •
'I., 8000_ ptOOIil¥* _ • 10>1. ol
.."'.apc ....._Jumped
Uq .......
....... ADd tho
OR tho
1DOIIO)'1O
'--tholirlo_ Mo.. _
_ 1IMr<I 01 ..... wbon • prooti•
""" MId ....... "'. _., ...... and
OIIIid,)'OIO ..... "lido _ wio-I .
_
I
T
....... '" .uck blood ..... ol_ fOO' .....
bo!> ..... ['11 ... an HIV anu.bocly
. . . . . 1lIo ...... llme. ' put II. "'10
IZIJf mind that 1 _
' '''' oU thio ""'" 1od...1
........ be pooi';""..dmno f'O\ribu.liaB,
............ y ........·t ..... ...wy-
thin&.
_
..... "'do .......... 1:.
It·, Lib. ' _ ..... '" otick
u....-
.....I:.·
iI.bou,.
HARDCORE
tho ..
porclI"""", b .... ln
Toron'" who orpnilod on
Lbo ""'" "'" can ha . . . rood
rood
",mo. and look"
,..U
W<JnI. n.>bbor. tq dNJ. So.
.h.
...tI·pomconf..onoo. H.
Iriod .., hrin, In
Cotllolb,
""" the 1\1"""-"1.11,, rich ...
oriftpf'O oJicn«l with tho
"'" '111""'" _ , "W.·..
......... _ t l . .... _ .....
.............. b.........
up. I Otu .w....... _ I t -
f-w.............w.,.'-- ..
plo ........... thio rood work
all II,-
To",n'" in &II ant\.pom
II .... "OlSt and iI. .....
. , . - . ...... L HARDCORE
io .., ..... 100... '" 1lIo' dov.
So iI· •• _ _ <i-.IoNat IlIo
u.o_ wiUo no
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ha.. _
a.dil_
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•
G.p" Whot do "'" 00,)' 10 \hom.
who' do _ do?
G: I Ji.. lhom ...
,,,,r>do.,.., talk
•.
....... ..... .... ""'... r
talk ...... , tho _ ..... r. talk .......
poliu.., talk
the._
talk
-
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0 : 'Tbo p I - - ' " ' _ hooinl'
po.rI)'''' tho roottop. s...odo.t oftor.
"""" """ [jut.... ---", "' ....... up
lO_hoUo. Aatrl Oitho
nomo<I "" <'1" laid. "Hoy. 0_·
""*
doI,I>. _ ...........
rOO' thio. •
My Ou• ..-h tonitory io boo>:oUy
"'" Chul'd! and
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r ...
So 10,1' & min"" NFB 111m
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and "'""'ro ..... 10 u- r .. pUina-
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booR bIoo 1.hM.. r ..
on u..
..,.... ....... thio _ _ tho ..... •
......... now Iboy' .. r......,.1tUt>nI:
10 U - ...-'011><1< lho winlot< ....
......
G.P., Ikror did tho P'OiO<t ",.
G: Tho. ,,,,,..In. , ,.... you,
u....
StUloIlO, h. . . . Ono uliclo in
theoo whoroo
w.Lh Iho ,.... ",ncIo......
n..
,,,,,_.'Who ... ,...,?"
_
woo ....."" 10 blame prom.
... 1000 fIIr tho..-l olH.LV. inlO
tho .............. Ilni&ht
in", tho
pnp>la ......
And .. _ I I I - io. woo beina"'............ r... 60t0inina" pr<>OIi.
pnp"·'ion.
April 1990
oh. • ...,
Thon 1
tho h'PD', 5 FaUaiot Min....?
..... ODd ""'-_ "'"" ......
... ..,od:", •• ",",,'"
rr.... ..... _kon, Tboy obow
.im_. . .·,"'1 •
,
Then , r...... "'" , ......,
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.. _
Ow-.b In P&ndalo........
S....... 1alkiJIc'1O tho prta.
ArU
be .. lbio
,..... f'riD&o P..u..i. I Ud
......... 'IlIo )l ......"ol ' - _
t......Ot" ...... Io T""",1o lOr '"'"
............. hinIO r_...tll
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obow, """ '"11" ; 110 do.
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......, '" ...... IIIOrio in iI ...... 1'..
boon doin, , tuII' oinoo th. _1180'0.
Suddonb> thil y.:r..... hot • blooanr.
I .... TrilIiu ..
lhon 1 101 NFa. tI>on [ "" Tomnto
a.......u
An.o
IIor.dInf. , ....
. !Un"",,,. Shotr. hoa. liM: ' I'... 00\
!hoI r... II hoj:poDOd Iho' thio
......J ...IacIIlIo.
..,1 pOOitl .. for
And
,·d....,So , hod '"
","*,
......... _.In,....diftbo7' ..
wi .... '" IbW
O.P.: H.... _Udpr'Oblo""with
po.troni<ina" r.mlnll.lO who ...
Iookin, out fo. _ . rood .. itholl •
u ..tandin,
"""
who, _
dol
0' "·. 1990andll·... lUn •• 1ot
better.
Lynn ..,..tl",
O\tew. and 10lo")"I
[
owI1 '" tho NFS. So _In tho
Tho,,',
bol&noo il,',
, 0100 .....
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...... 10a.......u
HARDCORE. 1'.,
....uWOd ",.1tIal
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...
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tbon _ 00 _
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beef· ... _ _ _ ooIlAbonUq with
tbom..
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onod ll,- ..... ['""",,,,",,,,,bo
bilter bo"",· <han", boo hopponod .
Su, i. hun', haPllOn od .. ithollt uo
!\chtlllf:.
OPlRe. Ontario I'u.b(;O
.. " Ruoareh G.... P. whkh ....
buic:oJly . WIl .. >tl" "*,,..10
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noo on
...
Thot
woo •• OISE ...... Tboy IIod oU t.I-.
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....... pom """ 1&lkInI_
prm'ihMion. ADd "'"" "'._
PI MihlIOOlobou.... .... ,inoLood
LIFT New.letler
�01 pul .... tboIIl ... tho puooIo with
tho aIloor 'aporio'. u.,. hood "'" ...
.... _
po .... 1a.·thor.-lr._puooI.·1t
,.... ....... _ . JaI ti .. _Utute,
_ ' " I'ouro'........ ' And tho
",ho. . had 10 r"trt &ftd 01)', "No
II>ckln' way. W. wonna bo rep . .
N.ted on dtho
_.10. "
1--..:1 .... Iib .1i1lJo """"" <lot:
thol ...... ted ... j l bl.olcroo-.
V...... pnIt,u..dtac.
n,.,',
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tho . od _ _ . V... pid<-'""-.
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Toronto
Subject
The topic of the resource
AIDS activism in Toronto
Description
An account of the resource
A history of AIDS activism in Toronto.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Newsletter
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Cinema and the Sex Trade: An Interview with Gwendolyn
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sex work
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Gwendolyn about her artistic work, including her activism with the Prostitutes' Safe Sex Project that inspired her short film Prowling By Night (1990).
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
The Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
From the personal collection of Richard Fung
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
April 1990
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
11" x 17" folded in half
Sex workers
-
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c856077c19dbf129b0d1343946259cdb
PDF Text
Text
����
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Toronto
Subject
The topic of the resource
AIDS activism in Toronto
Description
An account of the resource
A history of AIDS activism in Toronto.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Half and Half Show - Program
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sex work
Description
An account of the resource
Detailed program from Maggie's first ever fundraiser, a cabaret show featuring Gwendolyn's 'Merchants of Love' performance and others.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Maggie's
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
From the personal collection of Andrew Sorfleet
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
25 October 1992
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Elaine Ayres (Graphic Designer)
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
8.5" x 11" folded in half lengthwise, double sided, two pages stapled together.
Fundraising
Maggie's
Sex workers
Toronto
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/14511/archive/files/5e5bb6d7e803b3f8cb942a21dcf31fcf.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=F61l-u6H0xusZOj3t2ACTF2nURutn1QUGtxkDzWhR-0AwqVgi6iavDybHDDEBam7d5MeDZrwPDt3ptRij81i-9aYQIyZzRz5ktRs%7Ej3iVIdueuVzfjeZhGJzxCGDlK6y6yQ4ZjkpXIzccgmCdIME-k%7Edj%7EvhXMp3J-aauE9LRKXd0F8PYfbp4oB5D0ezGMVk5dgPYOA3tGVz28e9jgrUav1aIxEaUtuQFpR%7EkdUvb8yWprA8y-hmDL0cstsoY4gU7ahPJSL%7EFVCcHHO6xFvUykNw97bylAOo4JK7m5cV1Vkv9aa-WuQez%7ENqt1B5r89xlYlraa64LUHRkBUN98yb0Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
db001f0d3fe9f8f230bc1820f464aa82
PDF Text
Text
��
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Toronto
Subject
The topic of the resource
AIDS activism in Toronto
Description
An account of the resource
A history of AIDS activism in Toronto.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Half and Half Show - Brochure
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sex work
Description
An account of the resource
Brochure advertising Maggie's first ever fundraiser, a cabaret show featuring Gwendolyn's 'Merchants of Love' performance and others.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Maggie's
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
From the personal collection of Andrew Sorfleet
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
25 October 1992
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
8.5" x 11" folded in half lengthwise, double sided
Arts and Culture
Fundraising
Maggie's
Sex workers
Toronto
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/14511/archive/files/76d9996fac4aeefd548d29dd4fd08a09.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=DXQnstMiKk7LnZXbFS4FNXOZaT2y0iVR1Qr5l9x3CM5ribdXgQHTjy1NuKhyMe13NsgFoDLU8Mbh4vGqcPcE3aW7VVo25Gf8YNLs%7EkTxm7xx5ASz-bsvaJ41lQpna-o3yxxwvAS7qprMyWNsAb7IB9tD1DQgwRTaF7l%7ENJ8Uk1bCZi5cA5Hzrut4NCd5ybVlubrnt6WzH-esZi4uzYHcU9Fpu7N5DI4dr0O4eElVwLuLvDLJaVx-Ic5rW85z8-n9Jm3l8uEAO7weKUgVKZB0WLInrUYnJxAKub-OX-b7EB5ZcTJ2TCSsdlDp94Mo3Vn-nEXSpeTcLhraiWRxkVd4GQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
d5c05784d340af2804406c304f3164cf
PDF Text
Text
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Ottawa
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Ex-Hooker Helps Open 'Merchants of Love' Show - Newspaper article
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sex work
Description
An account of the resource
A newspaper article reviewing the opening of Gwendolyn's (Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes) sex worker-themed theatrical production 'Merchants of Love' at Ottawa's SAW Gallery
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Evelyn Erskine
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
From the personal collection of Andrew Sorfleet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Ottawa Citizen
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
25 September 1987
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
photocopy
Arts and Culture
Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes
Newspaper
Ottawa
Sex workers
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/14511/archive/files/3b36f970ff41c4c3c2893bc5d5b19c34.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=cqqKjIRvSfRGIfYwUAttxa2SNffIeKgiuIAJq-wPnhtpkMLrLRaZ1-x2ubCsPFCp3gC9kUHjyg6aE%7EvctpZsjJ55HF5zS8U%7EGkDwx9gprHtwWtyQQscyjzNPXInkUo%7EZtdBr9dmGJlTb16yQ96J-i34GOPysv7OGPO8i-teXTmLSncEkubcLEMl91LTC9DX%7EEzrsQ3LuhjQFQhW1e2fXg80GuGPx78V7icNEK2ak-67trNylX1GaPNkuQKevOzdNOjzRlA-%7E5ZD%7EvoaWOj1iLe2sPZuOG7g4gq7dEaiI-Df6OuUAUb9GIu2e4Xr9QqSkjiggD50XkZnQ-SFc7M8TQg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
490087fa2a8fa61bc0211d6668d761e4
PDF Text
Text
Prostitutes
protesting
crackdown
BY LILA SARICK
Tlie Globe and Mail
v
'.About 50 advocat~ of prostitutes'
rights protested yesterday against a
recent campaign of arrests, saying
police are trying to sanitize the city
before the economic st1mmit begins
Sunday.
·
:Shouting "Take the streets, stop
the sweeps," the protesters
marched in front of Royal Canadian
Mounted Police headquarters, urging non-prostitutes to join women on
the streets in monitoring police activity. .
.
'"Police have gone after almost
every girl and told them to get off
the street for the summit," said
Valerie Scott, a spokesman for the
Canadian Organization for the
Righ\s of Prostitutes.
:During the past 10 weeks, police
have laid 343 charges against prostitutes for communicating and 380
cnarges against would-be clients,
said Sergeannt Phillip Wilson of the
Metro Toront~ Police morality
squad.
The c~arges, · laid ''m the area
bordered by· Bloor, Dundas, Sherboume and Jarvis street$, were not
related to the summit, he said.
Police, however, are preparing to
handle a possible flood of arrests
connected with activities opposing
the conference.
The Public Complaints Commission office, which handles reports of
police misconduct, . has been requ~ted by police to open from noon
to midnight Sunday and to remain
open until midnight weekdays during the summit.
Commission investigator Edward
Singleton says it is the first time the
office has extended its hours.
Opponents of the summit are
planning an illegal march Sunday
an_d four special bail courts will be
opened to handle the anticipated
flOQd of arrests.
r.olice a_ppear to be concentrating
on summit protesters and prostitutes, not the people who sleep in
the city's parks and abandoned
buildings, said Michael Shapcott, a
worker with the Christian Resource
Ceritre, which counsels the homeless.
,
·
. '.'There's more of an air of illegality · about street prostitution than
about homelessness .... It may be
easier (for police) to justify publicly
picking up hookers than to justify . . . .
picking up homeless people and iliil1lH!i1HtHHllli!tin:lli!/l~m1:i:1m;
street kids," he said.
A hotline to monitor summit-related arrests has received about a
dozen calls a day since it opened
last week. Most of the calls came
from street workers who are trying
to advise prostitutes and homeless
people on how to avoid confrontations with the police, Mr. Shapcott
said.
Ms Scott said that during the
current campaign, prostitutes have
receiyed tickets for littering, not
weanng a seatbelt and trespassing.
Women who do not appear in court
are served with bench warrants and
. can then be arrested and held until
trial, she said.
,
"Politicians want to present a
sterile image of the city. It's as if
politicians think these foreign visi- ,
tors are small-town kids and are
going to be offended by prostitution," she said.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Toronto
Subject
The topic of the resource
AIDS activism in Toronto
Description
An account of the resource
A history of AIDS activism in Toronto.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Prostitutes Protesting Crackdown - Newspaper Article
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sex work
Description
An account of the resource
Toronto sex work activists point out that there is an anti-prostitution crackdown happening in their city just prior to the G7 economic summit being held in late June of 1988. Includes quote from Valerie Scott from the Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lila Sarik
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
From the personal collection of Andrew Sorfleet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Globe and Mail
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
17 June 1988
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
8.5" x 11" photocopy
Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes
Newspaper
Sex workers
Toronto
-
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09eeb596f67abf68643ede193d223d10
PDF Text
Text
I' I ·,z
NATIONAL
:Prostitutes jailed unfairly, groups say
Boundaries
and curfews
in bail terms
BY ANN RAUHALA
The Glolle and Mail
Unreasonable bail conditions,
including curfews and boundaries
that amount to house arrest, are
among the measures being taken
against those picked up under
. ;federal anti-prostitution law, activists for prostitutes' rights say.
Although the constitutionality of
Section 195.l of the Criminal Code
is being challenged in the courts,
. ,police are still using the section in
sweeps aimed at "cleaning up"
downtown cores in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver. the
activists complained yesterday.
Women who plead not guilty to
charges are being penalized by
the imposition of curfews and long
periods in custody without trial,
Val Scott of the Canadian Organi. zation for the Rights of Prostitutes
said at a news conference.
. · Many women are pleading
guilty immediately to avoid
,spending days in custody, she
said.
Last Thursday night, Metro
Toronto Police arrested more than
Chuck Barhydt
80 people who were kept in custody until Friday morning. Those
who pleaded not guilty on Friday
and asked for bail were told that
they would either have to accept
bail conditions or remain in custody until Monday or Tuesday.
Under the conditions, women
have to stay out of certain neighborhoods and must stick to a curfew after 9 p.m. and before 6 a.m.
Violating the terms of bail results
in a six-month jail sentence.
Gillian Ridgerson
Chuck Barhydt. a lawyer acting
for one of those arrested, told
reporters that in the normal
course of events a person charged
under anti-prostitution law might
expect a court appearance, a fine
and no more than a half-hour or so
in custody .
By arranging the sweep for a
Thursday, he said, police "put
women in the position of having to
stay in custody for five days. The
police know how the system
works."
He said his client agreed to the
terms because she did not want to
be away from her child for five
days, "a penalty she would never
have faced if she were found
guilty."
"I feel my client has been p,.,nalized before she·s had a chance
to appear before the courts.··
Prostitution is not a crimin:il
offence, although related activities such as communicating for
the purpose of prostitution are.
The Canadian Organization for
the Rights of Prostitutes argues
that the provisions of federal law
are absurd, inappropriate and
dangerous to prostitutes. and
maintains that decriminalization
is the only solution.
The group was joined yesterday
by representatives of the National
Action Committee on the Status of
Women, the Elizabeth Frye Society and the newly formed Citizens
Organization for the Repeal of
Prostitution-Related Laws.
Gillian Ridgerson, a member of
the new group, told reporters that
the real nuisances in downtown
Toronto are high rents, poor government services and arbitrary
and intrusive policing.
"Prostitutes are part of the
neighborhood," she said in an
. interview later. "l don't think it's
valid to make them the scapegoats."
'Condom patrols,' threats cited at hearing
BY THOMAS CLARIDGE
The Globe and Mail
Street prostitution in Toronto has led to death
·threats being directed at homeowners and "condom patrols" being carried out by school au.th'orities. a Provincial Court judge was told yesterday.
Crown counsel John Hambidge also said drug
trafficking and depressed property values were
offshoots of a problem Parliament was addressing in 1985 when it amendca<l the Cr·iminal Code
to outlaw commuuicalions (or the purpose o(
eugaging in prostitution.
'Mr. Hambidge was responding to an invita1ion by Judge June Hern ha rd for argument on
whether the new law is demonstrably justifit.a<l in
a free and democratic society. The judge issued
the invit:ition last August in ruling that the legislation infringes on guarantees of free speech
co!ll:.tined in the Charter <Jf Rights :ind Freedoms.
Under Section I (if the'. Ch:1rter. all s1,ecific-<l
rights and freed oms an~ mad,~ subject to "such
n•asonal>lc limits prescriiJ,_,d by law as can be
demonstrably justified i11 a fr•:l' a11d democratic
~ncietv _
..
The, c(111s1itu11011;ilit,· 11f th,, :imemkd l:iw has
lr.>•'11 ch;1llenged by l;1wver i'l'll'r i\l;tlrn1,,y,
wil,Jse client. "1-ve:ir-old .len111f,,r S:nilh. was
ch:iq~(·d \·nth 1hc cun1n1t1111c;1111m offt·ncc un J:1n.
15, 1986. She and an alleged client, Raymond
Fortner, were charged after engaging in a conversation near the corner of Wellesley and Sherbourne streets in Toronto's Cabbagetown area.
The Crown and the defence have produced a
foot-thick pile of documents ranging from transcripts from a four-day hearing to relevant
court decisions in Canada and the United States.
The oral submissions are expected to last at
least two days.·
Revelations or the extent of the street-prostitution problem in Toronto's Cabbagetown and
Lakeshore motel strip were made in a JS-page
written submission by Mr. Hambidge and Crown
counsel Michael Bernstein.
Judge Bernhard was told that area residents,
pedestrians and workers had been subjected to
verbal and physical harassment.
"One gentleman asked somE.'Dne to move from
in front of his house and had his front teeth
knocked out," the Crown said. "Actions to remove prostitutes and pimps from the property
of their houses have resulted in broken windows.
thr·eats to bun1 down the complai11:111t 's house
and death threats."
The court was told th:it a man circul:iting ;,
petition against prostitution in his neighbud1ood
"was threatened with ha\'ing both his legs hr11ken. His son was al must run down by a c:1r. ··
Some st;tff nwml><,rs :it \1:ellc·,kv I hi:<pi1 ;ii
required escorts to and from work and "sorn
prostitutes even proposition inside the hospital.
The submission also told of:
• Bumper-to-bumper traffic in "track" neig\
borhoods between 6 p.m. and 5 a.m. every night
• Residents and merchants spending the:
mornings picking up fast-food litter and contr:
ceptives. "A school principal in the area mu:
conduct a condom patrol every Monday mon
ing."
• Residents witnessing couples openly eng:1gi1·
in intercourse. ("On four occasions one reside,
has pulled his car into the laneway beside h
home to find sexual acts being committed on h
property.")
• Street-comer battles over territorv.
• Widespread use of illicit drugs, -particular
as a me:ins for pimps to control their pros:
tutes.
The judge was told that proclamation or the 11<:
l,tw has sharply reduced the problem_ "Presen
ly there is only :JO per cent of the numl~r ,
pnJstitutes that were on the street prior to ti
k~islation."' the submissi<.>n said.
'1n his .w_ritten submission. Mr. .Malo:h
agreed that sin..-ct prnstitulion was a serio:
nuisance. hul argued that the new law is st
unconstitlllional in that it goes too far by barri:
con,·ersations in pri\'ate, ;1s well a, pulilic. pl:,
C''-i.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Toronto
Subject
The topic of the resource
AIDS activism in Toronto
Description
An account of the resource
A history of AIDS activism in Toronto.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Prostitutes Jailed Unfairly, Groups Say & 'Condom Patrols,' Threats Cited at Hearing - Newspaper articles
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sex work
Description
An account of the resource
Two articles regarding prostitution that appeared in the Globe and Mail in 1987. Both articles are in reference to the impact of C-49, the criminalization of communication for the purposes of prostitution. Valerie Scott and Gillian Ridgerson of the Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes and Citizens Organization for the Repeal of Prostitution-Related Laws respectively are cited.
Creator
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Ann Rauhala and Thomas Claridge
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
From the personal collection of Andrew Sorfleet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Globe and Mail
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
26 March 1987
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
8.5" x 11" photocopy
Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes
Citizens Organization for the Repeal of Prostitution-Related Laws
condoms
Newspaper
Sex workers
Toronto
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/14511/archive/files/ce6847ea6e9187b15414118e6020c3ac.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=avzK2qEx7oxiRR7lbC%7EZyRRSle-bSpyuXmVwykmz3r%7E8sNP2YVYEFDOF24DVo83LA3gaQCbr7nj6akRFsDmdHj%7EU7nqUKCxE0e1kVkuA36UK6f1GGEfpS54EU2Vze%7ErfHposIBdsYwU6jOavXf5SVZyLEqxKKqhKhOeqlT0WQJ2ive71aA5ICPFvMYuucXVKi55KeLBTuzgPHqiYxto7Mt24Xytw-mEwkU4T5qK3zVSeyq%7EFJbquGSJBNJfVh0cSf5CWY71ADdNMHw%7EjHgxf1RyxudyNxNoZpys-w6vlmrAdARtdZAQRa0gaBfo5qt1mMzl%7EpmR41u3ezOaqeFMSew__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
39b565e5b733100323aa8211c59cb8fc
PDF Text
Text
1/
(,, ....·
.
Whorescorp
Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes
Frank Jones argued against the legalization of prostitution in the
November 30 Star, and we agree with him. Legalization is a system of
state control that sees prostitution as a vice and regulates it as
such. It allows licensed prostitutes to work in designated red light
zones but it prosecutes prostitutes who work outside t.he zones as
criminals. It is not very different, then, from the present situation
in Canada which allows prostitutes to work legally by advertising in
the paper and going out to their clients place, but prosecutes them
if they bring clients into their own home, or if they solicit in
public.
f;n.y system that treats prostitution as a crime or a vice invites
corruption. Legalization and criminalization both make prostitutes
vulnerable to exploitation. And the more repressive the law, the more
it drives prostitutes into the hands of criminals. This is why we
don't agree with Jones· argument, in support of the Cabbagetown
vigilantes, that prostitutes must be harassed and prosecuted. This
only leads to the very situation that Jones claims he's trying to
avoid.
The way to get the criminals out of prostitution is to get
prostitution out of the criminal code, and to enforce assault, sexual
assault, coercion and kidnapping laws against those who exploit
prostitutes. Decriminalization means that all criminal laws
regulating prostitution would be repealed, and prostitution would be
regulated in the same manner as any other business. With
decriminalization, prostitutes would no longer need to fear being
arrested themselves, and they would be able to get help if they were
ripped off, raped, assaulted or forced to work for someone. The few
who have pimps now, wouldn't need them anymore to bail them out.
Decriminalization is the only solution that will reduce street
soliciting. and it will do it without the use of force.
Criminalization obviously hasn't worked. Even when police had the
power (which they're asking for again) to pick up lmown prostitutes
just for being on the street, they still couldn't stop street
soliciting. Legalization doesn't work either. Many prostitutes work
illegally in places like Amsterdam because they've been refused or
deprived of a license, or because they refuse to be finger-printed
and photographed like criminals to get one. Decriminalization would
allow prostitutes to move indoors of their own free will. Given the
choice most prostitutes would work indoors-- it was the closing of
the body.rub parlors in the Seventies that led to the increase in
street soliciting in Cabbagetown in the first place, as police
readily admit.
Some people oppose decriminalization because they say it reflects
badly on Canadian society to condone prostitution. Choosing
decriminalization doesn't mean we condone prostitution, it only means
we·ve acknowledged that we can·t stamp it out or control it using
the criminal law. Besides, allowing an activity that is going to take
place :.myway. to take place indoors in a clean and dignified setting
reflects better on Canadian society than the spectacle of masked
vigilantes and police officers hounding prostitutes and their clients
on the street as Jones recommended.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Toronto
Subject
The topic of the resource
AIDS activism in Toronto
Description
An account of the resource
A history of AIDS activism in Toronto.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Response to Toronto Star Journalist Frank Jones - CORP Statement
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sex work
Description
An account of the resource
A response to Toronto Star journalist Frank Jones' November 30th 1987 article "Cabbagetown residents right to harass prostitutes" who argued against the legalization of prostitution. CORP's statement agrees with him in that they think prostitution should not be legalized, but decriminalized.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
From the personal collection of Andrew Sorfleet
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1987
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
8.5" x 11" photocopy
Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes
Sex workers
Toronto
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/14511/archive/files/75e9ca779a2ead5a8351acfa64f8df3f.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=cRjIZ8Ec6dmjopu3du2pjwZ7t3QeiWPnWX9T3yiqvLBBmA8g8GMiesA%7EINKaXl9RIz1gBpefXSa8fLVknxoNFvz4A--dTzDpkW3U-DQFq81KDedcdYx8u8EE61n-OPVQGm55VCvd7d0LfD3KOM0JuYlDLBsmuqhG46-mxknHd-2lw567qXwV4uPQg54SlpRJdIRyDaq1-w7KvhOxyqzxsGVs4Z8shHsJR74NxRNMTCQ0WHMWtFVIZsITnAhW7PQy2lhVSeW9dhwO-GyKhl35Dcgr%7EC2370Kdw566rj%7ESfFy10QQ1YMI%7EKSezHdQjaBwI43WA%7ETVSpZT5g-T5DWOzcA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
6de78cd0f27e7d266992f40ff7f8894b
PDF Text
Text
CORP
Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes
***PRESS RELEASE***
STARS IN THE MORNING deals with the detainment of
prostitutes - during
the Moscow Olympics in 1980.
However,
discrimination against sex trade workers is not limited to
the Soviet Union.
Everyday, prostitutes in Toronto are
being harrassed and arrested in spite of the fact that
prostitution itself is not a crime in Canada.
In the same way
that prostitutes were rounded up in Moscow in 1980, police
are planning daily crack downs on Toronto prostitutes during
the E~onomic summit scheduled later in June.
The oldest profession is honest work.
Prostitutes
have the right to work with dignity in a safe envirnment.
Decriminalization of prostitution is the only just and viable
solution.
For further comment contact Valerie Scott at 588-9038 or Danny Cockerline
at 964-0150.
Box 1143, Station F, Toronto, ON M4Y 2T8 • 416 964 -0150
�
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Title
A name given to the resource
Toronto
Subject
The topic of the resource
AIDS activism in Toronto
Description
An account of the resource
A history of AIDS activism in Toronto.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Prostitution Crack Down - CORP Press Release
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sex work
Description
An account of the resource
In response to a local production of Alexander Galin's "Stars in the Morning Sky," a theatrical production about street cleanups just prior to the Moscow Summer Olympics in 1980, Toronto sex work activists point out the same thing is happening in their city just prior to the G7 economic summit being held in June of 1988.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Danny Cockerline and Valerie Scott
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
From the personal collection of Andrew Sorfleet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
June 1988
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
8.5" x 11" photocopy
Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes
Sex workers
Toronto
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/14511/archive/files/db9c9afc20976e6d1c1ebd8db2fd2e5b.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=pUqxuQbd6JcyWdG%7EzId2tMBhMjvMn8Uos9hN-NIEvx0NnoXUCGLEXyFYkl1xfe3fF48Z5DX2rgUtTuEVYVJ6%7EnJWTk4nGpfFfHK3MFWCunDum9uo7Ue09YyD1zvcNvMzLxgHQmJgMBzIFDvru2Eg6iUy3TpfgjNaPHcEOBwMjEdRKCkUpJVq6W-eIM87SbexlsH1bafYOoBZ1HMy%7EyOs5VCWXd6--oiJwvlynuc5PftoLBUfP-7Iar0ZYDyDkJRcIM-J0CuzHYRhSaJ6F-Pu%7EU05o9e%7E1ZmAPev2hYkMBMBbR0wfKn2sO5ZbmINrDZGj5ydQ1Tr860zPi0liXE72ZQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
8034929a96424a060363ce2938c63377
PDF Text
Text
Whorescorp
Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes
Ian Scott, Attorney General
298C Gerrard Street East
Toronto, Ontario
M5A 2G7
December 16, 1987
The Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes would
like to draw your attention to the fact that a parallel, if
not competitive, legal system has been set up to benefit a
small group of vigilantes in the Cabbagetown area of Toronto.
Provincial Court Judge Lorenzo DiCecco has ordered men
convicted of violating section 195.1 of the Criminal Code
(communicating for the purposes of obtaining the sexual
services of a prostitute) to perform between 10 and 70 hours
of community work for the South of Carlton Residents'
Association, or to give the association donations of between
$150 and $200. This so-called community work consists of
picking up litter and excrement from the streets. It also
includes. repairing property of members of the South of Carlton
Residents' Association allegedly damaged by pimps, prostitutes
and their customers.
The South of Carlton Residents' Association is a small
group of well-to-do people who live in the area of Ontario and
Seaton Streets. Membership is not open to just anyone who
lives in the area, but only to those who agree with their
position and tactics. Those tactics consist of going out into
the streets, hooded, waving flashlights and anti-prostitution
placards, and at times barely restraining Dobermans. They then
descend.en masse on any woman they suspect of being a
prostitute, and verbally and physically assault her, with the
aim of getting her to "get off our streets." They have bragged
in the press about physically assaulting prostitutes, and
about other actions which even the police won't perform on
camera. They continually provoke verbal and physical
confrontations with prostitutes and their customers.
Obviously, they are not concerned with noise or litter, but
with women selling sex. They publicly state that they would
like the police to be empowered to pick up any woman who looks
like a prostitute. The vagrancy "c" law - which did just that,
and by which any women who could not "give a good account'' of
herself could be arrested - was struck down by the courts in
1972 (long before the Charter of Rights and Freedoms) as an
unreasonable infringement on women's rights.
The South of Carlton Residents' Association wantonly
tramples the civil rights of others. Not only is their
membership not representative of area residents, they have no
board of directors, no charter or bylaws, and are not a
charitable association. They do not even have a phone in the
name of the association. They are not in any way accountable
to the community, and they have already shown themselves to
have complete disregard for the law, let alone human rights.
Yet they are being given what is, in essence, public funds by
a judge who extorts money under threat of jail terms: for
Box 1143, Station F, Toronto ON M4Y 2T8 • 416 964 0150
�every hour of community work refused by the convicted men,
Judge DiCecco has threatened one day in jail.
The convicted men are to be supervised in this courtordered community work by the spokesperson for the
association, Sandra Jackson. Jackson, a realtor, has a vested
interested -in pushing property values up and making
accommodation unattainable for the vast majority of ·
To~ontonians. Artificially inflating housing costs does far
more substantial damage to the neighbourhood than prostitutes
could ever do.
There is no evidence that these men littered or damaged
property. There is no evidence that sex workers did, either.
These unproved allegations of damage have never been subject
to any verification whatsoever. Why, if littering is the
problem, were these meri charged with communicating for the
purposes of obtaining the sexual services of a prostitute?
Last we checked, the pretence that our court system operates
on evidence, not hearsay, was still being upheld. If this new
system of persecution, operating outside of the law but with
the connivance of the police and the courts, is to be
extended, it should be possible for any citizen to persecute
anyone of their choice. This so-called community work is
patently not community work at all, since it is not directed
to anyone in need in the community, or to the community at
large, but is meant specifically to service those people who
went outside of the law in defence of what they claim is their
property, namely, the public streets. The legal system has men
being degraded by law for the entertainment of their accusers.
This is not community work, but public humiliation. Perhaps
you would entertain a suggestion of a public pillory whereby
those in the stocks could provide the yuppie vigilantes with
designer fruit to throw at them.
The constitutionality of the offence for which these men
are. being persecuted (not prosecuted) is questionable. In the
middle of October, 1987, the Supreme Court of Canada agreed to
hear three separate appeals of section 195.1 from the appeal
courts of Alberta, Nova Scotia and Manitoba. In fact, Judge
Lorenzo DiCecco himself ruled June 19, 1987, in the Jennifer
Smith case, that 195.1 is unconstitutional. How can he,.but a
few months later, totally reverse himself? Obviously, he does
not feel bound by his own ,decisions. We feel that his rulings
are capricious and arbitrary.
Morri~ Manning, a criminal lawyer, said in a Star article
of December 12, 1987 "It's throwing the people back into the
hands of the mob, and that's improper." This system, in which
the courts are charging the victims of highly questionable
legislation and giving the money to their persecutors is
outrageous, and possibly illegal, even in the terms of the
reactionary legislation from which the community currently
suffers. It is frightening in that personal humiliation is as
close as the whim of any member of the bench.
We would like to meet with you to discuss these concerns.
Please call us at your earliest convenience at 588-9038.
Ryan Hotchkiss
�
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Title
A name given to the resource
Toronto
Subject
The topic of the resource
AIDS activism in Toronto
Description
An account of the resource
A history of AIDS activism in Toronto.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Cabbagetown Gentrification and Anti-prostitution Measures - CORP Letter to Ian Scott, Attorney General
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sex work
Description
An account of the resource
Letter on behalf of the Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes regarding gentrification and anti-prostitution measures taken in the Cabbagetown neighbourhood of Toronto.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ryan Hotchkiss
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
From the personal collection of Andrew Sorfleet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
16 December 1987
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
8.5" x 11" photocopy
Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes
Sex workers
Toronto
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/14511/archive/files/d529c7bd1bbae18e471e90b6030390f3.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=serGFMiMaajkweFt%7EGVUSmyGlMSWSE%7E5nZ-ZhIzji5C775cfHPBER27Ztxa--VlrVCMdaEArX1%7ET%7EUKzQWOkbf%7E15A4DhTwAc2pYuvnAwy2oUAMtGutsnE6RfPv0wOV48SDllIIPQ1ii8XBA2eQbGIUWXSPNwhT5Xi9pHbdd3w9v7EUQ9Fbf0qHEwtBwaLU9NMeGiBgbtQkZLgwb8t%7E37iGKRceIbCRPJgv-KrBRFN2TNpK1LStHImjbVu934Ue38f1vdK06Q9HhCHYLpiIE9f4W45TzXQXtBRjkWOQYtqVqJHM9d42RVlYoNm2see0pmncBRAhWwofpRWrh1tCySQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
e1ee446d935a77ee7b356a6aca1d992d
PDF Text
Text
Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes
THE CASE AGAINST C-49
Submitted October 27, 1989 to the
Standing Committee on Justice
Prepared by Danny Cockerline for CORP
Contact Persons:
Danny Cockerline (416) 964-7902
Valerie Scott (416) 588-9038
Box 1143 Station F Toronto M4Y 2T8 • (416) 964-0150 588-9037
�The Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes (CORP)
is a Toronto-based prostitute-run organization that was founded
in 1983 to advocate for the decriminalization of prostitution.
CORP opposed Bill C-49 before it was passed in 1985 and we
continue to oppose it in 1989 for the same reasons:
1) We said C-49 would not stop street prostitution and it hasn't.
According to the Synthesis Report on the impact of C-49,
prepared by the Department of Justice,
street prostitution has
not been altered appreciably in Toronto and Vancouver,
the two
cities most affected by street soliciting.
This should not be surprising:
there are countries in the
world with far tougher prostitution laws (in Iran prostitutes are
stoned to death, a solution we fear might please some people in
Canada) yet prostitution persists.
Civilized societies (among them many European countries and
Australian states) have learned that penalizing people for
prostitution is not only ineffective, it is cruel.
Instead these
countries are experimenting with ways of regulating prostitution
to minimize the nuisance any commercial activity can generate.
2) We said C-49 would adversely affect prostitutes and it has.
Prostitutes continue to be victims of a disproportionate
amount of violence, harassment, exploitation, rape and theft and
this will continue to be the case as long as the law sends the
message that prostitutes are criminals:
bad people who are
deserving of contempt and abuse. Now street prostitutes must also
contend with fines,
criminal records and, in many cases, jail
terms, as well as curfews and boundaries that deprive them of
their civil liberties.
C-49 has created a new danger for street prostitutes. The
Prostitutes Safe Sex Project,
a Toronto organization founded by
CORP and funded by municipal and provincial governments, has
found prostitutes more than willing to use condoms and learn
about disease prevention. (The numerous complaints from residents
of condoms left behind by prostitutes should attest to this.) But
the Department of Justice Synthesis Report (page 88) notes that
prostitutes complain the number of clients has been reduced as a
result of C-49, and less money is available on the street. To add
to this, many prostitutes are now burdened with further expenses
in the form of fines, as well as lost work hours due to arrest
and detention. "Some street prostitutes noted they had become
less choosy
and more likely to accept 'dates' that were
questionable, such as customers who were drunk." Such a desperate
situation not only puts prostitutes in physical danger; it could
well make it difficult for some prostitutes to refuse the demand
of a customer to have sexual intercourse without a condom.
If a condom is not used, there is little chance the customer
could be infected
by
a
prostitute
since female-to-male
transmission of HIV is very inefficient. It is the prostitute who
is in greatest danger of being infected.
�3) We said C-49 would be costly to enforce and that it would take
limited police resources away from more serious problems and it
has.
According to the Department of Justice report,
in Toronto
alone in 1987 it cost police at least $1,835,680 to enforce C-49
(page 29). In 1988 it cost an additional $4,500,000 to hire an
additional 90 foot patrol officers in Toronto.
These costs do not include court and detention costs. Nor do
they include the cost to society in terms of lost police
attention to other crimes.
Since the Metro Toronto Police have
been waging their anti-prostitution war the media has been filled
with reports of increased violence and property crimes. The
assumption that increased police visibility on the street to
combat prostitution
deters other crimes crumbles when one
considers that police on prostitution duty spend the majority of
their time transporting prostitutes to the station and doing
paperwork.
When we look at these costs relative to the benefits of
enforcing C-49, one wonders if we can even afford to keep
"communicating for the purpose of prostitution" illegal.
4) We said, and we maintain,
rights.
that C-49
is a
violation of human
Whether or not the law has had its' intended effect, it is an
unjust law. People are receiving fines, criminal records,
and in
many cases even jail terms,
simply for offering to rent or
purchase a legal service. (Prostitution itself is not a crime.)
In the Toronto report on C-49's effectiveness it was noted
that "In several hundred hours of observation and interviews in
prostitution areas, members of the prostitution team in£requently
observed
disruptive
or
noisy
behaviour on the part of
prostitutes". People are charged whether they cause a nuisance to
others or not.
Now the police and ratepayers' groups are demanding tougher
penalties for those charged, and the police want to be able to
arrest people simply because they have "reasonable and probable
grounds" to believe they are "communicating for the purpose of
prostitution."
Do people deserve to go to jail for trying to make a legal
living? Do people deserve to go to jail for standing on a street
corner wearing high heels and a tight skirt? This is what C-49 is
sending people to jail for.
Why is it that such a heavy-handed, punitive and expensive
approach is being taken to deal with what is such a minor
problem? We certainly do not see police rounding up street
vendors, giving them criminal records and throwing them in jail.
Nor do we see undercover cops pretending to be street vendors in
order to arrest their customers.
Instead we regulate street
vendors, using municipal bylaws,
in order to minimize the
disruption that they, like any commercial activity, can cause.
And, of course, we allow commercial activity to take place off
�the street in stores.
So why do we not treat prostitution as we would any other
commercial activity? Why do we not allow prostitutes to solicit
on commercial and non-residential streets, and major traffic
arteries in order to keep them out of
quiet residential
districts? (If prostitutes knew they could work on commercial
streets, a municipal by-law against any kind of soliciting in
residential areas would be a more than sufficient deterrent.) Why
do we not repeal the bawdy house and procuring laws so that
prostitutes can work out of their own homes, offices, outcall
services and brothels, rather than on the street? (It is common
knowledge that when the City of Toronto closed the body-rub
parlours in the late seventies, street prostitution in that city
increased greatly.) Why do we not use already existing laws
against those who disturb the peace,
litter or otherwise cause
disruptions, while using assault,
rape, kidnapping and coercion
laws against those who exploit prostitutes?
Decriminalizing prostitution will take the business out of
the underworld where it is now forced to operate and allow
prostitutes to work in a safer, healthier,. more dignified,
professional and humane atmosphere. And it will free up police
resources, and the taxpayers' money,
for more urgent social
problems.
Decriminalization will not satisfy those who wish, for "moral"
reasons, to stamp out prostitution, and who are willing to stamp
out human rights in order to do it.
These people believe
prostitution is an embarrassment to society, but we believe it is
society's treatment of prostitutes, often in the name of God and
morality, that is the embarrassment.
Nor will decriminalization satisfy some police forces who
depend heavily on the money, prestige and power they get from
being seen to control prostitution. They will continue to argue
that they are the only ones who can solve "the problem," despite
all evidence to the contrary. They said C-49 would allow them to
reduce street soliciting.
Now they say tougher penalties, and
"the reasonable and probable grounds" clause will solve the
problem. But it won't. Even prior to 1972, when the vagrancy laws
were still in effect and women could be jailed just on suspicion
of prostitution, police were unable to stop the sex trade.
Decriminalization will satisfy the ratepayers' groups who want
prostitutes off residential streets, and it will satisfy that
majority of Canadians who prefer justice to moralism. It will end
the shameful situation wherein thousands of Canadians go homeless
and jobless, while our governments spend millions of dollars
enforcing a law that does nothing more than punish people for
trying to make a living.
�
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Title
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Toronto
Subject
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AIDS activism in Toronto
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An account of the resource
A history of AIDS activism in Toronto.
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Title
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The Case Against C-49 - CORP Position Statement
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sex work
Description
An account of the resource
Position statement on C-49 (communicating for the purposes of prostitution) criminal code amendment aimed at curbing street based prostitution through criminalization by the Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes. Briefly mentions HIV in the context of sex work and the safety of sex workers.
Creator
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Danny Cockerline
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From the personal collection of Andrew Sorfleet
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Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes
Date
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27 October 1989
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8.5" x 11" photocopy
Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes
Prostitutes Safe Sex Project
Sex workers
Toronto
-
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013921e6187ae2df4c9522134f103233
PDF Text
Text
Final Report
on Establishing the
Prostitutes' Safe Sex Project (PSSP)
Resource Centre
From Maggie's/the Toronto Prostitutes' Community Service Project
To Health and Welfare Canada, Health Promotion Directorate,
AIDS Community Action Plan
August 1993
C. L. Bearchell,
Project Administrator
�Establishing the Prostitutes' Safe Sex Project (PSSP)
Resource Centre -- Final Report
CONTENTS
1.
Name and address of the project
2.
page
5
Problems addressed by the project
A.
Health promotion to prevent the spread of AIDS and other
STDs among sex workers
page 5
B.
The context of the sex industry today
page
6
c.
Why a resource centre
page
7
Background information about the grant recipient
3.
A.
Maggie's/Toronto Prostitutes' Community Service
Project
page
7
Maggie's strategies and relations with the community
page 8
4. Outline of the project
B.
A.
Size and scope
Expansion of outreach and territory
9
Industry trends
B.
page
page
9
Selection of area of operation and clientele
Area of operation
Who is a sex worker
page 11
Different levels of need and risk
C.
page 10
page 11
Administrative structures and procedures
Board of directors
Staff collective
page 12
Project Administrator
page 13
AIDS educators
D.
page 12
page 13
Policy changes promoted
Barriers to AIDS education
- 2 -
page 13
�CONTENTS
4. Outline of the project - Policy changes promoted - continued
Effects of criminalizing prostitution
Laws surrounding sex work
page 13
Bad dates
page 17
Abuse by police
E.
page 13
page 18
Methods and techniques used by the project
How the resource centre operates
F.
page 22
Data Gathering
Constraints on data gathering
page 23
Description of data gathered
page 23
Methods of data collection
page 24
Outcome of data collection
page 24
5. Project staff
A.
Determining staff duties and qualifications
page 28
B.
Description of project staff members
page 28
6. Evaluation
A.
Objectives of the project
page 28
B.
Method of evaluation
page 29
c.
Program results and impact
b)
Objective 1
page 30
Violence-prevention material
a)
page 31
Objective 2
page 32
Gaining trust of a hard-to-reach group
page 33
Sex workers' AIDS education needs
page 34
Sub-populations of sex workers
page 35
- 3 -
�CONTENTS
6. Evaluation
b) Objective 2 - continued
Impact of poverty
page 36
Drug users
page 36
Complications of the strip club scene
page 37
Male prostitutes
page 37
HIV-positive prostitutes
page 38
Sex workers' clients' educational needs page 39
Education aimed at associates
d)
Objective 3
page 40
Challenges facing single parents
c)
page 40
page 41
Objective 4
page 43
D.
The management process used in program implementation
page 43
E.
Assessment of staff
page 45
F.
Other results emanating from the project
page 48
Drug issues
page 48
7.
Summary and Conclusions
page 50
8.
Recommendations
page 52
Appendix A
Excerpts from outreach discussions
recorded by PSSP AIDS educators
page 54
Appendix B
PSSP Outreach Report Forms
page 56
Appendix C
Overview of Outreach Statistics
page 57
Appendix D
Maggie's Policy
&
Procedures Manual
page 58
- 4 -
�Establishing the Prostitutes' Safe Sex Project (PSSP)
Resource Centre -- Final Report
1.
Name and address of the project
Prostitutes' Safe Sex Project (PSSP) Resource Centre
(Project# 6552-2-283)
298 Gerrard St. E., 2nd Floor, Toronto, Ontario
(Mailing address: Box 1143, Stn F, Toronto, Ontario M4Y 2T8).
Problems addressed by the project
2.
A.
Health promotion to prevent the spread of AIDS and other
STDs among sex workers
"Prevention is the key to curtailing the ultimate impact of
AIDS . . . • Sexual behaviour change is an achievable goal •••.
As with education for safer sex, STD awareness campaigns need
to be aimed at specifically vulnerable groups as well as,
more generally, the whole population."
Michael H. Merson, Director of World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS in "Slowing the Spread
of HIV: Agenda for the 1990s" (Science, May 28, 1993)
Studies in the US and Canada have found that a majority of
street prostitutes say they use condoms with their clients
80% in a 1985 western Canadian study. But a US Centres for
Disease Control study found that only a minority of prostitutes
used condoms with their steady partners. US studies have also
found that those prostitutes who have been infected with HIV
were infected either by sharing needles or by having unsafe sex
with their steady partners. In 1991 in Toronto, according to
the Department of Public Health, of 90 HIV-positive women in
the city, 10 were sex workers; of those 10, nine had been
infected by sharing injection equipment.
There is evidence that many clients of female prostitutes,
do not see themselves as being at risk for HIV and therefore
use condoms reluctantly. Some customers believe that, if they
pay more money for a "high-class" prostitute, they do not need
to worry about using condoms. And some indoor prostitutes, who
have regular customers, tend to see themselves as not being at
risk with those clients.
Epidemiology seems to bear out the women's clients' belief
about their relatively low risk for HIV infection. But it does
not follow that they do not need to use condoms. Epidemiology
also makes clear that people with multiple partners who do not
use condoms can and do become infected with other sexually
transmitted infections which they then spread to others at an
- 5 -
�alarming rate. (It is prostitutes' long-standing desire to
avoid contracting such infections which has created some resistance to condom-use among people who have sex for free who
associate condoms with prostitution.) And a number of these
other STDs are seriously implicated in making people, especially women, more vulnerable to HIV infection.
Most prostitutes see hundreds of clients a year and many
clients also have multiple (paid and unpaid) partners. Given
these numbers, prostitutes are a logical point of contact for
educating many people who may be at relatively high risk for
STDs, including HIV, and who may not otherwise receive such
specific information and training in STD/AIDS prevention.
"The behaviour interventions that have been successful in
helping people move through [the] steps [to change] tend to
have several components l) repeated messages about AIDS
through the mass and other media 2) person-to-person contacts
in which individuals are educated about risks and messages
about risk reduction are reinforced usually by a trusted
member of their community or a peer 3) good condom promotion
and availability 4) a favourable policy climate characterized
by a willingness to confront the problem of AIDS, frankness
about sexuality and a non-stigmatizing approach to groups who
often face discrimination (such as homosexual and bi-sexual
men). It is useful, particularly when an HIV epidemic is at
an early stage, to aim educational interventions at specially
vulnerable groups such as young people, homosexual and
bisexual men and prostitutes and their clients."
Michael H. Merson, Director of World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS in "Slowing the Spread
of HIV: Agenda for the 1990s" (Science, May 28, 1993)
B.
The context of the sex industry today
As a consequence of the failing economy over the past several
years, there has been a large influx of new people into the sex
trade -- working on the streets, in bars and as escorts. We
have observed the increasing size of strolls (areas where
street prostitution occurs) in Toronto and the development of
new strolls, particularly in poorer suburban areas of the city.
We have also had reports of increases in street prostitution in
other communities throughout Ontario.
In the greater Toronto area, an increasing number of ads
are being placed in all publications that print escorts' ads in
their "classifieds" sections. In one publication the number of
pages of such ads has increased from two pages to five full
pages over a three-year period.
Bars that are licensed to employ strippers are also
feeling the economic crunch; many are no longer paying
performers but expect them to work for tips from the customers
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
only. The resulting increase in competition means more women
are faced to engage in more explicit and even riskier behaviour
-- in this case risking arrest as well as possibly contracting
a sexually transmitted disease (STD).
Sharp yearly increases in the number of contacts and in
the number of condoms and pieces of information distributed by
PSSP demonstrates a demand for ongoing STD/AIDS prevention
education within the entire sex industry.
C.
Why a resource centre
Information-sharing and discussion with street prostitutes, especially on the downtown strolls, is often thwarted by the
working conditions. There is competition among the workers and
pressure to take work whenever it arises so there are only infrequent opportunities to engage in longer, more in-depth discussions necessary to develop rapport, identify gaps in knowledge and resource needs and to interest potential volunteers
in working with the project. The resource centre has provided a
place to talk which is conducive to the development of such a
rapport and away from the immediate demands of the work
environment.
The PSSP resource centre facilitates the involvement of
both street and indoor prostitutes in the project's peer-education efforts. The participation of these volunteers not only
contributes to containing the spread of AIDS, but is also rewarding for the individual volunteer in terms of skills development and confidence building. It contributes to the sense
of pride and responsibility that prostitutes are developing in
their attempts to control their working conditions and establish safety and other professional standards. The more extensive contacts that the centre permits us to have with potential
participants also increases the project's ability to penetrate
further into existing informal networks of prostitutes and
their partners -- whether they work on the street, in bars or
in escort services.
3.
Background information about the grant recipient
A.
Maggie's/The Toronto Prostitutes' Community Service
Project
Maggie's mission is to provide education and support to assist
sex workers in our efforts to live and work with safety and
dignity.
The Toronto Prostitutes' Community Service Project, as we
are legally known, was established as a non-profit, mutual aid
project for sex workers by Toronto prostitutes and our supporters in late 1985. We began conducting AIDS-prevention
education as a voluntary organization in 1987. We received
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
movement, from churches and youth service agencies, from drugabuse and STD treatment services and other AIDS-prevention or
support organizations. These people have generously given their
time and have helped us raise both awareness and funds in the
broader community. A few of them still serve on the board, most
are still associate members of Maggie's and continue to be
available to our staff members for advice.
Perhaps even more important to our success so far has been
the extent to which we have been able to become known and respected by so many people in the many different branches and
manifestations of the sex industry. We have extensive contact
with male, female, and transsexual or transgendered prostitutes
and strippers who work on the streets, in bars, on their own or
through agents or brothels. We also regularly see or speak with
many of their lovers, spouses, children and friends. Other
supporters include regular customers, agents and madams, strip
club managers, brothel owners, biker clubs, drug dealers and
crack house operators.
4. Outline of the project
A.
Size and scope
Expansion of outreach team and territory
The geographic area covered, the size of the staff and the number sex workers reached has increased steadily throughout the
duration of this project.
Initially the project was to provide a resource centre to
an AIDS-prevention education team of four people (2.5 full time
positions) and those who used their services -- indoor and
street prostitutes in the City of Toronto. We opened the resource centre at the beginning of 1991. The previous year
(calendar year 1990), we had 1,803 contacts and distributed
10,906 condoms. That year (1991), we had 3,599 contacts and
distributed 20,680 condoms.
In the final full (calendar) year of the project (1992),
Maggie's expanded outreach to include the greater Metropolitan
Toronto area in order to reach growing suburban strolls. Our
AIDS-prevention education team consisted of six people (3.5
full time positions) and made 8,248 contacts and distributed
39,414 condoms.
Industry trends
The sex industry undergoes seasonal variations. Winter tends to
discourage street prostitution. Although there are many women
with family ties and commitments who cannot do so, some street
pros simply pick up and move to a warmer climate in the fall.
Those who stay may be obliged to support their children by
collecting social assistanceT 9tRers, male and female, are
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
students for whom sex work is full-time summer employment; they
may not work at all during the school year or they may only
work part time. Some of the streetwalkers who are based here
year round work in bars in inclement weather or sign on with
escort agencies. Others are out year round, regardless of the
weather. Some of them may be in relatively desperate circumstances; while others are dedicated sex professionals who don't
let a little bad weather get in the way of their preferred
means of working.
While fall is the time for departure of workers from the
streets, the spring is the traditional time for an influx of
new faces into all areas of the sex industry. Some are transients returning from warmer climes, some are students returning
to work, but inevitably many are new to the trade. In recent
years this seems to have been in response to high levels of
unemployment. The "spring rush" means outreach workers seeing
many workers for the first time and experiencing the slow process of building rapport and trust. Many transient pros from
other Canadian and US cities have never encountered peer AIDSprevention educators before and are generally very impressed
with our project and grateful for its services.
New escort agencies often appear in the spring and established ones tend to advertise for new workers; the number of
ads in entertainment publications for independent escorts also
tends to increase, sometimes substantially. As noted above, our
sagging economy has given rise to the development of new
strolls and the expansion of others, in poorer suburban areas
and in outlying communities. It has increased the number of
workers and thus increased competition among them and brought
prices down; this creates a great deal of tension.
The same economic circumstances that bring people into the
sex trade also contribute to drug dependencies for many people.
In recent years this has been reflected in the growth in use of
crack cocaine which, when it intersects with the sex trade on
the streets, makes a bad situation even worse. (See Drug
issues, page 45.)
B.
Selection of area of operation and clientele
Area of operation
As indicated above, the geographic focus of our AIDS-prevention
outreach shifted from the City of Toronto to the greater metropolitan Toronto area. This change reflected several things: a
maturation of our staff and organization, an expansion of our
base of funding -- including receiving a grant from City of
Etobicoke and in particular one from the Trillium Foundation
for the acquisition of a van -- and the increase in visible
prostitution in suburban and nearby communities. As we move
into 1993 we will shift our geographic focus even further as we
participate in the Ontario :r+iril.fil;t-:r-y of Health's one-year
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
accessibility project which will take PSSP AIDS educators to
communities throughout the province to meet with AIDS and other
service organizations and local sex workers.
As stated above, we had a great deal of difficulty leasing
a site for the resource centre due to the reluctance of landlords to rent to a group of prostitutes -- even in economically
depressed areas where prostitutes work the streets and there
are high vacancy rates. These are, of course, areas where a
centre like ours should ideally be situated. Unfortunately
these are also areas where pros often suffer extreme hostility
from residents.
Who is a sex worker
For the purpose of Maggie's membership, a sex worker is anyone
who has agreed to the direct exchange of sexual stimulation for
financial compensation within the last six months, intends to
continue sex work, considers him or herself to be a sex worker
and has sufficient experience in the sex industry. While sexual
stimulation may or may not involve physical contact -- sex
workers include prostitutes, strippers, phone sex workers, and
pornography performers -- PSSP's AIDS-prevention efforts have
concentrated on those sex workers who do engage in physical
contact.
We have sought out male, female and transsexual or transgendered sex workers in their workplaces
on the street,
through agencies, in bars, in brothels, and in places where
independent escorts advertise. Through them we have also made
contact with the lovers/spouses, friends and customers of
prostitutes.
Different levels of need and risk
Not all pros are equally at risk and not all are in equal need
of AIDS-prevention information, supplies, and opportunities for
community involvement. However, a resource centre that aims at
all pros is easily accessible to those who need it most. And
everyone has the right to up-to-date information. Workplace
health and safety needs of pros include fast access to the most
current STD-prevention information possible.
It has taken a lot longer to develop our networking with
those who work over the phone than it has to get established on
the street. It would seem from the studies that AIDS-prevention
education is not as urgent for escorts. On the other hand, the
pros who are most at risk (homeless, drug-addicted) and most in
need (single mothers) are also those least able to get involved
with Maggie's and PSSP. Those in less need -- street professionals and escorts -- may have more time and skills to contribute. Escorts may also feel a greater need to become involved
in community service work to overcome the relatively isolated
way they work.
- 11 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
c.
Administrative structures and procedures
Membership
The membership of Maggie's has ultimate authority over Maggie's
through its power to elect and direct the board of directors at
annual general meetings or other specially called meetings.
To ensure sex worker control of Maggie's there are three
categories of membership, voting members, honourary members,
who may also vote, and associate members, who may not vote.
Recruiting new applicants to insure a strong membership is
the responsibility of all members of Maggie's, but particularly
of the membership committee and the staff collective.
·
Details of the rights and responsibilities of Maggie's
membership are set out in the Maggie's Policy and Procedures
Manual; and in the By-law of the Toronto Prostitutes' Community
Service Project.
The Board of Directors
In keeping with the first of Maggie's principles and beliefs,
that Maggie's is an organization for sex workers that is controlled by sex workers, a majority of members of the board
directors consists of sex workers (voting members).
The board of director's of Maggie's represents and is
accountable to the voting members of Maggie's.
The functions of the board include but are not limited to:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
promoting the Mission, Aims and Principles;
establishing policies;
short and long term planning;
fund raising, financial management, authorizing
expenditures and budget planning;
fulfilling the legal responsibilities of Maggie's;
monitoring progress of staff towards meeting aims of
Maggie's;
providing the staff with guidance in policy, legal,
medical, financial and other matters;
reporting to the membership at annual general meetings.
Staff Collective
The staff collective consists of project administrators and
AIDS educators. All staff members record hours and activities
daily on time sheets and file outreach reports monthly; meet
weekly to report on and evaluate outreach, educational materials, the resource centre and other programs; provide support to
Maggie's committees and represented the project to the
community, as opportunities permit.
- 12 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
Project administrator
The project administrator coordinates the staff collective
(team of AIDS educators); guides planning and evaluation of
program and staff; maintains the centre's resources and
supplies; reports to and administers the work of the board of
directors; synthesizes written and verbal reports into reports
to funders and the board; seeks funding opportunities, submits
funding applications and reports to funders, as possible and
necessary.
AIDS educators
AIDS educators conduct outreach; record outreach weekly,
according to location; attend weekly planning and evaluation
sessions with volunteers; staff the resource centre; recruit,
train and involve volunteers on an "as possible" basis.
D.
Program and/or policy changes promoted
Barriers to AIDS education
The two most alarming things that PSSP AIDS educators have documented over the years are:
the effect of the criminalization of activities surrounding prostitution on both the workers and on our ability
to do effective STD/AIDS-prevention education and
the extent of violence and unsafe sex that occurs in the
context of assaults on prostitutes which seem to be facilitated by criminalizing prostitution-related activities
Effects of the criminalization of prostitution
In 1992 alone Metro police laid 4,000 prostitution-related
charges. The effects of these charges include the destabilization of people's lives by incarceration (which often results in
loss of homes and even children), harassment on the street and
by neighbours, violence by men posing as customers, abusive
treatment by individual police officers, discrimination in
housing and access to services and stigmatization.
The laws surrounding sex work
Exchanging a sexual service for money is not illegal per se,
but many of the activities surrounding such transactions have
been made illegal, including:
negotiating such an exchange in public, including some- 13 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
one's car (communicating for the purpose of prostitution)
going to a place where such a service is offered to seek
it out (found in a common bawdy house)
running a place where such activity could go on (keeping a
common bawdy house),
working for someone who runs a place where prostitution
goes on (inmate of a common bawdy house),
dancing "too suggestively" in a strip club (indecent theatrical performance or indecent act in a public place)
using your own or someone else's place (keeping a common
bawdy house) to regularly perform sexual services for
money,
knowingly allowing a space that you own to be rented by
someone else to use to engage in prostitution (permitting
premises to be used as a common bawdy house),
living with or being habitually in the company of someone
while you work as a prostitute makes them vulnerable to
charges of pimping (living off the avails of prostitution)
Working the phones (In/out call workers)
In the 1970s, escort services and brothels, dungeons and party
girls were confined by their ability to advertise -- TeleDirect
(Yellow Pages) and newspapers allow only very discreet language
and imagery and discreet networks built by referrals. Then independent local periodicals that sell business classified advertising provided opportunities for independently-run business
in the sex trade. This alternative to the street expanded to
reach its economic limit through the late 1980s and continues
at that level today. Telephone personal ads are the latest
generation of sex advertising to include commercial sex.
While the vast majority of prostitution-related arrests
are made on the street, police have also laid charges against
independent call girls, escort agencies and NOW (one of the
local entertainment magazines which is an effective advertising
medium for prostitutes who work through phone ads). "Communicating" charges against the magazine were thrown out of court.
The number of advertisers increased, as people took the dropping of charges as an indication that this was a safe way to
work, and the cost of advertising in NOW increased, justified
in the magazine's eyes by the possible cost of further court
action. Meanwhile, prostitutes who advertised their "in-call''
services in NOW continued to be harassed and entrapped.
In February 1992 Toronto police arrested a dozen women
after extensive investigation of NOW magazine massage ads. In
one case three different officers, on three separate occasions,
made an appointment with a woman who advertised in NOW; all
paid for and received her services. The woman returned home
several days later to find her door ajar and several police
officers searching her apartment for marked money she had
- 14 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
supposedly received from them. Police have to prove habitual
use for the purposes of prostitution for a "keeping a common
bawdy house" charge, hence the multiple visits.
Keeping a common bawdy house is an indictable offence. If
someone is convicted, their landlord can be forced to evict him
or her; most landlords don't require that much incentive. Most
prostitutes would lose their place as soon as they were charged. Prostitutes charged with keeping a common bawdy house,
even those working alone in their own homes, can also be charged under the "proceeds of crime'' legislation which allows the
courts to seize and freeze all of a person's assets. If a
mother was charged with keeping a common bawdy house, Children's Aid would most likely investigate to determine if the
children should be removed from the home and if charges of
"corrupting morals" should be laid.
Escorts who restrict themselves to out-calls are not vulnerable to bawdy house charges but the market demands in-call
service. On several occasions pros advertising out calls have
been entrapped by being invited to a bar (a public place) where
they negotiated the terms of a date and then found themselves
facing a "communicating for the purpose" charge.
Working the bars
Over the past decade in Toronto, table dancing slowly developed
different forms of "dirty dancing": lap dancing, couch dancing,
jerk dancing (in booths).
Work place health issues became most acute following
several recent court rulings. In the case of the Pussy Cat club
in Montreal the Supreme Court ruled that the bawdy-house (for
the purpose of acts of indecency) did not apply if the parties
were hidden from view and didn't touch each other. In the Cheaters case in Ontario the court ruled that lap dancing was not
an "indecent theatrical performance," and in a Hamilton street
prostitution case that "indecent act in a public place" did not
apply if the parties had gone to some lengths to ensure that a
condition of privacy existed. As usual, such changes introduce
ambiguities which make dancers and clubs vulnerable to prosecution under other sections of the Criminal Code: bawdy house
(for the purpose of prostitution) as well as possibly "communicating for the purpose."
Both dancers and strip clubs are licensed in Metro Toronto. Individual dancers are charged a first time fee and must
renew their license every September. Clubs also pay a yearly
fee but new licenses are not granted so the total number of
licensed venues has been declining. Both dancers and clubs
stand to lose their licenses if convicted of a criminal
offence.
Once a stripper has been convicted for committing and indecent act and no longer qualifies for a dancer's license she
- 15 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
or he (but most likely she) may move to working in some other
part of the sex business. There she or he may be vulnerable to
further criminal charges, and if charged his or her situation
will be further complicated by having had a prior conviction.
Working the street
In 1992 Metro police laid 4,000 prostitution-related charges.
Most of those involved street prostitution -- the summary
offence of "communicating for the purpose of prostitution."
Someone charged with a first "communicating" offence will
probably get a light sentence, maybe not even a fine the first
time, but they will end up with a record. A certain number of
clients of street prostitutes are charged every year. Since
there are many more clients than pros, the customer rarely gets
charged a second time but the street walker almost always does.
A second offence will get the prostitute a fine for sure.
And either time a sex worker could get bail conditions that
make it hard for him or her to work or lead a normal life.
Prostitutes, especially women, are routinely given curfews
(only allowed out at certain hours of the day) and boundaries
(they must stay off certain streets or out of certain neighbourhoods).
The more times they are charged, the more likely they are
to get such conditions; if they are caught breaking one, they
automatically receive increased penalties (which vary, depending on the circumstances in which the conditions were imposed). Prostitutes with multiple convictions end up in jail,
eventually, while their customers almost never get multiple
convictions and therefore never do jail time for being
customers.
A smaller number of male prostitutes seem to get convicted
over and over again and do jail time for "communicating," possibly because there is a larger number of female career pros
working the streets. (Among the women who prefer to work on the
street are many who have custody of their children and who are
unwilling to do in-calls and thus are unable to make enough
money working as escorts.)
Serving time in jail
It always seems that as soon as we develop a rapport with a
particularly needy person, he or she disappears off to jail.
Often, if the person is using drugs, his or her health and
appearance may improve behind bars while they are forced to
stop using and to eat and sleep regularly. But once out again,
chances are his or her situation will be worse than ever.
A person who is forced to spend more than 30 days in jail
is likely to experience serious disruption in his or her life.
Most people cannot afford to pay rent on a place while they are
- 16 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
not occupying it and are unable to earn money, so most people
lose their housing and sometimes all of their possessions.
Women with custody of their children are likely to be in a
particularly difficult situation. Many loose custody of a child
or children temporarily or even permanently while doing time.
The stress of jail, homelessness and loss of child custody are
personal crises often cited by sex workers who develop or resume drug or alcohol problems.
One place where we failed to make headway in outreach was
in getting into the Metro West Detention Centre which is located in Etobicoke and is where many of the women who we see
throughout the Metro area go to jail for prostitution-related
offenses. Despite the regulation forbidding prostitutes from
visiting others in jail, we had some initial success conducting
a couple of STD/AIDS-prevention seminars under the auspices of
another agency. Unfortunately, after the educator conducting
the seminar made inquiries about why an HIV-positive pro was
being held beyond the end of her sentence, we were never invited back. Efforts to get back in, through other avenues, have
so far proved fruitless.
Sometimes serving prolonged jail time forces prostitutes
to reveal the nature of their work to family members and
friends. These revelations may produce either a hurt or confused reaction resulting in withdrawal of support or an angry
rejection that can include active hostility.
Many people work in the sex trade while completing postsecondary training. Some of them are particularly fearful of
the effect of acquiring a criminal record on their ability to
work in their chosen field, those studying law, for instance.
One of the most serious consequences of the criminalization of prostitution-related activities is that sex workers
cannot expect the criminal justice system to act to protect
them.
Bad dates
Residents on the strolls are not the only assailants to take
their cue from the law's attitude toward prostitution. One man
posing as a customer in order to assault prostitutes told his
female victim that her kind wasn't "wanted around here" so he
could do "whatever he wanted to" to her. Our first report to
the funders of this project described alarming reports received
by AIDS educators of abuse from "bad dates."
As our rapport with our constituency grew so did the flood
of reports, especially from female street prostitutes. We felt
the need to respond to the information about "bad dates" by
proposing a Bad Trick Sheet to the women on the street. Their
response was positive and so we devised a method for collecting
and distributing this information. The BTS has been very wellreceived ever since -- with many expressions of appreciation
- 17 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
from women on the street and many offers of to contribute to
and distribute it.
Periodically, when we have received reports, we have also
issued a "boystown" version of the BTS.
Also from our first experiences with the BTS we began to
document the demand for prostitute-positive support for sex
workers who have been victims of violence.
We received $1,500 for printing costs from the City of
Toronto, Planning and Development Department's "Breaking the
Cycle of Violence" grants. With all the media attention on violence against women and with various levels of government officially committed to investing in preventing violence we are
disappointed to report that we have not yet found other funders
to support expanding our violence prevention initiatives.
Abuse by police
The other series of alarming reports that we received and
passed on after the resource centre was in operation was a barrage of prostitutes' complaints about abuse and harassment by
the police.
It wasn't long after we were in operation before some PSSP
educators were experiencing abusive behaviour from police officers themselves. Two AIDS educators were followed around doing
street outreach one night, a volunteer was told to remove her
"safe sex ho" button or she'd be charged with "communicating."
We were able to document some of these experiences and to begin
to address the issue of police abuse of prostitutes in a 12minute film, Prowling By Night, which was funded by the National Film Board. The film has been well-received inside and outside the sex industry. One of the most positive impacts it had
on our day-to-day work was that it brought in enthusiastic
volunteers.
In another incident of police harassment that hit close to
home police arrested a woman moments after she had received
condoms and information from a PSSP educator. The officers were
insulting and verbally abusive to the woman and told her they
knew she was working because she had been talking to a girl
from Maggie's. The woman was homeless, handicapped and had been
denied welfare because she was a recent arrival in Toronto. We
first had to reassure her that we had not deliberately set her
up to get arrested before we could put her in touch with appropriate legal and social services. We could not draw attention
to this incident when it occurred because the woman feared
further police harassment.
By mid-1992 Maggie's staff collective could say wholeheartedly that it supported all the recommendations of the
Report of an Inquiry into the administration of internal investigations by the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force
the report of the "Junger Inquiry." This inquiry was set up after
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�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
reports in the press that the Toronto police force was making
"sweet-heart'' deals with cops who were caught in dubious circumstances with prostitutes. In the case of Gordon Junger, he
was caught running an escort agency with his girl friend, Roma
Langford, and was given a letter of reference and had all
charges dropped when he agreed to resign. In the case of Brian
Whitehead, he was prosecuted under the police act and demoted
after he was caught sexually assaulting and extorting sex from
a prostitute who was known at the inquiry as Jane Doe.
In a submission to t~e Police Services Board Maggie's
staff expressed admiration and respect for Roma Langford and
Jane Doe, "who at great personal loss and fear for their lives
came forward in the name of justice. Without either of them as
witnesses the Report of the Inquiry would never have surfaced."
The submission continued:
The justice system totally disregarded the safety of
Langford. Junger was told that Langford had reported
him, and was then released; no criminal charge was
pressed for his breach of the conditions of his undertaking to stay away from Langford. The fact that Jane
Doe had to obtain an injunction to protect her anonymity
further demonstrates total disregard for the concerns of
the victim. We believe that these occurrences were due
in part because the witnesses were prostitutes.
The Report explicitly states that both Langford and
Jane Doe were not considered credible witnesses. When
Jane Doe indicated that she was ready and willing to
testify in a criminal trial, no criminal charges were
pressed. The fact that the defense and prosecutor negotiated a penalty of days off in the Whitehead case and
that Jane Doe was not informed and had no representation
at the hearing suggests collusion in disregard for the
concerns of the victim and the seriousness of the offence. The treatment of Jane Doe by the Internal Affairs
investigators demonstrates the obvious need for investigators and officers in general to be sensitized to the
traumatizing effects of surviving violent and sexual
assaults.
The submission goes on to cite two examples of how police respond
to incidents of violence against prostitutes taken from information given to Maggie's outreach workers for the Bad Trick Sheet:
A street prostitute was beaten, choked with a rope and
left unconscious in an alley. She had severe bruising on
her neck and face the next day when she approached two
female police officers to report the incident. They asked
her what she expected in her line of work and refused to
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�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
take a report.
A homeless street prostitute was beaten and raped so
badly that she ended up in hospital for several days and
several months later still required surgery. The hospital
called police. The officer who responded to the call had
arrested the woman in the past and during the arrest was
violent toward her. He told her, in front of hospital
staff, that she had it coming and left.
Assaults on prostitutes are no different than assaults on
anyone else.
Every assault that happens on a prostitute that doesn't
get reported or where eventual charges are not laid leaves
a violent person who will assault women free on the
street, believing that there will be no consequences for
their actions. There needs to be full support for victims
of serious and sexual assault so that victims will be
encouraged to stand witness. Because of the criminality of
prostitution, prostitutes are seen as expendable by the
justice system. Because prostitutes are seen as criminals,
often with prior offenses (because they have been targeted
and entrapped by police), their reports of assaults are
disregarded and trivialized.
Reports of assaults from prostitutes to the police
have often resulted in the prostitute being charged with a
prostitution-related offence or being arrested for an outstanding warrant. Prostitutes are also discouraged from
reporting incidents of domestic violence to the police for
fear of being harassed to testify for living on the avails
charges rather than an assault charge. A woman's partner
should be charged for assaulting her -- not for being her
partner.
Prostitutes need to be able to report assaults to the
police without fear of being prosecuted for current or
outstanding prostitution-related and other minor charges.
(Although drug possession is an indictable offence, immunity from drug charges would also be favourable.)
Prostitutes experience the justice system from a position
of distrust. Emotional trauma does not seem to be a
consideration for a prostitute reporting sexual assault.
Their charges are most often plea-bargained down giving
priority to the concerns of the assailant. This all makes
it even more difficult for a prostitute to press charges
to the fullest extent of the law.
Police Violence Against Prostitutes
The report of the Junger inquiry states that, "The public
must be assured that when wrongdoing by an officer is sus- 20 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
pected, the case will be investigated swiftly, and if
there is evidence to lay a charge, prosecuted vigorously.
There must be no special treatment because the person
under investigation wears a badge."
Perhaps we need a similar statement that guarantees
that there will be no special treatment because the victim
is a prostitute. Recently a Maggie's outreach worker heard
three separate collaborating accounts of an incident which
occurred within the previous month:
A native hustler near the downtown YMCA was assaulted
by a police officer who had removed his badge number.
The officer asked to see the hustler's ID and then
threw it on the ground. When the hustler bent down to
pick it up, the officer stepped on his hands. The
officer hooked a night stick under the hustler's
throat. The hustler asked, "Why are you doing this;
I've been cooperative; I've done everything you've
asked." He was told to shut up. One of his hands was
broken.
This is just one more incident of police brutality
against prostitutes that will go unreported. It is known
on the street that any attempt to report a police officer
will result in retaliation. The inquiry report states
that, "Inadequate consideration has been given to victims
of police wrong-doing." We believe that this is true in
part in the cases of Jane Doe and Roma Langford because
the victims were prostitutes. As long as prostitutes are
vulnerable under the criminal justice system, they will
rarely testify against an officer for misconduct, especially if that misconduct was assault. The bravery of these
two women must be recognized.
The criminality of prostitution contributes heavily
to the inability of the police force to prosecute officers
when dealing with prostitution-related incidents. The report states that, "approximately 95 per cent of the complaints that are reviewed by the force's complaint review
officer, based on documentary evidence, result in no
action." It is our belief that, because prostitutes are
expendable within the justice system, complaints brought
forward by prostitutes will continue to result in no
action.
excepted from Maggie's submission to the Metro
Toronto Police Services Board - August 1992
The most serious instances of police abuse of prostitutes
sexual assault, robbery -- usually occur in actual or threatened arrest situations. But lesser forms of abuse are common in
daily police work. Police regularly pull up to women working
the streets and force them to squat on the side walk beside the
- 21 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
police car while they run the woman's name through the computer. Police investigations in areas where pros work on the
street often result in increased harassment for some workers as
well as a declines in business, even in cases where prostitutes
have been instrumental in providing information leading to the
apprehension of suspects.
Police harassment on the street has an impact on the way
business is conducted and thus on our ability to do outreach to
those conducting business. PSSP educators who do outreach in a
west-end Toronto neighbourhood have seen the traditional
strolls expand deep into residential streets and off of commercial ones as prostitutes tried to avoid police harassment. The
combination of obvious police contempt for prostitutes and this
bullying of workers from one corner to another and into
residential areas results in increased hostility on the part of
neighbours which has sometimes escalated into assaults.
E.
Methods and techniques used by the project
How the resource centre operates
The PSSP resource centre provides Maggie's users, researchers
and members of the public with access to a collection of printed, audio and visual materials addressing sexually transmitted
diseases (STDs) and other health and safety concerns of prostitutes. It is open to the public two days a week, and otherwise
by appointment and is extensively used by staff and volunteers
most days and nights.
The centre is integrated into a program of peer-based outreach to male, female and transsexual or transgendered sex workers and their families, friends and clients. Outreach is conducted by a team of AIDS educators (paid staff and volunteers)
over the phone, on the street (on foot, on bicycle, and using a
van) and in court; they distribute condoms, needle-cleaning
kits, pamphlets, buttons and other STD-prevention information.
The centre provides AIDS educators with a place to talk with
Maggie's service-users in more depth than they can on the
street, and a place to hold weekly planning and evaluation
meetings. Evening coffee house (drop-in) events are held regularly and community groups sometimes meet in the resource
centre.
The centre produces and develops educational materials
based on needs assessed by the AIDS educators outreach teams.
Drafts of materials are circulated to AIDS educators and various advisors and are evaluated by focus groups made up of
resource centre users. In the case of printed materials, layout
and design are done by Maggie's staff and/or volunteers.
The resource centre provides a locus for assessing the
needs, concerns and interests of people in the sex industry.
- 22 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
F.
Data gathering
Constraints on data gathering
Our goal is not just to deliver a quick message and disappear
but to win recruits to a campaign. People do not become involved in community service work with strangers. We started with
staff from within the industry but that did not guarantee
instant success. Those staff members knew their constituency
well enough to know that they needed to demonstrate respect for
both the privacy and the security of their colleagues in the
sex industry if they were going to be trusted enough to win
recruits.
Both medical and sexual matters are traditionally deemed
private. As are, often, the details of one's earnings. Sex
workers are as likely as anyone else to have conservative views
about such matters.
Despite that, they are, as a group, subject to a disproportionate amount of research and public scrutiny. Social service workers, public health officials, criminal justice officials, social scientists, students, and the media all find
prostitution a profitable subject to study. While some may
enjoy the attention, most prostitutes do not appreciate this
elevated level of curiosity about their work lives.
Description of data gathered
We gathered data for the purpose of determining if we were accomplishing our objectives of providing AIDS-prevention, information to prostitutes, their customers and their lovers,
spouses and friends. We recorded:
1.
The number of male and female, indoor and outdoor prostitutes we have contacted; the number of their clients,
lovers/spouses, friends and associates we contacted with
AIDS-prevention information and resources.
2.
The number of condoms distributed in prostitutes' work
places.
3.
The number of pieces of AIDS-prevention information
(safe-sex pamphlets and cards; Bad Trick Sheets;
buttons; newsletters) that we produced/distributed.
4.
Information about sexual assaults on prostitutes,
including number and types of incidents reported.
5.
The number of referrals we made and to whom they were
made.
- 23 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
6.
The number of individuals to whom we provided needle
cleaning information.
7.
The number of individual prostitutes who participate in
activities of the project, including attending events and
participating as volunteers in producing and distributing
safe sex education materials and estimates of the amount
of time they contributed.
8.
AIDS educators' assessments of the level of concern and
knowledge of their sex worker contacts about AIDS and
STD prevention.
Methods of data collection
As AIDS educators complete each session of outreach, they complete outreach report forms which_ indicated when, where and how
they conducted the outreach. The forms [see Appendix B] recorded: the number of sex workers, including volunteers, if any,
of which gender were contacted at each location (stroll, bar,
brothel) or during a telephone session; the number of friends,
associates, lovers/spouses and clients; the number of condoms
and pieces of written information; the number of individuals
receiving needle cleaning kits or information; any referrals
made; comments about the level of concern and knowledge of
their sex worker contacts about STD/AIDS prevention, specific
questions that were raised by contacts and any other relevant
information. Separate forms were used to collect reports for
the BTS.
Outcome of data collection
1.
The number of male and female, indoor and outdoor
prostitutes we have contacted.
Increase in contacts:
from 2,815 in 90/91 to 3,801 in 91/92 = 135%
from 3,801 in 91/92 to 9,768 in 92/93 = 256%
2.
The number of condoms distributed in prostitutes' work
places.
Increase in condoms:
from 10,906 in 90/91 to 24,387 in 91/92, = 223%
from 24,387 91/92 to 50,458 in 92/93 = 207%
[See Appendix C, Overview of Outreach Statistics, for comparison of contacts made and number of condoms distributed over
three years of the project.]
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�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
3.
The number of pieces of AIDS-prevention information
1990
1,428
1,037
912
pamphlets distributed
"trick cards" distributed
buttons distributed
1991
1,829
604
1,131
pamphlets distributed
"trick cards" distributed
buttons distributed
1992
3,910
pamphlets distributed
By 1992 "trick cards" and buttons were subsumed in series
of new materials; and record keeping was rendered more
difficult due to increased participation of volunteers in
materials distribution. These figures represent materials
delivered directly to service users. They do not reflect
pamphlet distribution in bulk through volunteers and other
agencies.
The continuing popularity of ephemera such as buttons, stickers, match books and information cards attests
to their effectiveness in reinforcing both a safe sex message and a sense of pride in professionalism that fosters
the self-respect necessary to consistent safe sex
behaviour.
Bad Trick Sheets and newsletters were also
distributed throughout this entire period.
4.
Reports to the Bad Trick Sheet
By mid-August 1992 the Bad Trick Sheet had collected 114
entries.
25
47
7
16
5
incidents involved rapes, including 4 gang rapes
involved other assaults
involved forcible confinement
involved knives, including 3 actual stabbings
involved guns
4 involved attempted strangulation
2 involved attacks with hammers
3 involved attempts to run down women with vehicles
5 involved assailants who claimed to be police (these
statistics do not include incidents of assaults known to
have been committed by police officers)
This information relates only to women on the street, it
does not include information relating to male pros or to
women who work as escorts or in-call prostitutes.
- 25 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
5.
The number of referrals we made and to whom.
1990 - A total of 80 referrals:
to
to
to
to
to
to
45
10
3
17
4
1
Hassle Free Clinic
The Works
the Addiction Research Foundation
Parkdale Community Legal Services
416 Dundas
AA
1991 - A total of 291 referrals:
101
41
65
51
8
3
3
3
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
Hassle Free Clinic
Parkdale Community Legal Services
The Works
straight work
the 416 drop-in
the AIDS Hotline
ACT
Youthlink - Inner City
the Gerstein Centre
Anishnawbe Health
Strip clubs
Rape Crisis Centre
Canada Employment (retraining)
George Brown College
Nellie's Hostel for Women
Parkdale Community Health Clinic
the University of Toronto
Sistering
Metro Toronto Social Services
Seaton House
AIDS Action Now!
an MD
the AIDS Committee of Ottawa
1992 - A total of 211 referrals:
92
60
33
10
4
2
2
1
1
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
Hassle Free Clinic
The Works
Parkdale Community Legal Services
Straight Work
416 Dundas
Youthlink -- Inner City
the Gerstein Centre
an MD
Parkdale Health Centre
- 26 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
1
1
1
6.
to a food bank
to OHIP
to Narcotics Anonymous
The number of individuals to whom we provided needle
transmission prevention information.
1990
1991
Needle transmission prevention information was
distributed to 360 people.
1992
7.
Needle transmission prevention information was
distributed to 69 people.
Needle transmission prevention information was
distributed to 487 people.
Volunteer involvement
The number of individual prostitutes who participate in
activities of the project, including attending events and
participating as volunteers in producing and distributing
safe sex education materials and estimates of the amount
of time they contributed.
1990
1991
Maggie's volunteers helped on our board, with
event organizing, through the newsletter and
with outreach on 185 occasions (for
approximately 1,134 hours)
1992
8.
Maggie's volunteers helped on our board, with
event organizing, through the newsletter and
with outreach on 40 occasions (with no attempt
to record hours)
Maggie's volunteers helped on our board, with
event organizing, through the newsletter and
with outreach on 905 occasions (for approx.
2,438 hours)
AIDS educators' assessments of the level of concern and
knowledge of their sex worker contacts about AIDS and STD
prevention.
The vast majority of prostitutes with whom PSSP educators
make contact express concern about AIDS and STD prevention. Most of those with whom we have extensive enough
- 27 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
contact to evaluate their knowledge were well-informed
about AIDS prevention -- virtually all were aware that
using condoms and clean needles prevented the spread of
AIDS. Like most people, many prostitutes are less likely
to use condoms with spouses and lovers. Concern was
expressed, and knowledge demonstrated, less frequently by
customers.
5. Project staff
A.
Determining staff duties and qualifications
The project administrator's job description was designed to
find someone with the skills to establish and run the resource
centre as well as meet all administrative needs of Maggie's.
B.
Description of project staff members
One full time staff member, a project administrator, was
hired by this grant for this project.
The project Administrator received no training.
Although she has only limited experience as a sex worker,
she had extensive experience in community organizing and
was familiar with the concerns and the needs of sex
workers as a result of having helped start and shape
Maggie's.
She stayed for the duration of the grant.
6. Evaluation
A.
Objectives of the project
1•
To establish and operate a resource centre through which
the PSSP can educate prostitutes and their partners,
using -- and fostering -- peer counselling, in the development of AIDS-prevention materials.
2.
To distribute, through the resource centre, AIDS-prevention information and materials aimed at motivating
prostitutes and their partners to avoid high risk behaviour with all partners using -- and fostering -- peer
counselling.
3•
To motivate, train and equip volunteer prostitutes and
others to make AIDS-prevention information and materials
- 28 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
available in the work environments of sex workers.
4.
To operate a resource centre as a repository of information about safer commercial sex and to make information
available to AIDS educators and programs, and to medical,
social and other researchers throughout Canada and the
world.
B.
Method of evaluation
When the Prostitutes' Safe Sex Project began, we had very ambitious plans for project evaluation, especially for evaluating
the behaviours and knowledge level of the women and men who we
were striving to reach. The detailed questionnaire that we used
at this time proved cumbersome to project workers and alienating to our target audience. (See Constraints on data gathering, above). We found ourselves undermining one of the project's greatest strengths -- its direct access to sex workers - by using an approach with them which they associate with untrustworthy outsiders. We tried modifying the questionnaire to
make it shorter and less intrusive but this did not substantially improve our ability to work with this tool.
Later, once we felt securely established with enough of
our contacts and were beginning to develop our membership and
volunteer base, PSSP attempted to participate in a long-term
research project aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of our
program. Considerable staff time was devoted to the preparation
of a research proposal.
In January 1992, we were forced to reconsider the project
in light of economic realities when it was turned down by the
National Health Research and Development Program. We decided to
stop pursuing the project for the foreseeable future and to
continue our on-going process evaluation activities.
Our present method of evaluation consists of:
collecting outreach data indicating: the number of contacts made with sex workers and others involved in the sex
industry (clients, spouses/lovers, friends and associates
and managers/agents); the extent of volunteer involvement
in the outreach program; and the number of condoms and
pieces of information distributed
collecting service-user feedback whenever possible and
appropriate about the resource centre, their participation
in educational events and AIDS-prevention cultural activities for sex-worker volunteers and potential volunteers
involving volunteers in production and evaluation of edu- 29 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
cational materials (focus groups) and eventually in a committee to publish a newsletter which evaluated each issue
holding weekly outreach evaluation forums, involving
volunteers to determine the impact we are having on the
level of understanding of AIDS and HIV within the sex
industry
c.
Program results and impact
a)
Objective 1
Using resource centre to involve sex workers in the development
of AIDS-prevention materials
Method
1.
Service-users participate in think-tank discussions (focus
groups) where the mock-ups of proposed materials are
discussed and evaluated.
2.
Volunteer feedback and service-user feedback received by
staff during outreach is recorded at weekly outreach
evaluations meetings.
Problems and implications
Much of the population to whom this project addresses itself
does not have a high degree of literacy. There will always be a
need for information to be exchanged on a one-to-one basis and
for the production of non-written educational materials.
On-going focus testing of written materials means that the
information is continually fine-tuned but the process has its
draw-backs. Due to the need to produce a number of test runs of
any given piece of educational material, we sometimes end up
with various versions of materials in circulation. And of
course the earliest versions are never as good as the final
ones.
Findings
Our brief experiences with film and video production showed us
that although, due to the problem of access, they only partially address the needs of people with low literacy skills, both
media have an enormous potential for volunteer involvement and
community building.
We have had a lot of positive feed back about the Maggie's
Newsletter. Much like the resource centre itself, it seems to
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crystallize volunteer/member identification with the project
and its work and thus increases participation.
Careful control should be kept of the quantities of each
version of a piece of printed material that is in development
since information is always changing -- hopefully getting
clearer. (Taking advantage of printers' volume discounts can be
counter-productive; copying should be done in batches of 50 or
100 until you are certain a version is final).
Our experience with one type of written material, bad
trick lists, is particularly instructive so we present it in
some detail.
Violence-prevention material
While the Bad Trick Sheet (BTS) continued to be one of the
if not the -- most effective street outreach tools that
Maggie's had developed, it quickly became apparent that it
needed to be expanded and improved. At first we assumed that
the way to expand it was to involve other agencies which conduct street outreach in the distribution of it. One of the
drawbacks to this approach became obvious right away -- 95% of
the entries included on the BTS were collected by AIDS educators distributing the BTS during outreach. We weren't going to
be able to solve the problem just by finding money for a larger
print run. We would also have to train and co-ordinate other
agencies in collecting the reports.
Then a number of our AIDS educators sought feed back from
women who had provided them with information for the BTS and
found that a significant minority of them would be unwilling to
give such information to people from outside of their community. That is when we began to realize what a community-building
and skills-sharing opportunity this project could be -- with
resources for a co-ordinator, the right computer equipment and
programs and our solid and growing volunteer base.
As soon as we produced the BTS we began to see the need
for a similar bad date warning system for indoor workers. On a
number of occasions we have initiated telephone "trees" among
female escorts when we had reports of dangerous men seeking to
victimize call girls. But the need for a more formal and serious effort to address this problem was brought home brutally
when a sex worker who was a friend and an associate of many
Maggie's members and volunteers disappeared and was later found
to have been murdered.
Her disappearance and death caused much grief among the
many people who knew and loved Candice (Grayce Elizabeth Baxter). The "date" who killed her was known to other prostitutes
as a problem "date" including by women involved with Maggie's
who co-operated with the police in their investigations. A
meeting of escorts to plan a bad date warning system for
escorts was organized in Grayce's name by members of Maggie's
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and the Sex Workers' Alliance of Toronto. The Bad Call List was
launched in late 1993.
Over time there has been a growing sense of ownership of
the bad trick lists by people in their respective sectors of
the industry. It is already becoming apparent that one ideal
way to make this violence-prevention information available
would be 24-hours-a-day by telephone.
b)
Objective 2
Using the resource centre to organize the distribution of AIDSprevention information and materials to sex workers
Method of evaluation
1.
Staff collect outreach data indicating: the number of
contacts made with sex workers and others involved in the
sex industry (clients, spouses/lovers, friends and
associates and managers/agents); the extent of volunteer
involvement in the outreach program; and the number of
condoms and pieces of information distributed. (See Data
collection, above.)
2.
Staff and volunteers hold weekly outreach evaluation
forums to determine the impact they are having on the
level of understanding of AIDS and HIV within the sex
industry, barriers to AIDS education, etc.
Problems and implications
It is impossible to determine the extent to which our outreach
has resulted in a reduction of the risk of HIV and STD transmission among sex workers for a variety of reasons relating to
the confidentiality of HIV test results as well as to the sexual practices of those who are tested. It is difficult to determine, even with self-reporting, the extent to which sex professionals are practising safe sex in personal encounters.
Our ability to determine the extent of a person's knowledge increases proportionally with the extent of educators'
contacts with the person. It was a rare occurrence for an educator to engage someone in an in-depth discussion of AIDS-prevention during a first contact.
Even the most experienced PSSP AIDS educators find it
difficult to approach street pros when they are gathered together (hanging around) in groups on the street. Reception
varies from extreme warmth to outright hostility but, whatever
the reception, it is almost impossible to engage groups in
discussions of AIDS prevention. Opening the resource centre
helped overcome this problem for those service-users who are
willing to visit it.
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Findings
Gaining the trust of a hard-to-reach group
AIDS and social service agencies traditionally view sex workers
as "a hard-to-reach population." Many prostitutes are "in the
closet" about their work and are living socially isolated lives
in the suburbs, some work as dancers and unbeknownst to their
friends turn trick on the side, many belong to tight-knit
circles of friends and colleagues, still others are part of the
drug subculture, some are homeless street people. Because it is
comprised of prostitutes, PSSP has been successful in gaining
access to this wide variety of prostitutes.
In the process of gaining prostitutes' trust we found we
it very useful to show respect by recognizing that many sex
workers are in ideal positions to pass on accurate STD-prevention information to others (customers, friends, colleagues -especially new-comers) who have multiple partners.
It is important to recognize that, while it creates problems for HIV-positive pros (fear of possible legal consequences
as well as inability to get support from "straight'' society or
colleagues -- especially if they are women and still working),
it is legitimate for sex workers to resist having their work
associated with AIDS. While epidemiology has demonstrated
repeatedly that the media stereotype of the reckless, diseasespreading prostitute is false, prostitutes continue to suffer
from the stigma of it. Sex workers know that the commercial
nature of a sexual act does not impart any special risk to it.
They know that they are no more and no less at risk of contracting or passing on STDs than any person with multiple partners.
Experienced prostitutes tend to be safe sex practitioners
because they understand their workplace health and safety needs
in terms of STDs generally.
"Given the enormous magnifying effect of
conventional STDs on HIV transmission, effective
STD care must be a priority throughout this decade
and into the next century."
Michael H. Merson, Director of World Health
Organization's Global Program on AIDS in
"Slowing the Spread of HIV: Agenda for the
1990s" (Science, May 28, 1993)
It is also important to respect sex workers' resistance to
being labelled helpless victims who are forced to do sex work.
This view is paternalistic and disempowers prostitutes. Nevertheless our culture and its laws do victimize people who engage
in sex work and, just as the resistance to associating sex work
with AIDS may create added difficulties for prostitutes who are
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HIV-positive, the resistance to the stereotype of the "prostitute as victim" makes it a challenge to design programs to
address the ways in which prostitutes really are victimized. In
the past, information which documented the plight of the neediest or most desperate prostitutes has been seized on by the
media, women's and other interest groups to promote this victim
view. The Bad Trick Sheet and other bad date warning systems
are particularly vulnerable to being transformed from positive,
empowering responses to violence into disempowering and discouraging messages in the hands of outsiders, no matter how
well-intentioned.
Sex workers' AIDS education needs
The vast majority of prostitutes with whom PSSP educators make
contact express concern about AIDS and STD prevention. Most of
those with whom we have extensive enough contact to evaluate
their knowledge were well-informed about AIDS prevention -virtually all were aware that using condoms prevented the
spread of AIDS.
Despite extensive knowledge about the basics of AIDS
prevention, prostitutes have frequently had questions about the
intricacies of prevention and the complexities of AIDS. Their
questions about prevention centred around:
reasons to use condoms for oral sex,
the need to use only water-based lubricant,
the usefulness of Non-oxynol-9 as a back-up in the event
of condom failure,
the need to protect broken skin from contact with bodily
fluids,
ways to prevent needle transmission,
whether or not to practice safe sex with lovers and
spouses,
Questions about AIDS and HIV centred around:
whether or not HIV is transmitted orally,
how to assess whether or not to have an HIV antibody test,
the difference between a positive antibody test and an
AIDS diagnosis,
the existence of treatments for opportunistic infections;
the lack of a cure or vaccine for the syndrome,
the long incubation period and the fact that people
usually don't look like -- or even know if -- they have
the virus.
There are also isolated individuals and newcomers whose
knowledge of the basics may even be lacking in important areas.
Examples of concerns that have been raised by such individuals
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include:
what lubrication is and why to use it,
why withdrawal isn't enough protection (with a lover),
the risks from oral sex with women and how to minimize
them,
how to clean a needle,
the possibility of transmitting blood-bourn infections
while tattooing,
what laws are related to prostitution (many people have
misconceptions about the legality of entrapment)
For further information about the content of PSSP AIDS
educators' ·contacts with street prostitutes, please see
Appendix A, Excerpts from outreach discussions recorded by AIDS
educators (p. 54).
Focus on certain sub-populations of sex workers
Impact of poverty
As the project evolved, we found that the majority of our
AIDS-prevention education takes place on the streets. While not
all streetwalkers suffer extreme victimization, the neediest
prostitutes tend to work the street. The sex acts most risky
for contracting AIDS (vaginal and anal intercourse) are not the
services most commonly offered by prostitutes working the
streets (oral and manual stimulation are). But the homeless
women and men and others under severe economic pressure who
work the streets are those most likely to be unable to afford
to buy condoms. And unprotected oral sex with multiple partners
is very risky for contracting others STDs which in turn are
associated with HIV infection.
Drug users
While prostitutes in general, including street prostitutes,
resent the stereotype of the drug-addicted prostitute, there
are a significant minority of people who work the street who
engage in drug-using behaviour that may put them at risk for
HIV and other blood-borne infections. A recent study of crack
users in New York indicated that there may be an increased risk
of oral HIV transmission among regular crack users who often
have sores on and in their mouths. Crack users are also known
to sometimes barter sex for drugs and may be more likely to
have unprotected sex, even intercourse, with dealers or "drug
buddies" who they view as friends rather than as clients.
On the other hand, PSSP educators have noticed an
increasing willingness on the part of some drug-using pros to
increase their knowledge and practice of AIDS-prevention. As
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one volunteer remarked: "I never would have believed those
junkie girls on***** Street would ever use condoms. But I've
been handing out condoms for Maggie's for a couple of years now
-- and I know they're usin' em!"
Complications of the strip club scene
As describer earlier, strip clubs are vulnerable to unclear
(and erratically enforced) laws surrounding adult entertainment. (See page 15.) We would not have been able to gain
access, especially to female dancers, if we had not had a
number of staff and volunteer AIDS educators with long work
records as strippers.
In light of recent legal decisions, even though one of
them (Cheaters) is under appeal, some strip club managements
are in the habit of making it clear to dancers that "anything
goes" as long as the customer is happy and the management
doesn't know about it. The stress of this situation causes a
great deal of anxiety among the women who work in bars,
including concern about AIDS and other sexually and socially
transmissible diseases as well as fear of arrest. However,
addressing these concerns is made doubly difficult by the
circumstances of both official management denial that this is
their policy and the fact that many dancers are unwilling to
acknowledge -- even to each other -- that they do "extras" to
make ends meet. Providing STD and AIDS prevention information
in environments where sex does not officially happen is very
difficult and one AIDS educator has had to defuse some hostile
dressing room confrontations. A similar resistance to our
information and other resources exists with escort agencies
where our staff or volunteers are not already known.
Dancers' fears about possible legal ramifications in these
circumstances have proved to be well founded and many have
found themselves facing charges in the past. The complications
of doing AIDS-prevention education and condom distribution in
some clubs was further compounded once charges were laid. Fortunately most dancers work in a variety of clubs and can be
reached at other venues where that atmosphere is not so generally fearful or where owners or managers are more sympathetic
to our work.
Male prostitutes
Most full-time or long-time male pros are escorts and male
escorts are virtually all gay or bisexual men. Escorts are more
likely than their colleagues on the street to engage in anal
intercourse, although relatively few escorts include receptive
anal intercourse among their services because they are aware
that those who do offer such services are the most susceptible
to possible infection through condom failure.
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There is a significant population of younger men who work
the streets, some of whom also work as escorts as well; the
majority of them are also gay or bisexual.
A small number of the men who work the street are heterosexual by preference and identity. Fewer than half of male pros
on the street are straight identified, and "don't do much."
(They profess to never engage in anal intercourse and to perform oral sex only rarely.) These young men are most often
homeless or drug-addicted or both; those who've shared injection equipment also face more potential risk from behaviour in
their private lives than in their work lives. There is little
interaction between the minority of straight-identified hustlers and their gay colleagues, but, where interaction occurs,
relations are generally cordial.
Connections with young men in the sex trade developed
mostly through actual personal networks, individuals being
known in clubs, on the street and in the ads. Both the street
and the ad scene have a fairly high turn-over rate, over any
given period of time. Prostitution often serves as a supplementary income, or a stop-gap measure for young, gay men so there
is a significant population of casual and transient, part-time workers.
Anal sex in the street scene usually doesn't happen unless
the pro and the client end up a someone's place even if that is
a motel room. Most interaction between gay bi and straight
identified hustlers is cordial.
Many young men who hustle often have economic relationships over time where trust develops and, as with any relationship that involves trust, that can lead to riskier practices in
terms of HIV transmission. Especially in environments that will
not tolerate "sexual deviance." Young men who hustle are at
least at the same level of risk in their personal lives as are
other gay/bisexual teenagers and men who are sexually active.
That is, they are among the people most at risk for catching
HIV today. Young people have often put themselves at risk because they don't have the information before they start having
sex. Young male pros are: targeted by almost every youth agency
in existence as someone in need of rescue; seldom acknowledged
by much of the gay community; visible and vulnerable to haterelated assault.
HIV-positive prostitutes
HIV-positive prostitutes are highly stigmatized by the press
and can therefore be extremely isolated.
Since male prostitutes and their customers, as men who
have sex with men, are among the people in Ontario most likely
to have AIDS, as gay/bisexual men, these pros face more risk of
contracting HIV in their private lives than at work. We know of
many male pros who are HIV-positive, some of whom have been
positive since before they were eighteen.
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Hostility to co-workers who are known or suspected to be
HIV-positive is very less common among gay male pros but is
particularly high among female prostitutes many of whom, despite much commitment to and experience with safe sex, are
afraid of "sharing clients" with a positive pro. As well, they
fear the undermining of all prostitutes' credibility as safe
sex practitioners (and an attendant decline in business, which
in turn means less bargaining power with would-be customers).
Prejudice against HIV-positive pros is possibly exaggerated by
a long-standing prejudice against those who worked while infected with any disease. They also share a very real fear of backlash: from the press, residents, assailants, police and the
courts.
Our earliest experiences in AIDS prevention education led
us to fear that the atmosphere in the industry was such that
HIV-positive women would have a very hard time disclosing their
antibody status to anyone, even to us, and that they would have
an equally hard time disclosing their profession to anyone
other than us. So far, with a very few exceptions, this fear
has been borne out.
The legal situation of HIV-positive prostitutes who continue to work is unclear but likely extremely vulnerable. We
have seen serious abuse of the rights of HIV-positive prostitutes in Ontario. A judge ordered a suspected HIV-positive
prostitute to be held in jail until she was tested before he
would pass sentence on her. Deceased Ottawa prostitute Donna
Jean Newman was hounded by the media when her HIV status was
revealed. And at least one woman has been held at the Metro
West Detention Centre beyond the end of her sentence because
she was HIV-positive.
On a number of occasions we have been requested to provide
HIV-positive representatives of our organizations to researchers, the media, organizations of people living with AIDS or
HIV (PLWAs) and other community-based AIDS education and service organizations. While we are fully sympathetic to the need
to involve PLWAs at all levels of decision-making that affect
them, because of the situation described above we are not able
to meet such requests at this time and do not expect we will be
able to in the near future.
Sex workers' clients' educational needs
While professional sex workers are consistently well informed,
and gay customers of male pros are relatively aware of the need
for safe sex, some of their clients (heterosexuals who are experimenting and gay men who are just coming out) and customers
of most of women, who comprise a larger, more transitory and
diverse group, are relatively ill-informed. Many pros report a
lessening of customer resistance to condoms in light of the
AIDS epidemic. But while they are obliged to wear them for com-
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�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
mercial sex, many straight men say that they don't use condoms
otherwise, claiming that they choose their partners carefully
instead.
Education aimed at sex workers' associates
Since most prostitutes who are HIV-positive contracted their
infection outside of the context of their work through sharing
needles or from unprotected sex with a spouse or lover it is
obviously helpful to develop good relations with their partners
and drug-using friends in order to reinforce prevention
messages.
As well as sex workers, their customers and partners, PSSP
AIDS educators are also in regular contact with people, mostly
men, who can best be described as hangers-on to the "street
scene." Many of them are homeless and/or involved in the drug
subculture and many are aware of and supportive of the project
and its staff. Once a rapport has been established with such
people, they can add a margin of safety to the work of AIDS
educators who are conducting street outreach alone.
Some of these men are friends or lovers of women who work
the street and occasionally they will ask PSSP educators for
condoms for their friends or partners. Others will ask for
themselves if they are present while condoms are being
distributed.
c)
Objective 3
Using the resource centre to motivate, train and equip
prostitutes as volunteer AIDS educators
Method
1.
Hold weekly outreach evaluation forums, involving volunteers to determine the impact we are having on the level
of understanding of AIDS and HIV within the sex work
industry
2.
Collect service-user feedback whenever possible and appropriate about the resource centre, their participation in
educational events and AIDS-prevention cultural activities
for sex-worker volunteers and potential volunteers
Problems and implications
We have observed a very consistent phenomenon with Maggie's
volunteers: they go through periods of regular involvement
interspersed with periods of absence. These variations are
dictated by both the demands of the business and of people's
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personal lives. (See also Outcome of data collecting - 7.
Volunteer involvement p 27.)
Particular challenges facing single parents
We have observed particular limits on the participation of
women who are mothers. When they are in crisis, most mothers'
have immediate needs that are outside of our scope. We mostly
provide referrals to, and some advocacy with, other agencies.
Some agencies, Children's Aid Societies in particular, need
more advocacy and sensitization than we have so far been able
to provide. They appear to have unwritten policies that a woman
who is working as a prostitute is automatically unfit to be a
mother; and suspicion extends to mothers who work in other
parts of the sex trade as well. Estranged husbands and boyfriends are often well aware of the potential power this gives
them over former partners who are sex workers and use it to
threaten and manipulate some women, especially in battles over
child custody.
We have seen some positive developments among mothers who
are Maggie's service-users and volunteers, including the establishment of, and reliance on, friendships and networks for
child care in emergencies (especially crucial in times of
arrest or incarceration). Some childless women have helped out
with colleagues' kids in order to give the mothers some necessary time for themselves. Older, more established sex workers
who are mothers sometimes exchange shelter and money for babysitting services with younger women who are in need of such
support. We have also been able to encourage community support
for new mothers by organizing baby showers.
Many sex workers are mothers who, while not in crisis, are
nevertheless "single moms." For some, the sex business has been
financially good to them and they are successfully raising
their kids on their own and don't need or want any help. But
these women, who have full-time custody of school-aged children
and work in the business, are essentially working two jobs. All
the mothers we know are committed to their families and many
make choices about how they will do sex work based on the needs
of their families. Some choose to work in brothels rather than
take clients to their home or, if they want to maintain their
independence, to work the streets and insist that the client
provide a venue.
A number of active Maggie's members and volunteers are
mothers but most have adult children or do not have custody of
their children. It's little wonder that only very few of those
who are full-time mothers have time left over for Maggie's volunteer work, other than on-the-job information and resource
sharing -- like condom (or Bad Trick Sheet) distribution on
strolls, in club dressing rooms, or in brothels. Staff members
who have been mothers of younger kids have worked under enor-
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mous stress which has been compounded by their constant fear of
loosing their kids if they are publicly identified as sex
workers as a result of their work with Maggie's.
Findings
Throughout the duration of this project we have seen Maggie's
volunteer base grow extensively. (See data gathered, Volunteer
involvement p. 27.) Volunteer orientation and appreciation
nights have been very successful. Many volunteers have become
involved, in a variety of ways, with helping us raise funds.
And the number of volunteers participating in outreach has far
exceeded our expectations.
In October 1992, one of Maggie's volunteers organized a
benefit art show at a local restaurant. More than fifty volunteers participated in the preparation and presentation of our
first fund raising event, The Half and Half Show, also held in
October 1992. In June 1993, 64 volunteers participated in the
organization and presentation of a three-day festival of fund
raising events.
On February 8, 1993, Maggie's held its first (since incorporation) annual general meeting at Oakham House. Thirty-five
enthusiastic members reviewed the organization's development
and discussed plans for its future and to elect a first official board consisting of 8 sex workers and 4 non-sex workers
(associate members).
Volunteers have been central to our ability to get introduced into new work environments in the sex industry (new, especially suburban, strolls; brothels and agencies; and networks
of independent escorts).
One piece of evidence as to the effectiveness of volunteer
and service-user information dissemination is the speed with
which we have observed information circulate on the street and
over the phones. Word on new products and problem-solving techniques usually spreads within a couple of days (not to use
flavoured condoms for intercourse because they may cause yeast
infections; the advantages and disadvantages of using two
rubbers at once; which new condoms are extra strength,
stretchier, smaller, etc.).
As the extent of prostitute-involvement in Maggie's, PSSP
and the resource centre and related activities increased we
began to see evidence that community service serves as a possible antidote to the isolation created by the criminalization
of sex work and the social stigma attached to being a sex worker. This process of community development has to be continued
and extended if we are to follow the gay community model of
using peer/community pressure to reinforce safe sex norms in
peoples' personal lives.
The resource centre has proven particularly useful in our
work with indoor/escort prostitutes. The biggest obstacle that
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AIDS educators have encountered in conducting outreach to this
segment of the prostitute population has been the isolation and
fearfulness of many such prostitutes, some of whom will not
even acknowledge that they are providing sexual services. The
prostitute who only conducts business over the telephone may be
even more isolated than his or her colleagues who compete for
territory and customers on the street. Once we began to tap
staff and volunteers' personal networks, having a central location provided the necessary meeting ground and assurance of
safety, to bring many escort prostitutes into regular contact
with Maggie's.
In future, consideration should be given to addressing the
needs of working prostitutes who are single mothers.
d)
Objective 4
Using the resource centre to make information available
Method
1.
The PSSP resource centre provides Maggie's users, researchers and members of the public with access to a collection of printed, audio and visual materials addressing
AIDS/STDs and other health and safety concerns of prostitutes. It is open two days a week, and otherwise by
appointment.
2.
Most of our AIDS educators do in-service presentations to
agencies such as medical and legal clinics, community
centres, public health officials, parole officers, youthservices, hostels, drop-in and advocacy groups. As well,
AIDS educators are regularly interviewed by media, students and other researchers.
Findings
Maggie's service users have been consulted extensively by
media, social and medical service providers, policy advisors
and researchers. They have participated in the evaluation of
Maggie's materials and services and, most recently, 170 people
were interviewed for a study to assess the need for reducing
drug-related harm among prostitutes.
Recently, the van has allowing us to expand these activities to a wider area -- outlying areas of Metro Toronto, St.
Catherines, Niagara Falls, and Hamilton, initially.
A number of programs training social service professionals
regularly refer students to us for their research and request
speakers for classrooms. Feed back from these individuals has
been universally positive although only a few of these students
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and researchers are diligent about providing us with copies of
their work, unfortunately.
Both the resource centre and the Maggie's newsletter have
aided in the distribution of our health promotion materials
through facilitating regular contact with AIDS service
organizations and other community groups and agencies -- in the
Ontario AIDS Network and the Canadian AIDS Society as well as
among a number of Toronto, Metro, and neighbourhood coalitions
and networks. There has been a steady demand for our materials
in spite of not having had the resources to promote them
properly.
Our educational materials, particularly our buttons and
our famous "How to Have Safe Sex" pamphlet, are always very
popular. As well, displays and resources from the centre are
often available to the public at community events like fall
fairs, International Women's Day, AIDS Awareness Week events,
international AIDS and prostitutes conferences (Montreal,
Amsterdam, Berlin), local "Take Back the Night"(anti-violence
against women) marches in addition to events targeted
specifically at Toronto-area sex workers.
D.
The management process used in program implementation
Rationale for a staff collective
Section 4.1, in the principles and beliefs section of the
Maggie's Policy and Procedures Manual says:
Maggie's is founded on the belief that in order to improve
our circumstances, sex workers must take the power to
control our own destinies. Therefore Maggie's exists first
and foremost as an organization for sex workers that is
controlled by sex workers.
It follows logically from this conviction that Maggie's would
also choose a collective staff decision-making structure. Such
a structure places maximum responsibility for the work in the
hands of those who do it and, in this case in the hands of sex
workers -- people drawn from the constituency of the project
who are thus hopefully accountable to that constituency.
Workings of the staff collective
The project was administered by a staff member who was one
member of a team of other educators and administrators.
The staff collective divided up and oversaw labour amongst
its members and made other decisions collectively at weekly
meetings. As the work of members of the staff collective became
increasingly specialized, a sub-group of the collective func-
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tioned as the staff collective's executive.
The Policy and Procedures Manual (appendix D) is the
framework within which the membership of Maggie's, particularly
its staff, works. The manual includes sections on the membership and the board of directors. But 17 of its 25 sections
apply specifically to the staff collective. They deal with:
recruiting, orientation and training, probation, performance
evaluations, personnel records, rules of conduct, disciplinary
action, termination, grievances, working conditions, salary,
overtime, benefits, sick leave, parenting leave, vacation, and
leaves of absence.
Findings
The staff collective decision-making and accountability structure has both strengths and weaknesses; sometimes the same
factor can be both a strength and a weakness.
This structure allows a group to draw on the abilities and
perspectives of a number of people with very different experiences. This diversity sometimes creates problems with people
getting along with, and even understanding, one another. On the
other hand it puts a wide variety of skills and abilities at
the group's disposal. It affords the opportunity to include sex
workers whose abilities are often traditionally discounted
which encourages individual staff members to develop greater
confidence and self-esteem -- although this can sometimes seem
to detract from pressing business of the group, it is almost
always an investment worth making.
While collectives work best when every member is more or
less contributing equally, not everyone is necessarily able to
contribute to collective process at the same level. This is
particularly true when some staff have different time obligations (half-time, full-time) and other factors limiting the
amount or kinds of responsibility they can undertake.
Over the course of the project, this fact probably precipitated the most significant change in structure of the collective. Eventually, it became apparent that the work load was too
much for the entire group to monitor all of it. A core of staff
members who had more experience and greater responsibility were
designated by the collective to function as its executive (operating collectively). Soon the increasing division of labour
caused the formation of other sub-groups, which also operate
collectively, in different areas of specialization, some of
which are workplace specific (street, dancer or escort outreach) while others are service-specific (bad date, courtwatch,
or newsletter committees).
- 44 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
E.
Assessment of staff
Training and Orientation
In this initial phase of the PSSP resource centre neither .
administrative nor AIDS education staff had substantial training or orientation opportunities. This might have been
disastrous for the project if it had not been for the fact that
staff have been consistently recruited from its volunteer base.
Some early training in group process was very helpful and
would have been useful to repeat as staff turned over. New educators were each encouraged to take advantage of the City of
Toronto Department of Public Health's "Train the Trainer" program and most did. Most often such staff found themselves
thrust into the position of having to try to educate participants and trainers alike out of their misconceptions about sex
work and sex workers. This problem is likely to arise in any
gathering that brings together people from a wide variety of
life experiences with people from the sex trade. Gaining this
experience in as sympathetic a setting as a "Train the trainer"
workshop is almost as useful as the content of the course
itself to most new staff. As well, one of our senior staff
participated as a resource person in an advanced "Train the
Trainer" course.
Involvement in development and implementation of program
Because of the collective decision-making structure of
Maggie's, staff involvement in development and implementation
of the program was virtually absolute. Staff were chosen
because of their expertise in sex work and safe sex as well as
their familiarity with Maggie's and their willingness to work
collectively, with the attendant rights and responsibilities
that accompany such worker-control of the program.
Staff problems
Staff problems were dealt with initially by the individual
staff member or members, then by the staff collective (or
executive, once it existed). When problems needed help or
expertise beyond what was available within the staff collective's own resources, the board was consulted and their
resources were drawn upon.
Staff's assessment of the project and their experiences
Staff collective
While the administrator remained constant throughout the three
years of the project, there was a fairly high level of staff
- 45 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
turn-over among educators (and, from time to time, a neardebilitating level of conflict and controversy within the staff
collective) over issues of accountability and trust among staff
members.
After her contract was terminated, one former member of
staff brought her dissatisfaction with fellow-staff members
into the public arena. Other conflicts were less public but no
less emotionally draining. Over time these conflicts took their
toll on a number of key individuals as well as on the
organization.
It is clear from the Maggie's experience that the collective decision-making process, while extremely satisfying to
staff who are already capable and committed can be extremely
challenging for newer people. And that some people, regardless
of ability or commitment, are simply not suited to this way of
working with others, establishing accountability and making
decisions.
Many of the problems experienced by workers throughout the
sex industry are also experienced by project staff drawn from
among workers in the industry. Many independent-minded people
are drawn to work in the sex industry because they don't have
to work with others, conform to a schedule, meet deadlines,
etc. Some such people are very suited to our more unsupervised
and flexible ways of working, while, at the same time, they
find the collective structure, paper work, etc. too confining.
Because of our commitment to peer control, all of the things
that impede our ability to conduct AIDS-prevention education
(criminal charges, competitiveness, bad dates, lack of literacy
skills, whore-phobia, drug-use, etc.) are also, or have been,
problems for members of the staff. Sex workers who are members
or supporters of Maggie's have even gone missing or been
murdered. This kind of development can have a very disturbing
effect in a service agency where the bonds are semi-commercial
(worker/client); but in a community organization made up of
peers (colleagues and friends) it can be even more devastating.
One of the factors that has hampered Maggie's staff collective in sorting out some of its difficulties is that there
is no other group or project quite like us anywhere nearby
(with the demise of the California Prostitutes' Education Project there is no other sex-worker-controlled STD-prevention
project in North America). Thus the organization and its members must take every opportunity to network, share with and
learn from similar projects elsewhere in the world (especially
Europe and Australia). While international conferences may not
be funded because they are a luxury to most AIDS service organizations, such gatherings of prostitute AIDS educators and
rights advocates are an important source for inspiration,
practical information and support for a project like ours.
The initial phase of developing the PSSP resource centre
was also hampered by a lack of stability in much of the pro-
- 46 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
ject's funding. This was due to the fact that Maggie's was both
a new organization and one that represented a "suspect" group.
The first factor is an inevitable problem but the latter factor
meant that we were held to an even higher standard than are
most service organizations which are just getting off the
ground. The result of that was that more pressure was added to
an already extreme level of staff stress.
The project tended to respond to this pressure by taking
on a greater and greater work load -- in order to identify and
meet the important health and safety needs of our constituency
and also to prove our ability to do so. Which in turn resulted
in a tendency to lag behind in fulfilling our obligations to
record, analyze and otherwise document the process and progress
of the project. All of this contributed to even further stress
on the staff collective and its members. Over the years many
people (including single parents, disabled people and senior
staff members) had to quit jobs at Maggie's due to the impact
of this stress on their health.
In the future, ways must be found to make time for staff
training, development and support and planning must ensure that
both the project's service-delivery and the documentation workloads are reasonable.
Project Administrator
The peer nature of the project is so central to it that any
less experience with sex work than the initial administrator
had would have presented a serious obstacle her ability to work
on the project. More sex work experience would have been preferable and, in fact, would have been essential were it not for
the administrator's previous experience as a volunteer with
Maggie's.
Even within the context of staff collective and board of
directors' support, the administrator felt that her ability to
cope with the myriad demands of the job -- once the resource
centre was established and began to develop its potential -was stretched to the limit. Funding to hire others to fulfil
some of the administrative tasks, particularly people with
special skills, such as financial and computer expertise, could
have alleviated this problem, especially if such people had sex
work experience (or, failing that, if they could be hired on
part-time contracts without being a part of the staff
collective decision-making process).
AIDS Educators
The data collection forms that we used throughout most of the
project were quite complex. They were re-designed to improve
clarity a couple of times. It inevitably took new AIDS educators a while to adjust to the demands of data collection and
-
47 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
recording.
The schedule we needed to keep in order to effectively
deliver AIDS-prevention information to our colleagues in the
sex industry (evenings and night shift) tended to conflict with
the timing of demands from AIDS service organizations, social
service agencies and funding bodies (mornings and day shift). A
number of staff experienced increased stress and ill-effects on
their health from working too many double shifts as a result of
such conflicts.
This, plus the fact that a great deal of the average, uninformed person's curiosity about prostitution or sex workers
is voyeuristic or prurient, contributed to a reluctance on the
part of numerous staff to participate in such meetings ("dog
and pony shows").
PSSP educators also found the nature of their jobs shifting as the resource centre "took off." It evolved from a focus
on one-on-one AIDS education to an emphasis on recruiting,
training and supporting Maggie's members and volunteers to conduct AIDS education. Within this area of work more specialized
jobs had to be filled, too, with responsibilities evolving into
jobs like materials production, skills sharing (especially as
regards computer skills) and event organizing.
F.
Other results emahating from the project
Over the course of establishing the PSSP resource centre we
realized that we were identifying may health promotion needs
that went beyond STD/AIDS prevention. Most of them have been
outlined in the course of this report in terms of their relation to AIDS-prevention education. One of the most difficult
areas is that of drug-related harm.
Drug issues
From the very beginning of this project, PSSP AIDS educators
saw evidence of increased "crack" use and of the adverse
effects of long-term use on street prostitutes on several of
the strolls and in some bars. Many users seem to be chronic;
some constitute a core who are constantly destitute while
others seem to come and go through periods of increased and
decreased problems -- some with the help of drug-treatment
resources, others with drug-substitution, change in life situation or other personal strategies. These are still preliminary
observations; much more information about patterns of drug use
and related harm will be available once we have finished analyzing the results of our study of the need to reduce drug- related harm among sex workers who use drugs.
Among those to whom we have done AIDS-prevention outreach
are an increasing number of women who are marginally employed
- 48 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
in prostitution within the crack-using population. They include
a significant number who are long-term sex workers but who do
not necessarily identify, or conduct their work, as professionals. They are usually hard to communicate with due to the fact
that they are either "high" or consumed with the need to "get
high." They are among the most needy people we see: not only
can they not afford condoms, but their needs run the gamut from
food and shelter to drug rehab to pregnancy support. We were
unable to determine whether there are more of these women as a
result of "crack" becoming more wide-spread or whether we
simply we getting to know more of them over time.
The fact that areas frequented by "crack" users and dealers expanded to encompass traditional strolls brought forth
complaints from neighbours and non-using sex workers alike,
with conflicts becoming commonplace and very bitter in some
instances. These dynamics aggravate the struggles over "turf"
that tended to become acute with the spring influx. Addicts are
blamed by other pros for bringing prices down in these areas.
Adding to the tension is the fact that crack users who take up
prostitution to support their habit have a wide range of needs
(in addition to safe sex information) and are not seen as peers
(professionals) by many of the women who have worked the
strolls for years. There have also recently been conflicts
between crack users and heroin users in some areas formerly
frequented by heroin users.
Our first effort to deal with the needs of the drug-using
service users of Maggie's was facilitating Straight Work, a
support group for sex workers dealing with addiction. It was
initially useful to a small mixed group of women and men,
indoor and street pros, who had problems with a variety of
drugs including alcohol; it did not, however, seem to appeal to
any of the regular crack users we knew. People mired in serious
drug-related problems seemed to be in too much of a crisis most
of the time to be able to participate in a regularly scheduled
event. Those who benefitted from it used it essentially as a
weekly support group for awhile until the demands of competing
for summer business and the departure of the staff member who
had co-ordinated it caused a waning of interest.
In the summer of 1991, we shot footage for a video about
the project, Communicating: for the Purpose. Participants in
the video were among the neediest of the women we saw regularly
and it became apparent during their interviews that many of
them were dealing with drug problems. Several of them expressed
an interest in working on a video about sex work and addiction
and two years later interest remains high in the proposal even
though we have had neither the time nor the resources to do
more than some preliminary planning and experimenting (other
than collecting the footage from Communicating).
We also found that many of the addicted prostitutes with
whom we had contact were extremely concerned about their treat- 49 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
ment options once it was no longer possible for Ontarions to
travel out of the province for treatment at Ontario Health
Insurance Plan's expense. In some cases much of their time was
consumed with the search for alternatives to seeking treatment
outside of Ontario at their own expense.
We look forward to analyzing and publishing the results of
our first foray into peer-controlled research -- a study of the
need to reduce drug-related harm among sex workers who use
drugs.
7. Summary and Conclusions
"Experience has confirmed what women have been saying all
along: they are less able than men to protect themselves from
HIV infection by a simple act of will than men are. Wherever
women are culturally and economically subordinate to men, they
cannot control or even negotiate safe sex, including condom use
and lifelong mutual fidelity ••.• For women, the agenda is to
change the circumstances in which sex takes place. Over the
long run this needs to be done through the improvement of their
educational, legal and economic status, and in the short term
through stratagems for circumventing their subordination. For
example prostitutes have been organized to raise their prices
simultaneously so they can afford to turn away clients who
refuse condom use. This is a particularly useful stratagem
because it enhances women's agency and control rather than
leaving them passive."
Michael H. Merson, Director of World Health
Organization's Global Program on AIDS in
"Slowing the Spread of HIV: Agenda for the
1990s" (Science, May 28, 1993)
This project has been highly successful at reaching sex workers
with information and resources to AIDS and STD-prevention. This
success can largely be attributed to the peer-controlled nature
of the project.
Another benefit of the peer-nature of the project is that
prostitutes are a logical point of contact for educating many
people who may be at relatively high risk for STDs, including
HIV, and who may not otherwise receive such specific information and training in STD/AIDS prevention. Thus AIDS-prevention
becomes a tool for both community and self-esteem building
among sex workers.
One of the most significant barriers to delivering AIDSprevention and other health-promotion information to sex
workers is the laws governing sex work. People who are in
actual or possible legal jeopardy -- and those who fear that
they are or may be -- are extremely reluctant to trust anyone,
- 50 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
including their peers. The criminalization of activities sur-·
rounding prostitution is not just a barrier to AIDS education;
it is a barrier to community involvement generally.
The criminalization of prostitution serves to keep sex
workers' isolated. In addition to breaking down community
contact by incarcerating them, prostitutes are driven from
their homes, deprived of their children, deprived of the protection of the law and subjected to the hostility of law
enforcement officials instead, and attacked by their neighbours
and by total strangers. It is little wonder some turn to drugs
and many are discouraged from revealing their occupation to
outsiders, even their own doctors. This isolation is a serious
barrier to sex workers gaining access to health care and social
services.
Many non-prostitutes would probably have negative or hostile attitude towards sex work because of moralism, even if
prostitution-related activities were not criminalized. But the
fact that social disapproval is expressed in the form of criminal sanctions seems to encourage lawlessness on the part of
some who see laws against prostitutes as permission to threaten, harass, verbally abuse, physically assault and rape prostitutes. These forms of violence are another significant barrier
to health promotion in general and AIDS-prevention in
particular.
Because of the seriousness of these barriers to AIDS-prevention, Maggie's members and service users have identified
violence and lack of legal resources as priorities to address
in developing Maggie's programs.
- 51 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
8. Recommendations
1.
To foster peer-controlled prostitute organizations to
provide education and support for STD-prevention among
prostitutes.
2.
To foster and fund peer-controlled prostitute organizations to conduct violence prevention programs for prostitutes and to offer support to prostitutes who are
victims of violence.
3.
To promote the establishment, by peer-controlled prostitute organizations, of computer data bases of known
assailants (organized by work venue, description,
telephone numbers, licence plate numbers, etc) to be
available by telephone 24 hours-per-day.
4.
To fund peer-controlled prostitute organizations to provide education and support for prostitutes in need of
legal resources (information, bail funds, child care,
etc. ) .
5.
To promote the development of independent, civilian bodies
and procedures for review of complaints of police misconduct and abuse.
6.
To remove barriers preventing prostitutes from conducting
STD-prevention education among sex workers in correctional
facilities, including the regulation that forbids "known
prostitutes" from visiting other prostitutes in jail.
7.
To decriminalize prostitution immediately; beginning with
instructing local police forces not to enforce laws
against activities surrounding prostitution until the laws
can be repealed.
8.
To criminalize the entrapment of prostitutes by police.
9.
To develop special police units trained to deal with
violent and sexual assaults on prostitutes and ensure that
they deal with all such assaults.
10.
To educate all members of all police forces that violent
and sexual assaults of prostitutes are no different from
violent or sexual assaults on anyone else.
- 52 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
11.
To guarantee that the protection of anonymity of victims
of sexual crimes be available throughout case proceedings
whether they be criminal proceedings or Police Act
proceedings.
12.
To ensure that prostitutes reporting assaults to the
police be immune from any current or outstanding charges
related to prostitution or any other charges considered to
be minor in nature.
13.
To ensure that, when dealing with reports of domestic
violence where a prostitute is involved, the police press
charges using the assault laws rather than charging the
assailant with living on the avails.
14.
That every attempt be made to deal with incidents of
police assaults against prostitutes through the Criminal
Code of Canada and appropriate provincial policing
legislation just like any case of assault which does not
involve either a police officer or prostitute.
15.
To instruct police forces to treat complaints from
residents concerning littering and noise as such.
Disturbing the peace charges for noise are usually
preceded by a warning Public indecency and littering laws
should not be used to target prostitutes but to solve
directly the source of the resident's complaint.
16.
To foster and fund peer-controlled prostitute organizations to provide programs and other support to reduce
drug-related harm among prostitutes.
17.
To fund peer-controlled prostitute organizations to conduct research on prostitutes and prostitution.
18.
To amend the law so that police can no longer press
charges for narcotics traces in syringes.
19.
To fund peer-controlled prostitute organizations to engage
in public and service-agency education in order to
destigmatize prostitution and get rid of the victim
stereotype of prostitutes.
20.
To promote the establishment, by peer-controlled prostitute organizations, of liaisons with relevant child
welfare authorities.
- 53 -
�PSSP Resource Centre - Final Report
Appendix A
EXCERPTS FROM OUTREACH DISCUSSIONS RECORDED BY AIDS EDUCATORS
- boyfriend keeps giving her yeast infections; he won't use
condoms
- ditched her works when approached by the cops
- wants condoms to give to her kid brother; doesn't want How to
Have Safer Sex -- "it's too much for him"
- wishes we gave out samples of non-oxynol-9
- can't carry too many condoms in case cops stop her
- interested in getting into a programme; did not like NA
- she and her man have finally found housing
- made date wait while she grabbed safes; wanted non-lubed
- two girls who did not have many safes left took Beyond but said
that they'd have to double them up
- she was tested by her doctor but never went back for results
- an old regular has started to bug her for no-condom sex
- likes those new thick safes we got
- said restaurant manager kicked all ho's out last weekend for no
reason; wants to come by the centre to talk about it
- cold night; no jacket; asked for money for coffee
- lost a male friend to AIDS; was well-informed by ACT
- bar workers: talked about dancing/working in small towns (druggists with condoms behind the counter); found herself at a stag
without condoms because her boyfriend had taken them out of her
purse ( ! ) ; risks for table dancers ( cus·tomers trying to lick
girls); hopes we get a bad trick list for in-door workers
- approached by a young male customer who had been told by one of
the girls that I had safes; she'd given him a pamphlet
- transsexual talked about being in segregation in a male jail
- guy wanted to know where all the girls were; there was a sweep
in progress
- gave condoms to four young guys at Dundas and Sherbourne but
only one copy of the pamphlet so they would share it and read
info out loud which they were doing as I left
- moved from one stroll to another to get away from her old
boyfriend
- at first didn't want anything (Americans; I think they thought
I was a religious nut or something) until they saw other girls
take stuff
- didn't take many safes "because I can't bring them home"
- why don't we have samples of non-oxynol 9
- suggested we make a new button to go with the video
- hadn't seen her in a long time -- she'd been in the West
- has her own safes does not like any of our brands; takes BTS
- so much heat she can't pick up her regular
- her sister will take care of her kids while she's in Vanier
- no to pulling out with boyfriend
- did not know HIV was in blood as well as cum
-
54 -
�EXCERPTS FROM OUTREACH DISCUSSIONS RECORDED BY AIDS EDUCATORS
(continued)
- no jacket or shoes (left them at a friend's place?); gave her
street car fare
- lots of requests for flavoured safes (for BJ's)
- guy looking for his lady; they've been kicked out and are
homeless again
- another cab driver who gets quite a few girls in her cab and so
helps distribute
- long discussion about trying to fit into the straight world, ie
school
- back dancing after getting her degree
- will not be "out" in front of other strippers but hinted to me
privately
- others who strip only: lack of safe sex info when she worked in
the US; boyfriend is ex-junkie, talked about negotiating safer
sex with him; adequately informed but still takes risks because
she hates safes; discussed her family's attitude to her work;
did not know why to use safes for blow jobs or about nonoxynol-9 in case of condom failure.
- discussed a baby shower for another pro who is pregnant
- Beyond condoms are no good
- saw a new girl hitchhiking at around 4 am; she couldn't believe
her luck in scoring condoms, etc. at this hour
- a girl I hadn't seen before but she knew of our Bad Trick
Sheet; invited her to the volunteer meeting
- very high; talked about her son and Children's Aid
- new girl took flavoured condoms but wouldn't take BTS
"No
paper"
- "finally a newsletter!" -- thought we needed a joke page
- has to do weekends in jail and has a night curfew
- she's in Communicating ... but still hasn't seen it
- everyone she knows has been charged lately -- including her
- heard about our Christmas party; invited her to bring her son
to the kids' party
- said her doctor spent a long time with her talking about HIV,
other STDs and condom use
- talked about hep B, condoms for sucking; she doesn't do blows
- lots of girls tonight wanted to talk about TV show on pros
- she was hungry; I treated her to dinner and we talked about her
time in mental hospitals and jails
- she never talks but tonight she told me that she's leaving town
this weekend
- told her douching will not kill HIV; info about non-oxynol-9
- customer did not know not to use oil-based lubes
- boyfriend believes he's immune because he's tested negative
despite having taken risks
- guy tried to give me a dirty fit; thought I was The Works
- guy went back to the centre to view Communicating: for the
Purpose while his girlfriend did a date
�PSSP Outreach Record
COMMENTS: (specific discussions about AIDS/HIV, I
referrals, service needs, the law, kinds of information i
feedback on Maggie's, condoms and materials.)
Outreach Worker: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
StrolVLocation: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Date: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ lime: _ _ _ __
CONTACTS
Total Contacts
0
i::
rt
Others
Sex workers
Ii
(1)
p,
0
::r
Total Sex workers
::,::,
(1)
lovers
females
'U
0
Ii
rt
trans
clients
males
managers
others
volunteers
MATERIALS
condoms
BTS
needle info
Maggie's 'info*
referrals*
other*
(* specify in comments)
t-rj
0
Ii
s
Ul
:x:,
'U
'U
(1)
::i
0.
I-'·
X
to
�PSSP TIME SHEET
Name: ________________
For the week of: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
total wkly. hrs.
Outreach
Date
Time: (in/out) hrs.
Comments:
Place
aprox. # of contacts
total
(# of new & repeat contacts, conversations, #'s of materials distributed, etc.)
�Admi n. /Paperwork/ Materials production
Description of work
Date
Time: (in/out) hrs.
Meetings:
total
(indicate "I" for internal; "E" for External)
Date
Time: (in/out) hrs.
Place
total
Notes:
(Other work, observations, outreach comments, etc. for this week)
presentation (Y or N)
# of people present
�Appendix C
Overview of Outreach Statistics
Prostitutes' Safe Sex Project
90-91
cntcts
91-92
cndms
cntcts
cndms
92-93
cntcts
cndms
First Quarter: 1990-91, 1991-92 and 1992-93
Apr/90 156
309
Apr/91
469
2,713
Apr/92
338
2,262
May/90 158
904
May/91
622
3,184
May/92
321
2,510
Jun/90 194
743
Jun/91
310
1,874
Jun/92
512
3,810
Totals 508
1,956
1,401
7,771
1,171
8,582
Second Quarter: 1990-91, 1991-92 and 1992-93
Jul/90 248
1,121
Jul/91
370
2,275
Jul/92
1,169
5,816
Aug/90 517
2,310
Aug/91
339
2,384
Aug/92
1,387
6,595
Sep/90 386
1,521
Sep/91
257
1,978
Sep/92
1,068
3,834
Totals
4,952
966
6,637
3,624
16,245
1,151
Third Quarter: 1990-91, 1991-92 and 1992-93
Oct/90 305
1,148
Oct/91
322
1,998
Oct/92
1,040
2,307
Nov/90 248
966
Nov/91
353
2,520
Nov/92
937
3,500
Dec/90 202
824
Dec/91
156
694
Dec/92
873
4,006
831
5,205
2,850
9,813
1/4-3
755
2,938
Fourth Quarter: 1990-91, 1991-92 and 1992-93
Jan/91 185
414
Jan/92
204
1,448
Jan/93
715
5,601
Feb/91 108
238
Feb/92
197
1,518
Feb/93
652
4,086
Mar/91 108
408
Mar/92
202
1,778
Mar/93
756
6,131
1/4-4
401
1,060
Full Yr 2,815 10,906
603
3,801
4,774
24,387
2,123
9,768
15,818
50,458
Increase in contacts: 135% from 90/91 to 91/92, 256% from 91/92 to 92/93
ncrease in condoms: 223% from 90/91 to 91/92, 207% from 91/92 to 92/93
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Toronto
Subject
The topic of the resource
AIDS activism in Toronto
Description
An account of the resource
A history of AIDS activism in Toronto.
Text
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Final Report on Establishing the Prostitutes' Safe Sex Project (PSSP) Resource Centre
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sex work
Description
An account of the resource
A lengthy and wide-ranging report to Health and Welfare Canada on the work done by the Prostitutes' Safe Sex Project in Toronto in the early 1990s.
Creator
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Chris Bearchell
Source
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From the personal collection of Andrew Sorfleet
Date
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August 1993
Format
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58 pages, 8.5" x 11" photocopy
AIDS Community Action Plan
condoms
Health Canada
Maggie's
Prostitutes Safe Sex Project
Safe Sex
Sex workers
Toronto
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Toronto
Subject
The topic of the resource
AIDS activism in Toronto
Description
An account of the resource
A history of AIDS activism in Toronto.
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
It's a business doing pleasure with you... safely. - pin
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sex work
Description
An account of the resource
A cheeky sex work-themed pin foregrounding safe sex practices as central to sex workers' business.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Unknown
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
From the personal collection of Andrew Sorfleet
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
1" round pin
pins
Safe Sex
Sex workers
Toronto
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63c7164c5e775306f78d257eb53c654d
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Toronto
Subject
The topic of the resource
AIDS activism in Toronto
Description
An account of the resource
A history of AIDS activism in Toronto.
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Safe Sex: Make it your Business - pin
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sex work
Description
An account of the resource
From a small collection of 1" pins made by the Safe Sex Corps, a precursor to the Prostitutes' Safe Sex Project.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
From the personal collection of Andrew Sorfleet
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
1" round pin
pins
Prostitutes Safe Sex Project
Safe Sex
Safe Sex Corps
Toronto
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bf0c27f701ca9d895f85061c60689033
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Toronto
Subject
The topic of the resource
AIDS activism in Toronto
Description
An account of the resource
A history of AIDS activism in Toronto.
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
S.W.A.T. Lips - pin
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sex work
Description
An account of the resource
Like Maggie's, Safe Sex Corps, and the Prostitutes' Safe Sex Project before them, the Sex Workers' Alliance of Toronto made 1" pins in the 1990s.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sex Workers' Alliance of Toronto
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
From the personal collection of Andrew Sorfleet
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
1" round pin
pins
Sex workers
Sex Workers' Alliance of Toronto
Toronto
-
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b60835ae77e4e138e193a713600d3860
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Toronto
Subject
The topic of the resource
AIDS activism in Toronto
Description
An account of the resource
A history of AIDS activism in Toronto.
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Safe Sex Ho - pin
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sex work
Description
An account of the resource
From a small collection of 1" pins made by the Prostitutes' Safe Sex Project.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Prostitutes' Safe Sex Project
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
From the personal collection of Andrew Sorfleet
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
1" round pin
pins
Prostitutes Safe Sex Project
Safe Sex
Sex workers
Toronto