THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 13, 1995 TAG: 9509130410
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARIE JOYCE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
On a sunny weekday afternoon, five women gathered in an apartment in their subdivision to talk, eat, win door prizes and hear a sales pitch.
Almost like a Tupperware party - except the saleswomen wanted the guests to buy into some ideas about personal health.
Instead of Tupperware, ``we talk about rubberware,'' said Carolyn K. Williams, an outreach worker with Virginia Beach Community Services Board.
The gathering in the city's Atlantis development brought teachers from the services board, the health department and the Tidewater AIDS Crisis Taskforce. The subject was women's health, with a big emphasis on safe sex and AIDS prevention.
This party was held in an apartment used as an office by Sara Friend, a services board worker who runs programs for the complex. Unfortunately, said Friend, the women who most needed to be there declined her invitation.
But the gathering was also a recruitment session. Organizers hope the guests will host parties in their homes for their friends.
While their children played in the courtyard outside, the women listened to an explicit description of the ways AIDS is transmitted and how to incorporate protection into lovemaking. They also learned how to do a breast self-exam and took away reading materials - and condoms.
If you don't take responsibility for avoiding sexually transmitted disease, said Williams, ``basically, what you're doing is opening your legs and saying, `I'm giving you my life.' ''
Health officials are looking for innovative ways to get the message out to women of child-bearing age, who make up a fast-growing segment of the AIDS population.
While some of these women engage in high-risk behaviors, like having sex with multiple partners or using intravenous drugs, as many as half do not, say outreach workers. Instead, they get HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, from husbands or boyfriends. Sometimes they pass it on to their babies in the womb or through breast milk.
Serious stuff. But the gathering really did feel a little like a party.
Williams' straight-talking presentation drew nervous chuckles at first. ``Boy, she's throwing it out, ain't she?'' said one of the women to a burst of laughter. But as the women relaxed, their laughter grew more genuine, and they threw out questions and observations.
Abstinence, Williams emphasized, is the only way to guarantee you won't get HIV. But that's probably not realistic for adults.
``If you had sex, and it was good, and you enjoyed it, you're probably going to have it again,'' she said. ``If you had sex and it was bad - you're probably going to have it again.''
Condoms are 98 percent effective against the spread of HIV if used consistently and correctly, she said.
That means using them before the expiration date. Heat damages them, so they should be discarded if they've sat in the glove compartment on a hot day, or if they were carried for long in a wallet, where they may have been exposed to body heat.
When they are used, they should be placed so that there's an empty ``reservoir,'' about the width of two fingers, at the tip. Otherwise, pressure from the semen could break the condom. And the condoms should be latex, not sheepskin, she said. Sheepskin's tiny pores let the virus get through.
The women also learned about dental dams - pieces of latex slightly larger than a cocktail napkin that prevent the transmission of vaginal secretions during oral sex. Plastic wrap also can be used, but only the non-microwaveable type.
The women who attended praised the session.
``A lot of people don't know HIV, the real meaning of it,'' said Atlantis resident Sharonda Smith. ``They think you can get it holding hands.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
LAWRENCE JACKSON/Staff
At an awareness party in Atlantis Apartments in Virginia Beach,
Olivia Dovena ``Dove'' Satterfield, 10 months, is held by her
mother, Sybil. It's women of child-bearing age who make up a
fast-growing segment of the AIDS population.
Graphic
HOW TO HELP
For information about hosting a health party, call Carolyn Williams
at 437-4757.
by CNB