Friday, February 03, 2006

BEARback yes, Bareback NO

Last year a friend brought his Venezuelan friend, a bearish guy living in Spain, to my place of work so he could meet my boyfriend and I. Well, a year has passed and lo and behold, he was back today. This time though, I caught his name.

No wonder I recognized his face: He's the famed photographer, Juan Antino, who has pretty much documented the Bear world throughout
Spain, Europe and the rest of the world. Better yet, with collaboration from on of his friends, Javier Hartza, Antino has decided to launch a project to promote HIV prevention in the Bear community and is seeking partners throughout the world to engage in the campaign for free.

So far the campaign has consisted in a series of palm-cards, posters and web banners promoting a sex-positive, condom-positive message in Spanish, English and German. The main message is "Pelos si, a pelo NO" (a literal translation is "Hairs yes, not bare" which they have smartly re-frased in English to "BEARback yes, Bareback NO").
They are already working with bear groups throughout Spain, Costa Rica, the United States and elsewhere.

If you want to see some of Antino's professional photography work you can go to his webpage (where you can also click on the link "Info Gallery Bears Against AIDS" to take a look at the palm cards). Wish direct prevention campaigns like these were being done in the
United States. Granted, they might not be for everyone but as targetted community campaigns they can have more effect than generalized HIV prevention messages.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I also wished there were more campaigns like those in the US. The closest I've seen is material from Proyecto ContraSIDA in San Francisco, very bold and direct.

One request from your humble reader: could we do away with the pop up comments? Don't ask me why, but they are annoying. I think there is an option to just have the comments box integrated into the entry's permalink. Just a suggestion.

Blabbeando said...

Pop-ups fixed! Thanks Syed for pointing them out.

Anonymous said...

Great pic and campaign. I'm really sick and tired of the pretty much useless campaigns here in the states. I know most are paid for through gov't $$, and groups/agencies are afraid to stir up (usually) Rethugican and Right Wing Christian anger, but...

Anonymous said...

Hi!

My name is David, I am journalist working for ZERO magazine in Spain (www.zero-web.com). I would like to know if anyone of you could help me sending me or posting here any interesting link about the bareback campaigns that are being (or have been)held around the world.

Thank you very much in advance,
DAVID (d.saiz@zeropress.com)

Anonymous said...

I just read your blog about Juan Antino, and thought you might like to have some other resources, that have been at work, in terms of documenting the Bear movement, pretty much from the beginning of the Bear movement in the late 60s. I suggest The Bear Book I & II, written by Les K. Wright.