Jeanette May Girl Germs, 1996-1999 ©

Girl Germs posters offer a critical response to the issues of safe sex, HIV/AIDS, reproductive rights, sex education, and sexual orientation by bringing young women's voices back into the dialogue. The texts empower young women who make the choice to be sexual by providing supportive information and telephone numbers for additional resources. The photographs portray young women as empowered, not victimized. This project seeks to change society by changing both the ways in which girls think about and negotiate sexuality and the manner in which society views and treats young women. The posters were printed in editions of 1000 and distributed to health clinics and places teens frequent, as well as being wheat-pasted in city streets and (illicitly) posted on mass transit. They occasionally appear in art galleries.

I initiated the Girl Germs poster project as a founding member of the Coalition for Positive Sexuality (CPS). CPS is a grassroots, progressive, sex-education organization providing for teens. I proposed the Girl Germs project to CPS in order to produce public art works that hope to influence social change. I believe that artistic works of this nature are only successful when created with the support and input of the community they intend to serve. Thus, Girl Germs needed the backing of a group like CPS to provide resources, credibility, distribution channels, and funding access. The posters were also informed by an ever-changing group of teenage girls who functioned as project advisors, models, and focus group members. I functioned in this project as facilitator, photographer, designer, and production coordinator. 

The Girl Germs project was made possible, in part, by grants from the Girl's Best Friend Foundation and the Ms. Foundation. Most of these posters are still available for a mere $5.00 donation to CPS:  www.positive.org