Red Cross Blogs

Would you kiss Konnie Huq if she had HIV?

By Katrina Crew
November 19, 2009 at 4:43 pm

Today we’ve got a guest post from our editorial manager, Charles Williams, who’s been involved in a project looking at the stigma that still surrounds HIV.

We’ve launched a video today starring Konnie, in the run-up to World AIDS Day on 1 December, asking the question: Would you kiss Konnie Huq if she had HIV?

We commissioned a survey recently, which is cited in the video, of 16-25-year-olds in the UK. It found that while 85 per cent of respondents knew you couldn’t catch HIV from a kiss, 69 per cent still wouldn’t be willing to kiss someone who was HIV positive.

It’s not just about close contact like kissing – the trend is the same for more casual contact. For example, 96 per cent of people surveyed know you can’t get HIV from sharing a meal with someone who is HIV positive – but 44 per cent still wouldn’t want to buy food from a shopkeeper with HIV. And 92 per cent know you can’t become infected by sharing a cup with someone who is HIV positive – but 22 per cent wouldn’t even be willing to remain friends with someone with HIV.

The statistics seem pretty shocking, but think about it – can you honestly say the idea wouldn’t give you pause? You’d have no doubts about what you were doing being safe? I don’t even know if I can honestly say that under all circumstances and I’m well informed and (I hope) a basically nice person!

Stigma is a deep-rooted, emotional thing and I don’t think people who stigmatise others are necessarily bad or even always ignorant. But it’s about matching up what you know about things with how you feel about them, challenging your own emotional responses and making sure you’re not ostracising or causing hurt to people for no logical reason.

That’s what we’re hoping to achieve with this video – to make people think a little harder about how they would act in a situation and why they’d do it.

Find out more about the British Red Cross’ work on HIV

Fact sheet about HIV from NHS Choices

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Tags: celebrity, famous volunteers, HIV, Konnie Huq, stigma, World AIDS Day

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