As an HIV educator, I come in contact with various lifestyles and circumstances that place people at risk for HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Throughout the years I've met a significant amount of teenagers who are uneducated about risk factors for HIV transmission and engaging in high-risk behavior. This find has nothing to do with sexual orientation or socio-economic status, but more about a simple lack of knowledge regarding basic modes of prevention. What als

Eighteen years ago I entered the fight against the spread of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), and wanted nothing more than to further the education and prevention strategies within communities of color. I pushed to provide HIV testing within the African-American community and beat the pavement with bag-loads of condoms and lubrication in effort to raise awareness about prevention and encourage everyone to have safer-sex. I have sat on community panels, facilitated work

Labels are important when it comes to identifying things. Many of us have kitchen cabinets filled with cans that are tagged and ready for use. All of those items are identified by a label which makes selecting what you want that much easier. Yes, labels come in handy, but what about those that demonize and can make one appear dirty? Words such as 'whore' or 'slut'. How can those labels impact the way someone lives their life? I posted a question on Facebook regarding dating m

The other day I was surfing through Facebook and came across a post highlighting an article entitled “10 Signs on How to Tell if he is on the Down-Low”. Of course with a title like that anyone would be a bit curious to see what it had to say. I knew that whatever the ‘signs’ were they would not be based on any type of fact. I clicked on the link and to my surprise, the article was on the page of Farrah Gray. Some of you may be asking ‘who is Farrah Gray’, and to be quite hon