Aids

9 Pages 2205 Words

AIDS after 1985 was an astonishing deadly risk for sexually active people as a whole. The days of promiscuity and one-night stands were being re-thought due to the possible contraction of this new disease called AIDS. A fear of sex was brought upon the people and “as the AIDS threat [grew], the mating call [was] no longer ‘free-love,’ but ‘safety first’ (Kantrowitz 40).” AIDS had been thought of as “gay” disease or a disease of intravenous drug users, but as the epidemic grew so did knowledge that AIDS was an epidemic of all people regardless of their class, race, age, or sexual preference. An article in The Village Voice, entitled “The Facts About Straight Sex and AIDS”, answers the questions of whether or not AIDS was a heterosexual disease. When in fact “as early as 1979, Haitian women in Miami were dying of what turned out to be AIDS. In Africa, AIDS [was] primarily a heterosexual disease (Fettner 21).”
Randy Shilts was quoted as saying "This is never going to be a middle-class heterosexual disease (Fettner, 21)." Contrary to Randy Shilts' position, the primary change in the AIDS discourse in 1985 was a shift from a mainly homosexual disease to a homosexual/heterosexual disease. The heterosexual population [including the middle-class] had to acknowledge that they too were too at risk. By 1990 about two-thirds of people with AIDS in the United States contracted the disease from sexual intercourse (Willis 32). Due to this fact condoms became a form of not only birth control but also disease control. Condoms were being promoted as a safe sex device verses its traditional role as a contraceptive. Furthermore, to enhance the appeal of condoms, they were eroticized to make the condom a sexual tool versus a sexual crutch. The popular conception of AIDS was changed to be a disease that heterosexually active people could contract. The new issue was how do we prevent ourselves!
from contracting thi...