Rockin' the Red Pump for AIDS Awareness. And fashion fierceness.

Ok, so it's not a pump, but these Birkenstocks are the only red shoes I have. You get the idea...

Today, March 10, is National Women and Girls’ HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NWGHAAD) and while it’s not my usual cause, I’m gonna talk about it. Here are the facts, directly from the CDC:

In 2007, more than a quarter of diagnoses of HIV infection in the United States were among women and girls aged 13 years and older.

More than 278,000 women and adolescent girls in this country are living with HIV; and almost 94,000 American women and girls with AIDS have died since the epidemic began.

In 2007, for female adults and adolescents, the rate of HIV/AIDS diagnoses for black females was nearly 20 times as high as the rate for white females and nearly 4 times as high as the rate for Hispanic/Latino females.

Then I read this idiocy with Antonio Cromartie of the NY Jets having 7 kids with 6 women in 5 different states.  Of course it’s absurd that the Jets are paying him $500M to clear up his lingering paternity issues, and that will be the subject of another blog post.  But the fact that these 6 women were willing to have unprotected sex with some dude just points out how sexually transmitted diseases are being spread within our community.  The CDC also released this week the alarming spread of herpes in the US, with the rate of infection among black women at 48%.

Don’t sleep on herpes: its a viral infection, treated with the same kinds of drugs (antiretrovirals) that treat AIDS and HIV.  As such, individuals with genital herpes are “two to three times more likely to acquire HIV and they are also more likely to transmit HIV infection to others”, according to Dr. John M. Douglas, Jr. of the CDC.  So just because its “only herpes” doesn’t mean that it will remain as such through the course of your life.

I’ve never been so happy to be celibate in my life, or to have been born at a time when sex without a condom wasn’t really an option.  Generation X was raised with sex education and birth control in schools, and fear of AIDS coinciding with our sexual awareness.  Younger generations are not so lucky, and they’re paying for it with their lives.

What can you do?  EDUCATE yourself and those you love about the spread of HIV/AIDS among girls as young as 13, and on the ways you can prevent the spread of all sexually-transmitted disease. For the love of God, use a condom.  Or choose to abstain from sex, or at least limit your sexual contact to one partner.  Do something.

For more information, check out my Twitter Girl @luvvieIG and “The Red Pump Project”, as they raise awareness about the impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls.  If you’re in Chi-Town, the organization’s inaugural fashion show, “Rock the RED: Bold. Fashion. Awareness.” will take place on March 25.