Pave: Pornographers Of AIDS

Le jour 234 de Sarko

WITHDRAWAL OF CAMPAIGN AGAINST AIDS
SPARKS POLEMIC IN FRANCE

January 2, 2007 (eitb24.com) - France's Advertising Standards Authority [Bureau de Vérification de la Publicité, BVP] has withdrawn an advertisement which shows two men having sex by arguing the images are too explicit.*

The advertisement, which shows two naked men on the bed kissing each other, announces four homosexual people discover every day in France are HIV positive and seeks to make people aware of the importance of protection against AIDS. [Chaque jour en France, 4 homosexuels découvrent leur séropositivité. | LA HIV EST TOUJOURS LÀ. PROTÉGEZ-VOUS.]

Well, it is not as innocent as a kiss. One man, his bottom hiked, is atop the other, who has spread his legs to receive his partner and draws him in. (Careful with that click, Buckaroo, Brokeback Moutain ahead.) To play coy and describe what is going on here as "kissing" is to misinform, if not to lie outright. But to detail what the poster depicts -- two men about to have intercourse -- well, that that might be construed as prurient.

French organizations devoted to the fight against AIDS such as Act Up Paris criticized on Wednesday that advertising is judged depending on whether its characters are gays or heterosexuals. "This kind of measures are [sic] not taken when the protagonists are heterosexuals. It is an insult to the gay community", a spokesman for the Act Up Paris organization said.

The poster is paid for and distributed by the Institut national de prévention et d'éducation pour la santé (INPES), a public agency under the ministère de la Santé.

Here is how INPES describes the poster:

La photographe retenue pour cette campagne est Nan Goldin. L’objectif était en effet de donner une image positive, voire glamour, de la prévention et d’événementialiser cette campagne. En outre, son traité garantit le réalisme de la situation.

[The photographer retained for this campaign is Nan Goldin. The objective was in effect to give a positive image, even glamorous, of prevention and to sensationalize this campaign. Moreover, its treatment confirms the realism of the situation.]

Huh? Well, that rather makes the BVP's case.

The choice of American photographer Nan Goldin is telling. But one need not be a homophobe nor a lowbrow to not want large arty posters of "the realism of the situation" on kiosks, sidings, and bus shelters when walking bébé to nursery or taking mamie for a wheel-round in the sun.

We do not believe this poster's censure prudish or extreme. Further, we do not grasp its glamorized prophylactic message. Roughly 15% of the poster carries message content; 85% shows "the realism of the situation". Seen from a distance, one cannot read the message, but one can clearly see the realism. Of course, the poster is not really galmorizing prevention, a ludicrous INPES claim. [Pause.] It glamorizes gay sex.

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* Not the first time explicit gay ads have been censored in France.

PFFT (What is this?): Getting it wrong 4 (poster) | Getting it right 3½ (censure) | Rayonnement français 0/3½