IronLionZion wrote:You're a little late for the festivities, dlowan.
nah - watching all along - just no time to post - and others were doing a great job re what I wanted to say...
I guess as a sort of aside, we in the west were very affected, I think, by the fact that, when AIDS came to us, the gay male "Summer of Love" in a few cities - like San Francisco - gave it a perfect growing ground for a while. Despite some apathy, in relation to funding etc., caused by its being a "gay plague" in the USA, the fact that the basics of prevention were known - and beginning to be practiced by the gay community in such cities (a generally well educated and aware group) meant that the heterosexual community - with its happenchance slight protection against the disease - was able to be educated and begin to change sexual behaviour (condoms were NOT popular at the time!!!!) before a huge population of infected largely heterosexual people developed that was big enough to trigger the feared epidemic.
Countries like Australia were fortunate - in a sad and macabre way - to have the example of the US to examine, since we followed a little behind - and, while our gay male community suffered greatly, the epidemic was better managed, treated and educated against.
Sadly, I understand that infection rates mongst all sexual orientations here are up a little again - as people forget the toll taken by AIDS earlier - and consider the disease both treatable and unlikely.
Ironically, the message, if there is one in AIDS, would seem to be to be a non-needle-sharing lesbian.
I recall being asked to go and work in the AIDS area in Sydney. The doctor heading up the program at the time was a friend. I think one of the dsaddest things I ever saw was at the place he shared with his lover in inner Sydney when I stayed there.
Who remembers "The Joy of Sex"? Well, in the library there was "The Joy of Gay Sex" - published just before the epidemic hit. The book was a celebration of new gay freedom and pride. At the very end, there was a tiny paragraph - added just before publication - mentioning anxiously the rise of a new cluster of illnesses, which were being tentatively linked to some gay male sexual practices...it made me cry, actually - because by then the the sexual freedoms described in the book were history, many were dead, and the kind of horrid backlash which inspired this thread had attempted to link the disease with some kind of punishment of gay men, just to make a horrible situation worse. It made me want to spit then, this stupid prejudice, and to see it still around makes me want to spit harder.
C'est la vie...
