(WB) HIV ads provoke flap with city: Clinic says posters deemed ‘inappropriate' for bus shelters

(WB) HIV ads provoke flap with city: Clinic says posters deemed æinappropriate' for bus shelters

The Washington Blade - Friday, October 30, 1998
Kai Wright

Provocative posters for a new HIV prevention campaign raised eyebrows this month in Washington, D.C., when they appeared on city bus shelters, then disappeared only to reappear again. The ads are now up in at least some bus shelters, and whatever disagreement sparked their removal appears to have been resolved. But when asked what that disagreement was, city officials and the ads' producers offer divergent accounts.

The posters are the centerpiece of a new Whitman-Walker Clinic prevention campaign designed to make people talk about HIV and about the sexual activity by which it can be transmitted. There are two versions of the posters: One depicts a black heterosexual couple and the other depicts a white Gay male couple. Each version shows a black-and-white photo of the couple, undressed, with one partner lying on top of the other in an intimate embrace. Printed over the photo are words urging people to talk about HIV and the things that can be done to prevent the virus's sexual transmission.

The posters first went up Oct. 9. But by Oct. 14, they had been taken down. According to the city's Department of Public Works, the ads were taken down because the renter of the bus shelter space in which they were posted had not submitted them to DPW for a review beforehand. Whitman-Walker is renting the space for the posters from a company called CSC, which owns a number of ad spaces on city bus shelters.

"This is really a contractual issue," said DPW spokesperson Linda Grant. Grant said all bus shelter ads must be submitted for review 10 days before they are put up so that DPW can "insure the quality of the ads" is appropriate for posting. CSC, Grant said, failed to submit the Clinic's ads and, thus, the posters were taken down.

Two days later, Whitman-Walker Executive Director Jim Graham contacted DPW and met with them. Graham said that he didn't want to attempt to explain exactly what DPW didn't like about the ads but said, "Clearly they considered the ads to be inappropriate for the bus shelters."

Graham said he explained in the meeting with DPW officials that talking about sex is central to HIV prevention, and, that it is important to get people's attention and jar them into otherwise too-easily-dismissed conversations about the disease.

"We feel that having ads that are a bit provocative is important," Graham said he explained to DPW, "because we want people to pause. à The whole purpose of the ad is to get people to talk."

But DPW's Mike Carter, who met with Graham, said the primary conversation in their meeting involved his dispelling Graham's "perception, or misperception, that [DPW] took them down because of content." Echoing Grant, Carter stressed the problem was a "contractual" one involving CSC. The ads were taken down, Carter said, put through the usual review process, and then put back up on Oct. 21.

Graham said the ads went back up only after the Clinic explained to DPW why the posters needed to be "provocative" and why they are appropriate for bus shelters.

One way or the other, the posters are now back up on bus shelters throughout the city. That's enough for Graham.

"The ads are back up," he concluded. "All's well that ends well."
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