We just received a press release about a new BBC World documentary on reclaiming condoms for love and pleasure in Mozambique. I haven’t gotten to see it yet (it was airing at 3:30am today, but I was clearly still asleep!), but it sounds like Sheila is doing a great job putting a pleasurable spin on condoms. Here’s the summary:
Twenty-two year old Sheila is a trained ‘agony aunt’. In her office at the North East Secondary school in Maputo, she listens to students’ stories about love, sex, birth control and AIDS, and offers advice – and free condoms. But out of 8,000 students, only 40 or 50 come to collect the condoms on offer. The problem, Sheila reckons, is the condom’s image – which is medical, off-putting, and inextricably linked in people’s minds with sickness and death. “HIV is not an issue for the young people”, Sheila says, “HIV is a campaign issue. It is not that they ignore it, but it is not their problem – they are in love and there is no place for HIV in a passionate relationship”.