Aids

9 Pages 2205 Words

s deadly disease?
The two main forms of preventing AIDS from sexual transmission were abstinence and the use of male condoms. Abstinence was fine for people who weren’t sexually active, but for the majority of sexually active people condoms were the preferred method. An article in The Village Voice showed promise for a “super” condom. The article hailed “condoms capable of preventing transmission of HIV, the virus thought to cause AIDS (Fettner 22).” These condoms were not like “normal” latex condoms. They were impregnated with antimicrobial drugs that would kill many sexually transmitted diseases including HIV. The condom was said to “render HIV harmless by preventing the virus from replicating (Fettner 22).” The new condoms however, did not catch on like the manufacturers had hoped. Instead, plain latex condoms with no additives became the norm. An article in Newsweek by Barbara Kantrowitz stated, “Condoms seem to be the most reliable form of protection against the AIDS virus, which!
is transmitted through exposure to the blood or sexual secretions of infected people (Kantrowitz 40).”
Condom sales rose from $182 million in 1980 to an astonishing $338 million in 1986 (Kantrowitz 1986). Men not only bought condoms, over half of all condom sales in the United States were by women (Kantrowitz 1986). Safe sex became an issue for men and women alike. Among the homosexual community safe sex was being embraced even more. People began wearing large safety pins on their clothes to signal that they practice safe sex (Kantrowitz 1986). Prostitutes began to promote the idea of never having sex without a condom. A prostitute in Edinburgh, London states: “my life is not to be bought. Clients will offer 20 pounds or more extra for sex without a condom (Sanders 23)...