Novel low-risk commercial sex practices in the parks of Vietnam

This is a paper about a novel form of commercial sex practice recorded in Vietnam, and its implications for HIV/AIDS prevention strategies. Female commercial sex workers occupy urban parks in the evenings, offering on-site masturbation services to clients at cheap prices even by local standards. All sex acts are performed in public by workers who sit on benches, path edges or stools, often behind bicycles or open umbrellas in the quest for some semblance of privacy. Clients are local men, with only an occasional foreigner involved. Many sex workers were involved, some having 15 to 20 or more clients a night. Sex workers and clients in Vietnam, as elsewhere, operate at high risk of HIV/AIDS infection. As a service which minimizes risks, this form of commercial sex practice should perhaps be given serious consideration by policy makers and authorities for formal deployment in the fight against AIDS. (author's)