Fridae

Four times as many individuals in a same-sex relationship than in a straight one have reportedly been victimised by physical assault, according to a landmark study by the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and the Women Coalition of HKSAR.

Standard Chartered Bank has launched "Anti-HIVirus software", a campaign to address protection methods against HIV/AIDS and dispel myths about the disease in a series of six short animated videos.

Nigel Collett goes behind the cameras at GDotTV, a new web-based gay Internet TV station featuring original programming such as LGBT Hotspot, Hong Kong Salvation - a news and culture programme and LGBT Speaks - a chat show.

HIV is no longer seen as a death sentence but as chronic and manageable disease. But the cost of taking the life-saving drugs is more than a financial one, says SL Yang who recalls having to battle the side effects and stick to a strict regimen of over 20 pills a day in the earlier days.

A mini-controversy has ensued following news of a Singaporean law professor, who is probably best known for her graphic speech describing the ills of “gay sex” in parliament, slated to teach a “Human Rights in Asia” course at New York University’s School of Law.

Homosexuality is a disease curable through yoga, says guru Baba Ramdev who has filed a Supreme Court appeal following the recent Delhi High Court judgment decriminalising sexual relationship between two consenting adults in private.

Nigel Collett reviews J. Neil C. Garcia’s 536-page Philippine Gay Culture, in which he examines a range of labels/identities that emerged since the 1960s to describe indigenous sexual and gender identities which have little modern (western) equivalents.

A new study involving 4244 men in the US has shown that a history of childhood sexual abuse is associated with an increased risk of sexual risk-taking, problematic drug and alcohol use, and are less receptive to HIV prevention interventions.

The Government "cannot move ahead of public opinion" and so law has to stay, says law minister K Shanmugam.

The Times of India – the world's largest-selling English broadsheet newspaper – and numerous other media outlets in the country hail the Delhi High Court's verdict which legalised sexual relations among gay men.