First, Homophobia; Next, a Sexual Police State--for All
It’s axiomatic that a lie repeated often enough becomes truth. It was Josef Stalin who said, “Paper will take anything that’s written on it.” Lately the opinion pages of newspapers have been littered with statements about the alleged irresponsibility of the gay community in stopping the spread of AIDS. This would be funny if it were not so tragic. The gay community is still the only group in society that has gotten serious about slowing the spread of the AIDS virus, and currently represents society’s first and only line of defense.
The most commonly repeated slur of the big-lie campaign against gay men says that they are putting the maintenance of their “life style” above stopping AIDS. All the studies show that gay men have drastically altered their sexual behavior--83% in one Los Angeles survey. The venereal-disease rates among gay men have plummeted while the rate of heterosexual transmission soars to record levels. Anyone who is involved in behavior modification can tell you that an 80+% response is phenomenal. When you are talking about sex, the most personal of all behaviors, it is historic.
It is just this example by gay men that must be brought to the community at large, particularly to teen-agers, who account for 1 million pregnancies each year. Each act of intercourse that results in pregnancy can also potentially transmit the AIDS virus.
Our strategy for slowing AIDS is to persuade people to practice the safest sex possible, based on conscious and informed choices. That does not leave the issue up to trust. We live in a sexually active society, and each person must take responsibility for protecting himself or herself. Practicing the safest sex possible involves giving up a certain spontaneity, to be sure. But, as gay men have discovered, creativity and communication can make safe sex rewarding.
We must be very clear on our agenda for slowing AIDS. I use slowing because no matter how hard we try, even with a $10-billion saturation advertising campaign, a certain number of people won’t be reached. We have not, however, even begun to get serious about minimizing that number. In a recent Field poll in California, only 41% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 reported taking precautions against AIDS.
Whereas our approach to smoking is to say “just stop!” or to forbid it, we cannot tell people to stop having sex. First, there is the propagation of the species to consider. Second, sex is a natural and essential part of life. Telling people to abstain from sex has not worked for the Catholic Church, and it will not work to stop AIDS. And using AIDS as a tool to enforce some narrow notion of “morality” is a prescription for disaster. Ban sex, and people will respond as guilty children; they’ll simply hide what they do, continuing to put themselves and others at risk.
We hear endless platitudes about monogamy vs. promiscuity. If you’re not monogamous, we’re told, take an AIDS antibody test every six months and you’ll be safe. But what if the test gives a false reading? What if a “clean” partner was just recently infected and is not yet showingantibodies to the virus? And how do you certify that a relationship is monogamous? Who’s going to follow people around at out-of-town conventions?
If we are serious about slowing the spread of this virus, we must set aside moral agendas and agree on one message: Practice the safest sex. Then we have to choose the best marketing strategy: “Safe sex” is the “in” thing. On a public-policy level, slowing AIDS means getting serious about education, research to find a vaccine and a cure, and preparing for the millions who will get sick. We hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
The rights of a despised minority often are considered expendable, but the community at large must ask whether it wants to have AIDS used to set up a sexual tyranny that will eventually oppress all. The moralizers keep counterposing civil liberties to public health. Is setting up a sexual police state going to help slow the spread of AIDS? How crass and evil to use the worst health crisis of the modern era to sell Victorian morality!
The Establishment is so blinded by prejudice against gays that it refuses to see that gays have been waging the war against AIDS singlehandedly. The gay community is at war, and everyone else thinks it’s peacetime. Where are the charity ladies’ clubs, the churches and synagogues, the PTAs? If we wait until 50% of the American public knows someone who has died of AIDS, we are all doomed.
Now the politicians are talking more about mandatory testing than research, treatment and a cure--incarcerate a prostitute here, keep immigrants out there, track down contacts. There are 1 million to 2 million infected persons in the United States alone. Through the maliciousness and ineptitude of the Reagan Administration, AIDS has been allowed to spread to the point where micromeasures will no longer do any good.
For years the gay community fought to bring AIDS to the attention of this nation. And the nation turned a deaf ear while thousands upon thousands of lives were sacrificed on the altar of homophobia. Now straight society is learning, too--homophobia kills. Rather than scapegoating the gay community, it is time to acknowledge the heroic services that we have provided. It is time to take advantage of the treasure of experience that we embody.
Yes, we are fighting for our lives! No, we will not stop fighting for our rights and the very survival of the gay community! There is no counterposition between civil rights and public health, except in the perverted minds of the bigots.
