Red Ribbon Pantomine

posted: 09/09/2009

The Red Ribbon Pantomine is for grownups and is a fundraising event for HIV support charities in Lancashire. It's presented by Preston LGBT centre and stars Linda and The laundrettes, Virgins in Peril, Blackburn DAPA and more.

There are two performances only - Wednesday 25 November at the Empire Theatre in Blackburn, and on Friday 27 November at the 53 Degrees, in Preston.

Blackburn Wednesday 25 November, Empire Theatre, Aqueduct Road, Ewood, Blackburn, (map here) 7pm entrance, curtain up 7.30pm.

Box Office 01254 685 500 Tickets £10 (seated)

The Red Ribbon Cabaret was first conceived in Blackburn as 'Aid for AIDS' in 1992, in response to a friend of the original event organiser being diagnosed HIV positive. Tony Abbott was from Blackburn, and the trust fund that was initiated in his name was to support people living with HIV in the Blackburn area.Through the original 'Aid for AIDS' event and subsequent annual Red Ribbon Balls, over £11,000 was raised for the trust in Tony's name.

Preston Friday 27 November, 53 Degrees, Brook Street, Preston (map here), doors open at 9pm. 

Box Office 01772 893 000 Tickets £8 for a standing performance.

Bare Porn Costs - African HIV

posted: 01/09/2009

A documentary ‘Hardcore Profits’ that was shown last night on BBC2 laid bare the cost of porn for Africans. HIV infections and rape follow directly from viewing western bare (condomless) porn. It’s available dirt cheap, almost everywhere. The porn industry has yet to acknowledge its part in driving up the global HIV epidemic.

The documentary maker Tim Samuels tells us -

The moment porn truly stopped being fun came in a remote Ghanaian village – mud huts, barefoot kids, no electricity. The BBC series I was making about the impact of porn, had led me, via Los Angeles (LA) to Ghana. One of the unforeseen consequences of globalisation is the shocking effect that western porn is having in parts of the developing world.

The village has no electricity, but that doesn't stop a generator from being wheeled in, turning a mud hut into an impromptu porn cinema – and turning some young men into rapists, with villagers relating chilling stories of assaults taking place straight after the film's end. In the nearest city, other young men are buying bootlegs copies of the almost always condom-free LA-made porn – copying directly what they see and contracting HIV. The head of the country's AIDS commission says porn risks destroying all the achievements they've made. It's a timebomb, he says.

The concerns aren't theoretical – I met young fathers with HIV whose only sex education came from LA, women living in the villages subject to post-screening abuse, and even a shy teenage virgin who has written to a porn outfit in California asking to star in their films (his return address was care of the local church in Accra).

The porn producers aren't deliberately pushing their products into Africa. But the tide of black market DVDs on sale at street markets and hardcore clips viewable at internet cafes is almost unstoppable. Surely this multibillion-dollar industry needs to take some responsibility for the human costs?

Bare porn as sex education
Since the only sex education some people in places such as Ghana are getting is via porn films, there is a decent argument for the porn industry to produce more films where performers use condoms. In LA, where the majority of the world's porn is still shot, only one company routinely makes such films. The condom-only policy adopted following an industry HIV outbreak five years ago lasted just months.

Massive profits for mobile phone companies and hotel chains

If the ambition is to put more condom-using porn into circulation, which will then more likely end up in those street markets or cafes, some serious multinationals could throw their corporate weight behind this. Hotel chains – among the biggest broadcasters of adult material – have not used their immense clout to insist on greater condom use – much to the dismay of the porn-star STD-testing clinic in LA.

Mobile phone firms are also surreptitiously making jaw-dropping amounts of money from showing adult content on their handsets. Could their ideas of corporate responsibility take on a latex dimension? Might it actually be that ridiculous for the porn industry itself to adopt a spot of corporate responsibility? These are, after all, major businesses replete with HR departments and plush offices nestling next to mainstream film companies. Bankroll sex safe campaigns, harness the allure of their top stars, maybe even make bespoke films for the developing world which educate as well as titillate. Doing nothing, and leaving western porn to march untrammelled into Africa and other places, is a deeply unattractive prospect.

Tim Samuels's 2 part series, Hardcore Profits, started last night (Monday 31 August) on BBC2; part 2 is 9pm next Monday. You can watch part one online on BBC iPlayer here. The part of the documentary about porn's impact in Ghana starts about three quarters of an hour into the one hour long programme.
 

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