Name/Title
(1997) c. Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe, Küssen: Geil und safe, Ingo Taubhorn Photograph, GermanyDescription
Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe e.V., Küssen: Geil und safe, c. 1997
HIV prevention and safer-sex education poster
Photographer: Ingo Taubhorn
Graphic design: trash line design
Publisher: Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe e.V.
Country: Germany
Offset-lithographic poster, approximately 59.2 × 41.9 cm
This German HIV-prevention poster depicts an extreme close-up of two adult men kissing. Their faces occupy almost the entire composition, emphasizing lips, facial hair, skin texture, and physical intimacy. The tight cropping removes setting and personal context, directing attention to the kiss itself as both an erotic act and the subject of the prevention message.
The vertical word Küssen means “kissing.” The slogan Geil und safe can be translated as “hot and safe” or “sexy and safe.” The German word geil carries both an explicitly sexual meaning—“aroused,” “horny,” or “hot”—and a colloquial sense of “great” or “cool.” The phrase therefore presents kissing as simultaneously desirable and safe in relation to HIV transmission.
Published by Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe e.V., the poster reflects the organization’s sex-positive and community-based approach to HIV prevention. Rather than associating gay sexuality with danger or demanding sexual withdrawal, it distinguishes a safe sexual practice and restores it to the sphere of pleasure. The image also functions as an assertion of gay visibility: a large-scale representation of two men kissing is presented in public space with the authority of a national health organization.
The poster was photographed by Ingo Taubhorn, a German photographer and curator who produced several campaigns for Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe concerning gay identity, HIV-positive relationships, discrimination, solidarity, and sexual life. Graphic design is credited to trash line design, which worked on multiple AIDS-Hilfe campaigns during the period.
The Wellcome Collection holds both a full-size example and a postcard version. The postcard is provisionally dated 1997; the poster itself is catalogued more broadly to the 1990s. In the absence of a printed year or surviving campaign documentation, circa 1997 is the most defensible current date.Create Date
July 29, 2025Update Date
October 15, 2026