Over 30,000 opt-in to Gaydar's STI Notifications

via sayencrowolf, by Sayen CroWolf

31,714 Gaydar members in the UK have opted in for the Sexual Health Messaging Service in the three months since it launched on 29 November last year.

The messages are also available on Fitlads, Recon and Manhunt.

But with 2.2 million Gaydar profiles registered in the UK, gay men’s health charity GMFA is urging more to opt in to the service.

GMFA’s Matthew Hodson said, “If you’ve ever been diagnosed with an STI you probably will have been encouraged to get in contact with as many shags from the last few months as possible.

“This can be really hard for some people, and no-one likes to ring their buddies, lovers or one-night stands to let them know they may have an STI.

Our partner notification service is designed to make the task that much easier and now, with so many gay men on Gaydar opting into the system, the chances of contacting your partners are better than ever.”

The Sexual Health Messaging Service, sometimes referred to as Partner Notification, is funded by a grant from the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

Men diagnosed at a participating clinic can be given a unique code for use on the website.

There, contact information for recent partners can be typed in: mobile phone numbers, email or a profile name from a participating dating website.

They are then sent an automated message, alerting them to the fact that they should get themselves checked out.

The messages can be anonymous if you prefer, but backers say recipients are more likely to take action if the sender is identified.


Read the rest

Are your friends making you fat and getting you to sleep less?

via New York Times, by Natasha Singer

If our relationships contribute to behaviors that erode our health, can social networks be harnessed to improve it?   

Read it.

How Facebook Ruins Friendships

via Wall Street Journal, by Elizabeth Bernstein

Excerpt:

One of the big problems is how we converse. Typing still leaves something to be desired as a communication tool; it lacks the nuances that can be expressed by body language and voice inflection. "Online, people can't see the yawn," says Patricia Wallace, a psychologist at Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth and author of "The Psychology of the Internet."

But let's face it, the problem is much greater than which tools we use to communicate. It's what we are actually saying that's really mucking up our relationships. "Oh my God, a college friend just updated her Facebook status to say that her 'teeth are itching for a flossing!'" shrieked a friend of mine recently. "That's gross. I don't want to hear about what's going on inside her mouth."

That prompted me to check my own Facebook page, only to find that three of my pals—none of whom know each other—had the exact same status update: "Zzzzzzz." They promptly put me to "zzzzzzz."

This brings us to our first dilemma: Amidst all this heightened chatter, we're not saying much that's interesting, folks. Rather, we're breaking a cardinal rule of companionship: Thou Shalt Not Bore Thy Friends.

"It's called narcissism," says Matt Brown, a 36-year-old business-development manager for a chain of hair salons and spas in Seattle. He's particularly annoyed by a friend who works at an auto dealership who tweets every time he sells a car, a married couple who bicker on Facebook's public walls and another couple so "mooshy-gooshy" they sit in the same room of their house posting love messages to each other for all to see. "Why is your life so frickin' important and entertaining that we need to know?" Mr. Brown says.

Read the entire thing.

Barebacking, Facebook, and HIV Prevention in 2009

Ultimately, asserts Davis, the problem is not going to be solved by "making people feel bad because they don’t use a condom. Very few people will change their behavior just because they’ve been made to feel bad about something. That’s a very short path to failure."

What’s in a word?

Can a little loaded term like "barebacking"-used as a thinly veiled, homophobic demonization of unsafe sex practices-so effect an at-risk population that the resulting stigma becomes a significant contributing factor to an increase in HIV infection within that population? And if so, what’s to be done?

Read the whole thing, via EDGE, by Scott Stiffler.

Public health turns to virtual worlds to get out reality-based health messages

[snip] In a growing number of North American cities, people who learn they have a sexually transmitted disease can use a web tool known as inSPOT to inform their sexual contacts and urge them to be tested. It's like an e-vite to seek treatment. Notifications can be sent anonymously.

Toronto and Ottawa are the two Canadian cities registered with inSPOT. Last Christmas, Toronto Public Health used a new technology - proximity marketing - to advertise the service to the gay community.

Using a device called a hypertag in the city's Gay Village, a message was beamed out to all Bluetooth-enabled cellphones within range. Recipients were asked if they would agree to view a message from Toronto Public Health.

Of 1,463 phones that received the message, 317 or 21.7 per cent downloaded the information about inSPOT, says Allie Lehmann, sexual health promotion manager in the directorate of healthy living. The department recently used the technique in six city high schools to raise awareness of chlamydia prevention and testing. [snip]

Read the whole article.

Don't let the FEDS mess with our privacy or rights --- say no to 2257!

[This alert courtesy of the National Lesbian and Gay Task Force]

The federal government is proposing regulations that would effectively kill adult social-networking sites. This is being done under the guise of fighting child pornography. You have until September 10 to object to these regulations. It’s easy to do and essential. A sample e-mail comment is at the bottom of this page. Please forward this information to your friends!

What’s the Deal?

The Department of Justice is proposing regulations to implement a federal law designed to combat child pornography, known as Section 2257. The law was first enacted in 1998 and was amended in 2006 and significantly expanded to include regulation of the Internet.

While many of the regulations pertain to companies that produce adult entertainment magazines and videos (and are extremely burdensome), they would also affect anyone who uses an adult social-networking site. Here’s how:

• The regulations would require the people running a site to get and maintain personal information from every user (that means you) who posts a “sexually explicit” photo, including your photo ID (driver’s license, passport, or military ID).
• The regulations would allow the Attorney General to conduct warrantless searches at will on the sites’ records, including your personal information.
• There are few safeguards over what the FBI can do with the information it obtains.
• If a site operator fails to comply with the regulations, he or she would face a prison sentence of up to 5 years.
• For more detailed information on Sec. 2257, go to http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/misc/2257_fact_sheet.pdf.

Obviously, none of this has anything to do with child pornography. Instead, it is a blatant attempt to end the ability of consenting adults to use adult social-networking sites to meet other people for sex. Obviously, if these regulations go into effect, they will kill this industry.

These regulations are part of our government’s hypocritical and punitive views about sex, sexuality, and reproductive rights. All of this – from abstinence-only sex education programs to the elimination of funding for accurate and explicit HIV prevention programs – fall hardest on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Click here for what YOU can do RIGHT NOW.