The safety pin is more than the latest fashion accessory trend. To many homosexuals it is a symbol for safe sex.

The idea started two years ago when the Gay Men's Health Crisis, a non- profit AIDS education, service and advocacy organization in New York City, chose the safety pin as its symbol for safe sex.

"The idea was: safety pins, safe sex," said spokesman David Winters. Wearing the pins was just another way to promote the idea that safe sexual practices help slow the spread of AIDS, he said.

"I've heard about it from people in New York and San Francisco, but I haven't seen too many people wearing them here," said Bob Kunst, director of Cure AIDS Now in Miami. Although he doesn't wear a pin himself, he said he supports the idea because it is "a conscious recognition in the gay community that there is a legitimate concern for doing things safely if you're going to do them at all."

Orlando actress Miriam P. Saunders spotted the pins during a trip to New York a couple of years ago. "Now I always wear one on my jacket or blue jeans. I encourage my friends to do the same," she said. "Sometimes they're those baby pins decorated with duck or teddy-bear heads. If people ask, I'm real proud to tell them why."

Last year, Saunders and a friend, Andy Geisel, formed a group to stage a jazz concert at the Enzian Theater in Maitland to raise funds for AIDS projects.

Because the group "had to do with AIDS and taking care of yourself," they named it Safety Pin Productions.