Papua New Guinea is a mountain-laced jungle located in the Southern Pacific where AIDS infections are growing at a rapid rate and quickly reaching epidemic proportions much like those seen in South Africa. Not unlike South Africa, disgrace at being infected and a health system that is greatly suffering are hindering efforts in Papua to thwart HIV/AIDS and stop it in its tracks. In Papua, education about HIV is not widespread and many people still believe that sorcery is to blame for the growing number of cases each year. In hospitals where AIDS patients are being treated, the nursing staff is so low that relatives of AIDS patients often stay with them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week just to ensure that their minimum needs are being taken care of. In some remote areas, it is not uncommon for villagers infected with AIDS to be drowned in local rivers or simply thrown into graves to die slow, heart-wrenching deaths.

Due to Papua’s dire situation, Papua Condom Week took place in various regions throughout the territory in February 2008 (February 2 through 16). Sponsored by the AIDS Prevention Commission the week was intended to help combat the growing HIV infection rate. The focus of this week was to educate the public about HIV/AIDS facts and to open the communication channels throughout the population so that AIDS and the havoc it causes gets more exposure and stops being a source of shame. This campaign’s main message centered on practicing safe sex to help prevent sexually transmitted diseases.

Dewi Wulandari, a public relations officer in the AIDS Prevention Commission for Papua speaks about the Condom Week, “The program is completed with film presentations and public discussion at Sentani Airport, Phraa market and Sentani terminal as well as on PT. Pelni ship which sails to strategic areas.” In fact, the AIDS Prevention Commission for Papua is joining forces with the HIV educating team from the Non-Government Organization for AIDS Prevention and Care to schedule a trip for this PT. Pelni ship as it makes its return trip from to Manokwari from Jayapura in order to perform educational training on condoms for all of the ship’s passengers and all of its staff.

A large portion of Papua’s population has been affected by HIV. In fact, in the year 2007, the infection rate increased greatly. According to studies performed by the Papua Health Institute, there were close to 1,500 cases of AIDS and just under 2,000 cases of new HIV infections. Approximately 9 percent of these reported cases were fatal. The most worrisome aspect of these reports is that the majority of these new infections have affected adults between the ages of 15 and 39, those of child-bearing age. Health officials have stated that there are several reasons behind this phenomenon: an environment that does not support the safe sex campaigns, a large portion of the population that practices unsafe sex and an uneducated population. Many hope that this Condom Week will remedy these unsafe practices and give the population more knowledge about how the efficient and consistent use of condoms will help stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV.

As any frisky couple about to have a romp in the sack will tell you, nothing can quite kill the mood like fumbling around the bedside drawer in the dark for want of a condom.

When it comes to mind-blowing, sheet shredding sex, spontaneity is the way to go. There’s nothing quite like the idea of being taken, sexually, then and there, by someone we desire. A condom is the last thing on your mind. Sometimes you are too busy tearing each others’ clothes off to stop and even ask. Most of the time, a lot of us are usually just too embarrassed to pause in the middle of frenzied passion to stop and negotiate safe sex.

If you avoided having the ‘safe sex’ conversation during the earlier stages of a relationship, chances are you will be faced with this situation the next time you have the urge to go horizontal on each other. Stopping to put on a condom puts passion on pause, and by the time you’re both set to go, you’ll find that you’ll have to start over again.

Because you can not have unprotected sex, getting your partner to engage in safe sex is a something both of you should willingly indulge in. Introducing condoms as a part of foreplay is effectively one of the best methods to go by. With a wide range of condoms of varying shapes, forms and flavors available on the market today, safe sex can even be titillating and can further add to the excitement. Make it a point to use condoms of reputable brand names such as Durex, Trojan or Magnum to ensure quality protection and to prevent unwanted accidents.

Always remember to keep a spare set of condoms nearby, so as to avoid running out to the nearest pharmacy in the middle of the night, half dressed and in a near state of panic.

Practicing how to put on a condom is also important, so as to avoid mishaps which could forgo, and sometimes, end, sexual intensity.

Another method of having effective safe sex without putting a damper on things is by using the female condom. Hailed as a breakthrough in female empowerment when it was first introduced in 1992, it can be applied up to eight hours before intercourse, allowing women to freely engage in guilt-free safe sex regardless of whether their partners use condoms or not. Surveys have also indicated that both parties derive more pleasure from the use of a female condom than the traditional ‘male’ one.

Finally, the key ingredient to having a good safe time is to keep your mind open and sense of humor on. Remember that sex should also be fun; allow yourselves to laugh at each other if the condom wrapper refuses to tear. In this way, you’ll also be able to connect with each other better and find it easier to re-achieve intimacy, regardless of any hurdles you’re encountering along the way, including fumbling with that bedside drawer. And as anyone will tell you, if you’re too uptight, you just won’t enjoy the sex anyway, period, regardless of whether you paused to put on that condom or not.

In the city I reside in, “change” is a bad, bad word, mainly due to the very conservative older members of the city council who have served for years and years and vow to keep this city as it is with no opportunity for growth in any sector. Then there are cities like New York where growth is encouraged and initiatives are taken at a moments notice when change is deemed necessary. Take for instance the recent report issued only last week that revealed New York City had an above average rate of unsafe sexual behavior. Within a day, the New York City Department of Health released its own response to this damaging report. Their initiative will strive to provide HIV testing for every adult residing in the Bronx borough between the ages of 18 to 64 in a span of three years.

In the report that documented the unsafe sexual behavior, Thomas Freidan, the health commissioner, stated that the biggest concern is with men who have homosexual sexual relations and who have had more than five different sexual partners within a year’s time. Of this group, “36 percent did not use condoms consistently. This is a core group which is at high risk for getting, and spreading, HIV.”

One reason that the Bronx borough responded so quickly to this report is that each year, over one-third of those patients who die from AIDS in New York City come from the Bronx. In addition, a quarter of those people who are currently afflicted with HIV in New York City live in the Bronx. This is over 21,000 people. While the Bronx already boasts the highest HIV tested population of all the boroughs (approximately 68 percent), the new initiative will strive to provide tests for all those residents who have never been tested (approximately 250,000 residents) and who may unknowingly be harboring and, thus, spreading the virus. According to the president of the Bronx borough, Adolfo Carrion, Jr., “New infections are still occurring at epidemic rates, especially among women and people of color.” City officials have declared that one in four people who are afflicted with HIV in the Bronx do not even realize they are carriers and that one in four people who get positively tested for HIV come to discover that they are already living with full-blown AIDS.

A perfect example of this is Soraya Pares who works at the Bronx Health Center as a program coordinator for the prevention of HIV. Almost 18 years ago, in 1991, she discovered she had HIV when the daughter she recently gave birth to tested positive for HIV. She admits she never gave HIV a second thought before testing positive and always felt it was a disease that happened to other people. She is thrilled with the new initiative because she feels it targets those in the Bronx community who are in denial about HIV being a widespread epidemic. She states, “It’s not just the lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered and the IV drug users. Regular people also get infected. It’s the same disease.” As one who has lived with the virus for 18 years, she goes on to say, “If you know your status, it’s possible to have a fruitful life and still have anything and everything your heart desired.”