"Global Sex is the first major work to take the issues of globalization and sexuality head on. Dennis Altman looks at how pleasures of the body are framed, shaped, commercialized, and even commodified in our new global economy, exploring the impact of globalization on gender relations, political power, public health, migration, and the ways in which we imagine our own sense of self and place. Ranging from U.N. debates over abortion, to the advent of cybersex, to the rapid spread of AIDS in Africa, to the sex scandals that rocked both Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and President Bill Clinton, Global Sex sheds new light on how the personal and the political are now, more than ever, indistinguishable."--BOOK JACKET.

This book provides a global overview of the role of the community sector, examining in detail the origins and activities of community organizations in Europe, the Americas, Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and the Pacific. It also describes the impact of sexuality and gender on AIDS activism and AIDS organizing, as well as broader cultural responses to the epidemic. It charts the emergence and development of the community sector response to HIV and AIDS, illustrating the factors that led affected individuals and communities to organize, question, challenge and redefine initial governmental responses to the epidemic. It describes the contribution of the community / NGO sector to global efforts to prevent the spread of the disease, highlighting tensions which have sometimes arisen within community based organizations themselves: tensions between activism and service provision, between altruism and self help, between volunteer participation and management control, and between fluidity of function and increasing bureaucratization. "Power and Community" has grown out of the author's intellectual and political commitment to the idea that without support from strong community based responses, public health systems will fail to deal with the crisis of AIDS. Dennis Altman analyzes the practical dilemmas which have confronted community based organizations around the world, and the political significance of their ability to motivate and mobilize affected communities. The result is a book which should be a valuable resource for researchers, community organizations, policy makers and activists alike.