Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Kids (1995)

#inspirationalmovies

Kids (1995, Larry Clark) is not an easy to watch movie. Due to director's documentary-like style it feels true. And the reality it depicts is the one that parents are scared of. How lots of free time and wish to have fun can turn into a mix of parties, fights, drugs, casual sexual encounters with STI risk, etc. And how toxic ideas about sexuality and gender may make it all even worse...

Obviously, this by no means is intended to demonize the teenagers even further or to be a call for more parental control (no, thanks, we ourselves were adolescents few days ago). But Kids shines the light on how we fail the young and very young adults when it comes to learning trust and exercise of autonomy. And how they try to settle their problems on their own.

An additional read to maybe somehow console you afterwards: Laurie Penny on how "today’s teenagers are smarter, tougher and braver than my generation – and yours, too". 

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Out of Africa (1985)

#inspirationalmovies

The trailer may give an erroneous impression... Karen Blixen's (1885-1962) memoir Out of Africa is not about sitting around waiting and then hugging Robert Redford a lot (although, nothing wrong with it, of course). It's a tale of daring travel, by XIX century standards at least, some convenience driven marriage, some STI, some love and learning how to love-and-let-go of people.

And when you have Meryl Streep reminding you that you cannot tame and cage people you love, what else can you ask from a nice, memoir based drama?

Sunday is the day when #GirlsDecide: Ayla

Here you have second of #GirlsDecide short films on the issues around their sexuality young women face and the work IPPF does day by day to reach the most vulnerable.

This one takes us to Syria and deals with gender based violence, human trafficking, forced sex work... a lot very not-Christmas-like-at-all crimes that keep affecting women around the world. Even one is too many, and unfortunately there are many more that have to survive through it.

It's a dramatization based on a real story.

Women at AIDS2012: U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee: If We Don't End Discrimination, We Will not End AIDS

Although there are things that seem forgotten and overlooked in the global response to AIDS, like condoms that are present everywhere on the Conference venue but not that much in the speeches. The Pleasure Project shares their disappointment with it here, and we can only agree that condoms are still the very popular, accepted and cheap double protection device we shall keep working with...

Although the tensions between structural disadvantage women keep facing and shortcomings of health care providers failing to work in human rights framework are still piling up (today's workshop My Body, My Rights: Ethics and Human Rights for Women Living with HIV in Research, Care and Treatment Settings tried to shed light on these issues)...

Still, there are also a lot of very inspirational people in the Conference, not only among all the amazing activists but also among people holding offices. So, since yesterday U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee is our hero!

Girls & Contraception (Decision by H.E.R.A.)

A short on girls and myths and truth about contraception produced by H.E.R.A.

Empowerment recipes (Daniel)

"Annie Lenox and her SIGN campaign is empowering, her work worldwide and her leading role is amazing. She is showing than one women can lead a powerful movement, to deliver strong messages and to make changes happen"

Daniel

Here you can find more info of what and how Annie is doing!

Girls & Contraception (Marius)

"I asked some girlfriends “what’s the first thing that pops to mind when they hear the word contraception?”. To be more exact I asked 57 girls this question.

• 22 said “condom”
• 25 said “sexual protection”
• 7 said “the pill”
• 3 said “no babies”

Those 7 girls that said “the pill”, they’re all in a relationship. They trust their boyfriend so they consider this being the best contraceptive method for their sexual relationship.

From the 22 girls who said “condom”, 13 of them have a boyfriend, but they prefer this method of contraception. When I asked why, 4 of them told me because “taking the pill can get you fat” and they don’t want that. The others said they haven’t discussed the subject with their boyfriend, they just started with the condom and kept on going with it.

Myths exists, and they influence peoples decision. Taking the pill doesn't get you fat. It's true some of them can increase your appetite for food, but that can be controlled.

I asked the girls who said “sexual protection”, what do they mean by this? The majority said protection against STI’s and unwanted babies, but there were 6 that focused only on the unwanted babies, on the STI’s part, they weren’t very concerned. They had the idea that "it won’t happen to me. I don’t know anyone who had/has an STI.”

The thing is that you can't tell if a person has an STI just looking at him/her, and sadly people lie. Ignorance it's not the way.

The 3 girls that said “no babies” are concerned in both ways, unwanted pregnancies and STI’s, but they said no babies, because getting pregnant would complicate their life a lot more. As what contraceptive they use, they all said the condom.

Contraceptive methods are there, and if you're informed enough you can decide which method you want to use, which one is best. They don't necessary take the pleasure away, they can even change the mood sometimes. From different condoms to pills, you can decide which one you want to use, but always take in account the risks that you are putting yourself to if you don't use one."

Marius