Text produced by Mariana Albuquerque, journalism graduate student at IDP.

For the most part, I realized how important the debate with professionals is, who demystify the infection and how the disease actually works. When talking to some people about the subject, I noticed that most people are prejudiced and afraid, which reinforces the point that talking about HIV is extremely important. 

When talking to Lucian, he told me that he felt like killing himself when he discovered his positive serology, that he was ashamed of it and that he hid himself for a long time. The answer is not even close to taking one's own life, but the way I always heard Cazuza's story told me, it made me believe that the virus leaves a dying person just waiting for the last day of life. 

Conversations about preventive methods and how they also do not guarantee much are highlighting to 21st century society an imminent need for a sexually active society: more effective medicines and condoms. It also brings to light the low visibility of sex between women, and the lack of methods that prevent infection by the virus. Disseminate methods such as PEP (Post-Exposure Prophylaxis) and PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) (PrEP), methods that work to prevent HIV and are provided by the SUS throughout the country. All of these new strategies must be seen and considered as options in the range of strategies that we today call combined HIV prevention.

Going against the debate on prevention, today we have the Brazilian state leader's speech - in which a number of people believe - that sexual abstinence is a form of prevention against STDs. In chorus with this belief are people who disbelieve in sexual education in schools and who see the debate as a form of early sexualization. Undoubtedly, there is the internet and communication vehicles as educational and signaling tools for STDs and STIs. 

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