Paris HIV campaign includes ads depicting landmarks as condoms

A new HIV prevention campaign launched in Paris is urging people to celebrate the legendary allure of the city's neighborhoods romantically but safely through a series of ads around the city depicting famous city landmarks as condoms, The New York Times reports. A stone column in the Place Vendome is depicted as a diamond-studded condom, while the Moulin Rouge has been altered to show its red windmill spinning around a condom. Other landmarks and city icons to appear in the campaign include the ethnic food district of St. Michel, the Pompidou Center, and the city's Le Marais quarter, which is popular with gays and lesbians. "Paris is the city of pleasure, fashion, and light; it shouldn't be the capital of AIDS," said Olivier Henry, an advertising agency executive behind the new campaign. "But it is." According to openly gay Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe, Paris has two AIDS-related deaths a day. France has 120,000 HIV-positive people, half of whom live in Paris. The new HIV-prevention campaign is called "Paris Plaisirs, Paris Capotes" ("Paris Pleasures, Paris Rubbers"). The posters are displayed on Paris's 1,300 municipal kiosks.