globalmappingofpleasure

Has pleasure been used as a
tool for empowerment, especially
for women? And can the sexual
health sector promote women’s
right to pleasure as an HIV
prevention tactic and means
for empowerment?
Many respondents indicated that by eroticizing
safer sex they aimed, at least in part, to empower
people to be able to negotiate safer sex. Dorothy
Aken’ Ova of INCRESE in Nigeria, however, sees
empowerment as key to her work. She commented:
“If this delicate, taboo thing – sexual pleasure
– could be negotiated by women, than almost
anything can be negotiated” (page 52). Aken’ Ova
and others believe that enabling women to pursue
their own pleasure, and making women’s pleasure
a priority, can empower women in other areas of
their lives. In projects where sex workers are given
training to be able to better provide pleasure to
their clients while lowering health risks, this involves
improving their existing skills through, for example,
language training. The aim is economic and,
therefore, social empowerment (e.g. the Institute
of International Social Development and People’s
Health Organisation Kama Sutra education in India,
pages 54; The Sambhavana Trust, page 21; and
X:Talk Project, page 64).
In which contexts are erotic safer
sex interventions most useful and
effective? Which groups of people
do they appeal to most?
married couples (21%), and sex workers (19%). Other
interventions were designed to target the general
population (13%), young people (10%) and women
(8%), while only 2% (one example) was aimed
specifically at addressing the safer-sex needs of
people living with HIV. However, some projects would
inevitably reach and be of use to people living with
HIV, even if this was not the specific or named target
group. (Please note that some examples target
more than one audience – for example, male-tomale
sex workers.) As before, these statistics are
not an indication of which groups erotic safer-sex
interventions appeal to most. However, they do
provide an interesting basis for further analysis of
which groups might be deemed most appropriate
for receiving erotic safer-sex interventions and
why these groups might be seen as appropriate
compared to other groups. (For example: do
programmers and funders see sex workers and men
who have sex with men as more appropriate target
groups for erotic safer sex?)
Two of the social marketing campaigns we profiled
reported greater-than-expected sales figures for
male and female condoms that were marketed
using pleasure-focused messages (e.g. DKT social
marketing campaign in Brazil, page 32, and
Population Services International Cambodia’s
Number One Plus Condom/Lube social marketing,
page 38). And some programme managers and
co-ordinators reported anecdotal evidence of
effectiveness in the form of positive feedback from
participants and beneficiaries. However, there were
no reports of systematic or scientific monitoring or
evaluation of interventions based on their erotic or
sex-positive components.
In this edition of The Global Mapping of Pleasure,
more examples (33%) come from Asia (including
South and Southeast Asia) than anywhere else,
with Europe and the UK accounting for 21%, North
America 16%, Africa 12%, Australia 9% and Latin
America 9%. (These are approximate numbers, as
some projects and organizations work in multiple
regions.) However, these figures are not an indication
of where erotic safer-sex interventions are most
useful or effective. They simply reflect the examples
we were able to find within strict budget, human
resource, language and time restrictions. Since erotic
safer-sex work is rarely documented in project reports
or analyses, identifying interventions is dependent
on word-of-mouth referrals and recommendations,
making a systematic analysis problematic.
Among the erotic safer-sex interventions we found,
the largest number (27%) were aimed at lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender people, with most
for men who have sex with men. The next most
common target groups were heterosexual and/or
12