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Relationship Series #4
“My Heart Will Go On” – Coping with breakups and separation
It is never easy for anyone who is going through a breakup when the separating decision was not theirs to make. No one said that breaking up is easy especially when you are on the receiving end. How do we tell ourselves that life will go on when we are lost and alone? This workshop will help us understand the coping mechanisms that we all have deep down inside. How can we train ourselves to understand the signs so that we can be more aware of our peers when they are facing similar situations? All new beginning will start somewhere, but we all must find our paths to recovery and carry on. [/av_one_half]
When: Saturday Oct. 25
Where: AFA office 9 Kelantan Lane #05-01 S208628
Time: 6pm-9pm
Light refreshment will be provided
Please register as soon as you can due to limited space. Thanks.
Your all time break up songs.
Dining in the Dark
By : Yee Jun Ming
Last evening’s ‘Dining In The Dark’ conducted by SAVH was a most interesting and fun experience.
We were introduced about the association and then briefed about the dinner event. Then we were slowly led into a dark room and to our seat at the table where it was completely pitch black, total darkness.
I was beginning to feel claustrophobic and uncomfortable from the lack of vision but told myself to calm down and relax. We realised that without sight, we were somehow talking louder. Strange. Haha.
Then I orientated myself, finding out who was seated beside me “Stop touching me, Daniel! I already told you Gabriel!”, I said giggling; and I felt around the table setting in front of me; mentally taking note about the placements of things.
The server cleared our empty bowls and then served our main course. I chose a tomato-based vegetarian spaghetti. Again, I felt around my plate to orientate myself and then thought to myself ‘Hmm… How do I eat this without creating a mess? I wish I chose chicken chop instead, just poke with a fork and eat it straight.’. Haha. But being vegetarian, there was no other option. However, after hearing how difficult it was for some to eat their chicken chop ( which came with coleslaw and mash), I was glad I had a simple spaghetti. Hahaha. Carefully twirling the noodles with my fork and the aid of a spoon, I ate slowly and carefully, keeping in mind not to make a mess; and constantly wiping my mouth with the napkin. ‘Glad I’m wearing black’, I thought to myself. Haha. When I thought I was done with the noodles, I used the spoon to scoop around the plate to make sure I finish the sauce too. I really wanted to show my appreciation by making an effort not to waste any food. And the funny thing was, without sight, it didn’t bother me at all if the food looked appetising or not. I just happily ate what I was given. Haha. There’s a lesson to be learned. Haven’t quite put it to words yet. Haha.
We were told that our plates would be left at the table so we can later see how we faired. Fun. Haha. Eating in the dark felt alright by now. I placed the fork and spoon nicely on the plate and waited for dessert to be served.
Ice-cream! We could smell strawberry-flavoured ice-cream, then some tasted chocolate. It was kinda exciting. Haha. “Mine is strawberry!”, I exclaimed gleefully. But half way through, I tasted chocolate. Haha. Then a friend said “Must be Neapolitan!”. Hahaha. And some of us decided to lick our ice-cream goblet coz no one could see us anyways. lol
Then coffee/tea was served. Again, I carefully held the tea cup and saucer from the server and placed it next to my empty dinner plate. We were then told that sugar and creamer would be passed around and I thought to myself ‘Oh dear. How am I going to do that? Maybe I should just have my tea without sugar or creamer’. Haha. But then I thought I should challenge myself and see if I can do it with ease. So I took a sachet of creamer (no sugar for me, that’s how I like my tea. Really. Haha.), tore it open carefully and poured it in my tea. Gave it a few stirs with the teaspoon and then showly sipped and enjoyed my tea. Everything was done with extra caution and calculation. Haha.
Oh there was water and juice which we had to pour ourselves if we wanted. We had to pass the jug around and when pouring into our glass, we were told to stick a finger in the glass to gauge how much we poured. I did it without spilling. Yaay! Haha.
When the whole dinner was done, they turned on the lights and we could all see how neat or messy everyone was. It was hilarious. Some had food and spills all over the place. Haha. But I was proud that I did well. See attached photo, not bad eh? Kekeke.
By the way, the servers were visually impaired. Big kudos to them for being able to serve all of us without hiccups. They’re awesome!
The whole unique experience was a very fruitful one for me. I had a great time with old and new friends. I was reminded not to take things for granted and to be more appreciative. An evening of blindness was really interesting and fun, but a lifetime of blindness is a different thing altogether. Living in a world of darkness can be rather scary and dangerous. It takes great courage and a strong and positive attitude for a blind person to live through daily. I have much admiration for them. And I feel very blessed to have all my senses working. Very grateful for the experience.
First published on The Bear Project Facebook page on July 26,2014
Condom Use and Risk Reduction
Most gay men who don’t use condoms are mindful of HIV and attempt to reduce their risk
By Roger Pebody
Three-quarters of Australian gay and bisexual men who report unprotected anal intercourse with casual male partners say that they “often” or “always” employ some sort of risk reduction strategy with those partners. Many attempt to select partners who they believe have the same HIV status as themselves (serosorting); a significant proportion use condoms most but not all of the time; and smaller numbers practice ‘strategic positioning’ or withdrawal before ejaculation.
The study shows that a simple, black and white division of gay men into low risk ‘condom users’ and high risk ‘men who don’t use condoms’ is misleading. However that is sometimes the impression given by behavioural surveys.
Martin Holt of the University of New South Wales presented the data to the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne yesterday. It is derived from an analysis of the responses to two large-scale, cross-sectional community surveys of Australian gay and bisexual men in 2011 and 2012. A total of 15,615 completed the surveys.
Overall, 38% had no casual partners (and are not included in this analysis, even if they did not use condoms with their partner), 28% always used condoms with casual partners and 13% had no anal sex.
That leaves 21% who reported anal sex without a condom with at least one casual partner in the previous year – this group was the focus of the study.
Moreover as risk reduction strategies differ according to HIV status, the analysis made comparisons between the 2339 men who had tested HIV negative and the 603 men who were diagnosed with HIV. The small number of men who had never tested for HIV were excluded from the analysis.
Holt was interested in risk-reduction strategies the men used “often” or “always” with casual partners, including:
- Condom use.
- Serosorting (having a partner perceived to have the same HIV status) when having anal sex without condoms.
- Strategic positioning when having anal sex without condoms – in other words, the HIV-positive partner taking the receptive position (bottom).
- Withdrawal before ejaculation during anal sex without condoms.
HIV-positive men who didn’t consistently used condoms with casual partners reported serosorting (60%), condoms (22%), strategic positioning (17%) and withdrawal (15%).
HIV-negative men were more likely to report using condoms most of the time, but serosorting was still the most widely reported tactic (44%), followed by condoms (41%), strategic positioning (24%) and withdrawal (22%).
Three-quarters of men reported using more than one strategy; the strategies most commonly combined were serosorting and condom use.
There was a very strong association between using these strategies and disclosing HIV status to sexual partners. This was the case both for HIV-positive and HIV-negative men.
For example, for HIV-negative men, those who disclosed to some sexual partners were almost twice as likely to practice a strategy as those who did not (odds ratio 1.76, 95% confidence interval 1.39 – 2.21) and those who disclosed to all partners were three times as likely to have a strategy (odds ratio 3.43, 95% confidence interval 2.66 – 4.42).
HIV-positive men who always disclosed were seven times more likely to use these strategies (7.11, 95% CI 3.70 – 13.67).
HIV-negative men who had a regular partner were less likely to practice any risk reduction strategy if their partner was untested or HIV negative.
Martin Holt concluded that interventions should aim to improve the consistency with which gay and bisexual men employ risk reduction strategies. Men should be encouraged to disclose their HIV status, to make effective agreements with their regular partners about casual sex and to choose the best strategy in different scenarios. Alternative approaches such as PrEP are likely to be appropriate for those men unable or unwilling to use existing strategies.
References
Holt M et al. Consistent and inconsistent use of HIV risk reduction strategies by Australian gay and bisexual men who report unprotected anal intercourse with casual male partners. 20th International AIDS Conference, Melbourne, 2014, abstract THAD0101.
First Published By: aidsmap.com on 25 July 2014