Of course they do.
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I'm Maya Dusenbery. I'm a writer and editor at Feministing.Of course they do.
I wrote before about South African HIV/AIDS activists’ concerns that FIFA would block condom distribution at the World Cup. Today, as the the first match started, The Washington Post reported that FIFA has responded to the outcry and reiterated its support of efforts to distribute 1 million condoms during the tournament, although on Tuesday the groups on the ground were still dissatisfied with FIFA’s policies.
In my efforts to find the latest news, I came across this little, dismissive blog on NewsBusters (the folks taking on the Herculean job of “documenting, exposing and neutralizing” a “liberal media bias” that doesn’t actually exist) about how silly and “interesting” it is that the WaPo article called condoms “the tournament’s most essential accessory.”
Writer Tim Graham begins with:
Thursday’s Washington Post Express tabloid carried the headline “Health Activists Eye World Cup.” When the world “health” breaks in before “activist,” sadly, you can often define that as a sly euphemism you could replace more accurately with “sex.”
“Health activists” in this case refers to an alliance of 10 leading South African HIV/AIDS groups, including the South African National AIDS Council, which is chaired by the Deputy President of South Africa. These groups work in a country where 5.7 million of its 49.1 million residents, or 12 percent of the population, is HIV-positive. In some regions, one in five adults is infected. Maybe Tim Graham should go talk to one of those 5.7 million people about what it’s like to live with AIDS before dismissing the health effects of the worst pandemic in modern history with a cheap joke about—wink, wink—sex. I’m guessing they could tell him in pretty stark terms—without relying on “sly euphemisms.”
