Kearifan Pelacur: Kisah Gelap Di Balik Bisnis Seks Dan Narkoba (2008) - Plot & Excerpts
This is a brilliant book. It takes what could be a very depressing subject - aids, and examines our response to it. Now I am not normally a numbers person, but Elizabeth Pisani does a fantastic job of analysing the numbers involved in the Aids Industry: those affected, those most likely to become infected, where the money goes and turns it into a fascinating study. She talks about specific people and general statistics in a witty and interesting way. This is an important book and it should shake up the way healthcare is delivered. I found myself in agreement with her careful and well presented analysis of the situation and what can be done to improve it. I am getting older. Yes yes, I know we all are, but this is my story, so shush yourself. I am getting older, and so are my family and friends and colleagues. Not all, mind you, but enough. Too many. I’m watching them age, and I think to myself, they are getting smaller. They are shrinking their worlds, their experiences, their understanding of the world. The world that changes. They are not keeping up, they are not challenging their own conventions and beliefs. Maybe they aren’t getting smaller/. Maybe they are staying the same, but it’s the world that’s getting bigger.As an old school lesbian feminist, I was around before AIDS and HIV. Not much more, mind you – I am not that old – but there was a time, just off the edge of my consciousness, when there was no AIDS, no HIV, no GRIDS. I’m not kidding myself, it’s a disease older than me, but it just wasn’t, well, here. Here is the gay community, here in the outer world. It wasn’t here. And now it is.Back I the early 1980s, or maybe the mid 1980s, I don’t exactly recall, I started doing my thing for HIV and AIDS. At the time we didn’t distinguish. It was AIDS, or full blown AIDS. Life expectancy was low and political activism was high. It seemed like the entire community was dying, or at risk of dying. We had to take charge because no one cared about us, no one cared about the [insert hurtful homophobic word of choice] and the [insert another hurtful homophobic word of choice]. We were left to die, it seemed, so we said F-you and didn’t die. We fought back, we created a new reality and, kicking and screaming, we brought the whole rest of the world with us. Now when I say “we”, I don’t mean me. I did my time in the early years, but then the movement changed. People with AIDS needed to care for people with AIDS. The rest of us were sources of money and not much more. I have one friend who dedicated more time to fighting AIDS and helping people with AIDS than just about anyone I know – and I am talking at least a decade here – despite the fact that as a straight woman without the disease she was judged The Lesser. She persevered when many of us gave up, and I wonder how many people are alive today because of her. She knows who she is and if anyone never said thank you: THANK YOU!My time on the AIDS front faded quickly at the time, and has hovered just above indifferent since the 1990s. I donate or donated to the AIDS Committee of Toronto and People with AIDS Foundation, CANFAR and AMFAR, and World AIDS Day. I have a Product RED iPod and my Product RED Starbucks card and I donate occasionally. I’ve accepted my role as money giver just as much as I have accepted the fundamental truths – I think Elizabeth Pasani calls them “Sacred Cows” – and I have never really questioned them.But (and here’s the tie-in you’ve been hoping for), one of the ways to make sure that as you grow older you don’t grow smaller and staler, is to challenge your long-held beliefs with an open mind. I am not saying you have to change your mind, I am saying you have to challenge your mind. Elizabeth Pasani does that, and more. There were a few times I wanted to put down The Wisdom of Whores, a few arguments she caused between Kelly and I (which is *really really* rare, trust me), and a few times I thought… she is freaking brilliant!Yes, she hit me right in the iPod: “HIV prevention programmes that don’t focus on reducing the likelihood that infected people will pass the virus on to uninfected people make governments, votes and even people who buy Bono’s red iPods feel like they are tackling the HIV epidemic when in fact they are completely missing the plot.”Wha? Who does she think she is? Oh, she’s a scientist, an epidemiologist who has travelled the world dealing with AIDS. Okay. Yes, she knows way more about this than I do. And her perspective on the AIDS epidemic is very challenging indeed. I won’t go too much into what her theories are and what formed her outlook, but no matter what you think about AIDS, she will challenge it. She even challenges herself and admits when she comes up short and can’t believe what she ought to.So who is this book for? It’s for 5 different kinds of people:1. People who know little about AIDS2. People who know everything about AIDS3. People who don’t know what to think about AIDS4. People who don’t give a damn about AIDS because more people get cancer, dammit!5. People who don’t want their world to get smaller as they get older, but want their world to become bigger than they ever dreamedIf you fit into that group, read the book. If you don’t fit into that book, well then, have yourself a nice little life.
What do You think about Kearifan Pelacur: Kisah Gelap Di Balik Bisnis Seks Dan Narkoba (2008)?
An excellent primer in HIV epidemiology and international public health in general.
—Owojtkiewicz17977
Love it. Highly recommended for field RAs.
—bunny_girl
