"When you start talking like nobody is looking, people start paying attention", this is a quote from the teaser of the Needle Prick Project, an editorial campaign aimed at contrasting HIV stigma and written to elicit a candid and open conversation on what it means to be HIV positive today.

This series of videos showing people having a conversation about HIV is a work-in-progress project that opens people's eyes about the real HIV epidemic, as in saying: what happens when you are HIV positive? What do you have to face? What is going on in your mind?

The Facebook post for this video started quite an interesting conversation about ‘slut shaming': in the comments section you can read "Slut-shaming alert at 3:14 "The hilarious thing is that most of them are hos. I mean, it's college." One user questions the attitude of a girl speaking in the video. Was this girl placing the blame somewhere, when in reality nobody is responsible, or is she pointing out that people sometimes would rather lie to themselves about how they want to be portrayed? Watch the video and then decide on your answer. Please also consider the fact that these people who decided to ‘be pricked' for this video are showing their opinion together with their face out in the open and are not -like you reading this right now-in front of a computer screen, a screen that is hiding you. And no, Facebook is not your real face.

The whole point is that HIV exists and to fight the epidemic you can't simply use black and white messages, it's the confrontation of different opinions about the subject that will create real awareness. To change people's minds isn't something you can achieve with abstract ideas -reality is what counts eventually.

Respect, guys!