UN agency includes ten year old boys in definition of gay behavior
The
UN family planning agency (UNFPA) drifted further into controversial territory
with a new report on HIV and sexually transmitted infections among men who have
sex with men – and boys.
UNFPA’s report implies
that promiscuity and dangerous sexual practices are a pervasive part of the
male homosexual experience, a charge that the Southern Poverty Law Center would
label as “hate” if it came from a conservative Christian group. At the same
time, the report ignores the fact that having multiple sexual partners,
especially multiple concurrent partners, greatly raises the risk of infection.
The advice it offers for changing sexual behavior is limited to using condoms
and lubricants.
UNFPA
begins with a definition of MSM as “men who have sex with men,” and “should be
understood to include young men, i.e. those in the age range 10–24 years.”
While MSM is generally considered to be a behavior rather than an identity,
UNFPA includes those “who experience sexual attraction towards the same sex.”
This
definition seems to create a “community” based on a common behavior or
inclination, despite the fact that some men swept into this grouping may not
identify themselves as belonging to it. UNFPA repeatedly calls for
strengthening “community” systems and empowering groups to promote the cultural
acceptance of homosexual behavior.
UNFPA
co-authored the report with several groups, including the World Health
Organization, and USAID and PEPFAR (the U.S.’s foreign aid and HIV/AIDS
programs). While the report ostensibly aims to prevent the spread of diseases,
it instead attempts to turn high-risk behaviors into a “community”—
encompassing ten-year-olds being abused or sold for sex and individuals
choosing not to act on their attractions.
UNFPA
and its collaborators rely on interpretations by sexual-rights advocates of
human rights standards, citing a UN Development Program report calling for the
decriminalization of prostitution and homosexual behavior, and the Yogyakarta
Principles, a document produced by non-governmental groups.
The
report notes the “significant prevalence of intimate partner violence among men
who have sex with men,” and admits they “are more likely to use alcohol and
[illegal] drugs than other adults in the general population.” They use drugs
and alcohol, it claims, to “overcome social inhibitions and increase confidence
while seeking sexual partners,” as well as to “provide psychological
enhancement of sexual experiences, [achieve] the ability to engage in sex for
extended periods of time, and lower sexual inhibitions.” Drugs “may help them
cope with a diagnosis of HIV and escape from the fear of rejection due to their
HIV positive status.”
Regarding
behaviors associated with MSM, UNFPA recommends, “more research on enema usage
and rectal fisting is needed, especially to develop guidelines.” It avoids
calling them “harmful cultural practices,” a concept frequently denounced in UN
documents.
Much
of the report is devoted to HIV prevention and management through
antiretroviral drugs, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which are very costly,
as well as the widespread dissemination of condoms and lubricants.
UNFPA
mentions reparative therapy only
to dismiss it as “shown to subject men who have sex with men to additional
emotional and psychological trauma.”
Reprinted
with permission from C-Fam.
