http://www.stfree.com
http://inSPOT.org
by Lucile Scott
http://www.poz.com/articles/1861_10753.shtml
POZ In Print
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Nov 2006
Deal or No Deal?
by Lucile Scott
Does the most recent "breakthrough" in monitoring a
partner's HIV status, the STFree Card, guarantee
protection from the virus, or is it a license to
gamble?
Despite decades of efforts to get people talking openly
about HIV, discussing safe sex at a party still isn't
hip. But former nightlife promoter Eli Dancy hopes to
make "Hey, baby, have you had an HIV test lately?" a
respectable pickup line with his STFree Card
http://www.stfree.com as in STD-free. He's even recruited
his own entourage of hotties, the Safe Sex Angels, to
promote it at public events.
The wallet-size card displays the owner's photo and an
ID number. You give potential bedmates a secure code
that they can use online or through a 24-hour hot line
to review your recent lab-certified HIV test results.
(A lifetime membership costs $20, including a phone
tutorial about HIV and condoms.) Just knowing test
results, however, no matter how reliable the gizmo
reporting them, doesn't guarantee safety--since a
cardholder could, of course, have been infected
subsequently. What the STFree site calls "a safe sex
license" some critics have dubbed merely "a license for
unsafe sex."
Other prevention innovations, like the Internet
Notification Service for Partners or Tricks
http://inSPOT.org an e-mail card that anonymously informs
partners that someone has exposed them to an STD, also
hope to make a safe sex conversation easier. But does
STFree make that conversation entirely about test
results instead of self-protection? Dancy says no,
contending that every call also offers information
about the importance of condoms and suggests that the
card be used as an icebreaker for broaching the topics
of STDs and safer sex.
Dancy--who is HIV negative--managed professional
escorts and exotic dancers for years. Having witnessed
daily what he calls irresponsible sexual behavior, he
says he conducted research and discovered that his
Brooklyn neighborhood had one of the highest HIV rates
in New York City. "No one ever gave me a condom or safe
sex info, so I knew my homeboys weren't getting them
either," he says. "People here still think you have to
be a homosexual or crackhead to have HIV." So Dancy
launched STFree, in 2004, hoping to raise awareness "in
a cool way" among the young and urban, especially
African Americans.
Cardholder Miriam Medina, 25, says, "If a guy hits on
me, I can pull out the card and make a joke" to lighten
the topic. "The responses have been totally cool."
Dancy also hopes the cards' eye-catching styles will
make people proud to flash them. Options include a red
model designed for the street gang the Bloods and a
blue one for its rival, the Crips, among others. Dancy
has already registered 12,000 members in New York and
hopes to take the popular card national.
Studies show that HIV transmission most often occurs
when people don't know that they're positive, so
STFree's testing push is a plus. Also, prevention
strategies tailored to communities, like Dancy's, could
help get HIV infection rates in the U.S. to dip for the
first time in a decade. But can we encourage testing
and safe sex in a fresh, catchy way without suggesting
that learning someone's test results is prevention
enough?
Or, perhaps, we could stick this on the plastic or in
the e-mail text: you can never truly know another
person's HIV status. The decision to have unsafe sex
after asking when a potential partner was last tested
and what that person has been doing in bed since,
requires trusting a human being, not an automated
service. Membership has its privileges--and its
responsibilities.
Email to a friend
http://www.poz.com/articles/1861_10753.shtml
by Lucile Scott, Associate Editor
http://www.stfree.com
http://inSPOT.org
