CHENNAI: It was one of those rare advertisements that used sex as a premise, a decade ago. The young and ostensibly virile couple-in-the-wilderness were getting busy with some teasing motions on TV screens, when a hazy screen provided them with adequate cover—‘Play Safe’ read the title, after which the name of mineral water bigwig Bisleri, faded in. While it was quite a remarkably sophisticated advert for a humble bottle of ‘mineral’ water, the innuendo stuck around much longer than the ad campaign. With all the restrictions that censors have placed on condom makers airing ads for their products, the Bisleri ad turned out to be an initiation into what ‘playing safe’ was all about.But looking beyond people indulging in casual sex in our State, it is heartening to note that awareness levels have reached a stage where even people who seek out the services of prostitutes (or female/commercial sex workers CSWs) consistently insist on using a condom. According to the findings of the AIDS Prevention and Control Project (APAC)–TANSACS Behaviour Surveillance Survey (2011), a whopping 98.5 per cent of prostitutes reported that their last client was particular about using a condom. The reason? Fear of catching a Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) or worse, AIDS. This number has increased steadily ever since the survey began in 1996, according to the current Project Director Dr Bimal Charles. And considering the fact that this time 5,000 people from high-risk groups were surveyed across 15 urban centres in TN, the findings are quite comprehensive.The government and AIDS control bodies have contributed extensively to increased condom usage. For example, a Nielsen survey report in 2010 pegged the total condom market in India at `972 crore, with the share of subsidised condoms – supported by the governments schemes – estimated at Rs 772 crore. In other words, the share of subsidised condoms is four times that of private players in the country.Despite TANSACS and related NGOs sticking to their condom vending machines at public toilets for a good many years even after it was deemed not-so-effective, they went about condom distribution in a ‘smarter’ manner, these past few years. “We found that the fastest way to keep people from spreading infections during their visits to CSWs was to distribute condoms through peer exchange prorammes,” explains Dr Charles. A TANSACS official explains another strategy they used to good effect. “Not only was it easy to ensure they had access to free condoms, there has been an initiative to ensure that condoms are sold at all shops in the vicinity of places where brothels are suspected to operate.”But a good proportion of the credit goes to the users themselves, as we found out. Kalaivani (name changed to protect identity), who has been in the ‘thozhil’ (profession) for the last 11 years, reveals that using a condom has become a matter of course over the past “six-seven years”. She says, “When we started maybe one guest (client) every month would bring this thing (condom). But these days most of them don’t usually come without a condom.” Ironically, one of the reasons that spurred regulars to bring-their-own-brand is the fact that the pimps started insisting on it and would charge between `50-150 for providing a condom, last minute, according to her.“After a while we started keeping spares with us just in case someone came without one,” she adds and relates an instance where she once told a client who did not want to use one that she had AIDS. “Of course he ran away but it’s better not to. Even we are at risk, right?” asks the commercial sex worker from Perambur. The other high risk group – males having sex with males (MSM) – has managed to stay below the radar because of their considerably smaller numbers, but has shown immense improvement when it comes to condom use. This year’s survey reflected that 96.1 per cent of homosexual men interviewed have insisted on using condoms whether they hire a MSW or have intercourse with a regular partner. “This is actually a very high risk group and the infection rate is much higher than with other groups. They used to think that infections would only spread through ‘normal sex’. Thankfully, they have woken up to how much using a condom can actually save them from disease transmission,” concludes Dr Charles.With a declining AIDS prevalence rate (0.25 per cent) and an ambitious ‘zero infection’ target, it seems people are now taking protection seriously.
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