Doug PollardFree condoms in Beijing
August 16th 2008 01:55
Red is such a Chinese colour
How AIDS has taught the Chinese some good sense on homosexuality and public health - unlike many other countries.
Jin Dapeng, director of Beijing's municipal health bureau, said the bureau had distributed 400,000 free condoms in over 400 hotels in the Olympic city in a bid to raise awareness of safe sex and AIDS prevention.
But the condoms have only been placed in rooms in hotels rated three stars and above. These are the hotels used by foreigners, wealthy locals, and party members - who one can safely assume could afford to buy their own.
Jin also claimed that “thousands” of Olympic volunteers had been trained in AIDS prevention for the Olympic Games, and that 250,000 free pamphlets had been distributed.
I guess that takes care of the poor folks.
However, we must acknowledge that China is one of the most repsonsible third-ish world countries when it comes to HIV Aids, unlike it's old formerly communist ally Russia.
This has been forced on the country by simple practical considerations.
China woke up to the fact that you cannot operate a one child policy in a country which prefers male children and not end up with a surplus of boys, and furthermore, that a very high percentage of those boys are not going to be able to find wives, even if they want them.
As a result, China has a thriving gay scene, with many men who might formerly have disappeared into the marriage closet having little choice but to embrace their homosexuality more or less openly.
That in turn means that the country has had to downgrade the stigma of homosexuality in order to prevent the spread of HIV. Contrast that with the soaring HIV rates in countries where they refuse to inform, treat, or even recognise the existence of men who have sex with men (except perhaps to hang them).
It also neatly demonstrates that most policies may have outcomes other than the ones they were designed to have.. Sooner than almost anyone else the Chinese, an intensely practical people at heart, realised that in an overpopulated world, and with HIV about, it makes sense to accept homosexuality rather than try to drive it underground or stamp it out.
That only creates an untreatable population who, because of the stigma of homosexuality, also have sex with / marry women and hence spread the disease into the majority population.
As a post-religious society, the ancient imperatives to have lots of babies because lots of them would die before reaching adulthood (which saturates outdated religious texts like the bible and the koran) could be replaced by a more responsible modern approach more in accordance with reality.
Unfortunately it's a lot easier to change a totalitarian society than a democratic one, where consent of the ruled must first be obtained. But we have no option but to try.
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