Somehow it seems fitting to me that we’ve decided to parody TV shows in this year’s CAMPsafe campaign. Every show seems to be about power and stamina and overcoming obstacles. Each episode brings contestants or characters to the brink of disaster and back again. Each week, the squabbles get more risqué and the resolutions outrageous. But in doing this parody, we paired current TV obsessions with a culturally iconic message: safe sex is for everyone. But after 25 years, are we just sitting on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and our favorite programs numbed by the same old, same old?

Why, in this day and age, should we still need to get these messages out? With programs like The Age of AIDS on PBS Frontline last month, we’ve had a stern reminder of the missteps and misinformation in the struggle to halt this devastating pandemic. Watching the show reminded me that we are much more complacent about health than we are about death—now that HIV infection is no longer a death sentence in the United States—even though they are both facts of this life.

Each year CAMPsafe is funded by the Delaware Division of Public Health to specifically promote the men’s health services of CAMP Rehoboth. The three key areas that we highlight are: 1) HIV testing services; 2) sexual health counseling; and 3) prevention for both positive and negative individuals.

The postcards and ads are created as a fun way to get the messages out. While we stress using condoms and lube every time you have sex, we also incorporate messages that are known to assist in the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases: limit/get to know your partners; know your status; your judgment may be impaired from alcohol and/or drugs; protect yourself from all STDs; sometimes abstinence is the best policy; and being positive doesn’t protect you from re-infection.

The CAMPsafe message is really a very basic one: safe sex, every time. Our aim is to keep this message from entering our consciousness so broadly that it can be overlooked. Not just for ourselves, but we want to make sure that the generation born in the last 25 years come into their sexual activity with a greater understanding of mortality and consequence than we ever did. Whether you are positive or negative, it is everyone’s responsibility to watch out for each other.

It may seem that our community doesn’t need these services, but that isn’t correct. Salvatore Seeley, CAMP Rehoboth’s Men’s Health Counselor, is one busy guy. These promotions help him out a little bit.

It isn’t easy to squeeze these messages into a soundbite. But thanks to our hunky models, we get you to look. Thanks to a tie into current culture, we get you to read. And maybe, just maybe, 25 years after this disease entered our lives, we can keep the conversation flowing freely and honestly in a way that remind us all that a virus is a very small thing indeed to change lives forever. And that prevention is the only cure we have.

CAMPsafe

CAMPsafe’s vision is to support the physical and sexual health of gay and bi men in Eastern Sussex County. Through our HIV prevention programs, CAMPsafe provides men access to accurate information on healthy expressions of sexuality, and an array of services.

We do this by providing the following services:

Outreach to beach, bars, and other venues
Condom distribution to places where gay and bisexual men go
Sexual Health and HIV testing and counseling
Sexual Health counseling for HIV+ men and their negative partners
Web based outreach
Social marketing programs