Sunday, January 18, 2009

Book Review: Unprotected



My Grandfather lent my wife a book entitled Unprotected when we were there for a visit this break. Since we were driving to the coast after our stay with my grandparents then back home, Brandi read the book aloud in the car after I continuously asked her what was so interested as she sighed every few minutes. We finished the book before we returned home. It was very interested and supported some things that I was either aware of or suspicious of. It is written by a college psychiatrist who was apparently fed up with some things. I recommend it highly for anyone, but especially young people. I wish I could assign it to my high school students. Anyways, one of the things that is interesting is the manner in which we treat HIV/AIDS. As I have been annoyed with for some time, there is a lot of miss information out there about HIV/AIDS and it is backed by an agenda that is worried that the truth about the virus would ostracize gay men, who are one of the two main groups of people who the virus affects, the other is IV drug users. Instead then of focusing on those two groups of people in an effort to control the spread of that virus, the add campaign that was promoted was one in which the idea that "aids doesn't discriminate," was the motto. As evidence of this deceptive slogan she shared the story of a patient who was at high risk (gay man with multiple and anonymous partners) and a married woman who found out her husband had cheated on her. The gay man ignored the danger and did not get tested. The married woman was convinced she had HIV and had a nervous break down. Who is that campaign helping then? The gay man won't get tested, the straight married woman doesn't really need to get tested but nearly lost her mind with worry when she found out her husband cheated. Anyways, this and many other issues are tackled in this book from a different perspective than the one often pushed by those who above all else desire to be politically correct. I highly recommend it, and if you can get someone else to read it aloud to you, that would be cool also.

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