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The Gay Plague
Posted by cuteptaguy • 6/02/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: aids, gay, hiv
The Gay Plague
1981 saw the emergence a disease that would change the gay community and later the world’s attitude towards our sexual behavior, lifestyle and prejudices. It was 1st described as the Gay Plague; a disease that only affected gay men and was 1st called GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency). During the 80’s the word GRID was replaced with AIDS and this filled people with a horrendous fear as images of dying emaciated gay men were plastered in the media. During this time it was uncertain how the disease was transmitted and it was viewed as a death sentence and was highly stigmatized. Having the Gay Plague was shameful and society alienated you due to fear and ignorance. Now, 28 years later I wonder how much have changed?
warfare-delightful-dreary-life.blogspot.com/
User Comments
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Unforunately, not much has changed. Some of psychiatrists I know still consider homosexuality as a mental illness-
That's truly sad!
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That is very sad. Homosexuality exists beyond Humans within the animal kingdom. -
Even with dolphins and birds, they all exhibit homosexual behaviour...
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u have a great courage to explane any thing about ur life i like it very much u are a confident person -
Thanks Qaisar, I believe the more serious issues I deal with on my blog are important things that people should talk & think about.
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u r welcome this is my blog visit this
www.itworldforu.blogspot.com
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I would like your opinion on this movie (Other side of Aids)
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-266890172132861595-
I will check it out.
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Very thought provoking movie, also quite scary how little we actually know about the tests that done.
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thanks for checking out
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Seeing "The Gay Plague" makes me think something completely different than "disease that only affected gay men". "The Gay Plague" sounds like a disease that turns men gay.
Imagine the movie trailer:
"In a world where the men start dressing better, but the birthrate starts decreasing at an ever greater rate..."-
LoL, you'll see a lot of heterosexual people run scared!
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LoL, you'll see a lot of heterosexual people run scared!
Or becoming fabulous! -
Friday13, Ha! LOL
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Well living in a third world country I can tell you that the highest infection rates are among women now, usually transmited to them by their partner or spouse. People are definetly still not practicing safe sex, usually due to ignorance and cultural predjudice. The problem is then agravated because most people dont have access to the meds needed to ensure quality of life.-
Poverty also has a lot to do with the spread of HIV I have found in South Africa and other African countries and the lack of education. Women, like you said, are the most vulnerable and HIV transmission from mother to child when breast feeding is also a cause of concern due to the lack of access the appropriate medication.
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The Pope didn't help matters either: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/17/pope-africa-condoms-aids
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What country?
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Dammit. The thread title made me want to incite a flame war because I thought a Westboro member joined BC. Then I saw your username.-
Luckily I am not that OTHER Pierre lol
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If your profile information is accurate, you were a young child in 1981. I think historical context is important here. Though there was a lot of prejudice and some high profile religious folks shouting about God's revenge and all that, the ignorance of which you speak was primarily not the sort of ignorance that promotes racism and other prejudice, but an ignorance that was (for the moment) insurmountable: accurate medical information simply was not available. To suggest that things haven't changed much suggests that you don't remember (or were too young to know) how things were in those early days when no one was really certain how the disease was conveyed and there were no effective treatments.-
I was still very young then, but I did some research before writing the post. Like I said a lot has changed due to us now having a better understanding of the disease. I had long discussions with some of my elders in the gay community who lost many friends during that time. Some stories were truly shocking and sad.
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I definitely agree with that. My lifelong best friend was a young gay man in California in the 80s and in 5-10 years watched more people die than most of us will in a lifetime. Resources were scarce, people who might have helped were afraid to get too close, and there was a certain "you brought this on yourself" attitude adopted by many people. But having seen a lot of that in the moment and as it evolved, I truly believe that most of it was born of nothing more or less than fear of a terrible, fatal disease with no cure.
Have you ever noticed that when a young child drowns or suffocates in a hot car or wanders into traffic, the first thing many people say is "Why wasn't someone watching her?" or "I can't believe they had that pool in their back yard, uncovered, with a three-year-old in the house!" or any of a hundred other things that really mean "I need to maintain the illusion that this couldn't happen to my child, and the surest way to do that is to blame it on a behavior I'd never engage in". I don't think it's even conscious, just a way that human's have of falsely convincing themselves that the world is safe and under control again.
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Personally I don't think of homosexuality and AIDS in the same thought anymore. Enough hetero's are getting it, too. What amazes me is that recreational sex and "friends with benefits" and unprotected sex abounds. With AIDS going around, I would think we need to become more conservative with our behavior. Didn't a man in California just get convicted of assault with a deadly weapon because he had unprotected sex with several women (now infected too) even though he knew he had HIV?
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BusyLozzy,
You should check out the video I posted above
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MadameX I totally agree with you. The irony of that is that at some point in our lives we are all guilty of doing that exact same thing and having that mentality. Only once we become more sensitive to it can we change our own behavior, attitude and make a positive influence on other people's lives.
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the pta in your name stands for Pretoria, right?-
Yes I live in Pretoria.
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Thought so. I'm in Cape Town.
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SweetVoilet I saw on your profile, glad you like South Africa! It's a beautiful but sometimes trouble country, and like you said a wonderful mix between 1st & 3rd world country. We have most of the luxuries of the 1st world but most of the problems of the 3rd world.
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Change takes time. I am happy to see that SA's government does not discriminate against gay people and that gender equality is part of the constitution. You are light years ahead of the US in this regard. I think SA is moving in the right direction and I'm here for the long haul. I brought more than R2M with me when I moved here (I sold my house in Silicon Valley) and have invested in property and government bonds here. I am confident this place will soar and that I will live long enough to see it.
SA Rocks!
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SweetViolet I agree with you South Africa has a bright future but it will take time and lots of hard work. We have one of the best constitutions in the world and the Mandela's and Tutu's are not true African Icons but a great example to the rest of the world. I hope Obama will soon join in their ranks as a great Icon of change and leader!
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I loved that movie..And the Band Marches On. HIV is still thought of as a 'gay' disease. I think this is just straight people's way of excusing their irresponsible contribution to the spread of STD's and tendency to have unprotected sex.-
At a point in the thread someone mentioned poverty as a factor in the spread of AIDS. True but not irreversible.
Being from Haiti I can tell you that in a little more than 10 years the number of people being infected has steadily decreased changing from one of the highest to one of the lowest in the third-world. This was achievable thanks to an efficient and widespread education campaign.
Those interested can view a few related campaign ads on my blog. Just search for AIDS on the site.
Richard
www.filmhaiti.com
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@rsenecal I mentioned poverty being related to the spread of HIV. Education and empowerment are the most effective weapons we currently have at combating HIV. Glad to see that there is some good progress being made in Haiti!
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BTW: Thanks for the feedback!
However, I must say I am sill disappointed that so few people are actually willing to discuss the issue of HIV in an open forum.
Whether your are HIV+ or HIV- I still am at loss as to why people fear to engage on the subject matter honestly and openly even after 28 years!-
"However, I must say I am sill disappointed that so few people are actually willing to discuss the issue of HIV in an open forum."
Honestly, what exactly are you wanting? I don't think people aren't *willing* to discuss the issue, I think most people just aren't as interested in the issue as you are.
I mean, I'm really interested in talking about Dungeons & Dragons (yes, I'm a geek), but how big a discussion would I generate by bringing it up on a general forum, like this? Would the lack of response and discussion mean that people are shunning the topic? Or maybe it would be because it's a very niche topic that most people just aren't interested in.
HIV is not a common "issue." For instance, it has zero effect on my life, or the life of anyone I know. Cancer, on the other hand, is an "issue" that exists in my life (someone in my family has been battling it). But I don't go looking for people to talk about it on general forums. I also don't interpret the lack of discussion as a general unwillingness to discuss it.
For the vast majority of the populace, HIV is just not an issue in their normal lives. The space program has more relevance in their daily lives.
So, I'm not saying it isn't a serious issue for some people, or for you specifically. Nor am I saying it isn't an issue worth discussing. I'm just saying you shouldn't think a lack of discussion on it is because people are unwilling to discuss it, or are shunning discussion on it.
It's just not a subject most people on a general forum have any interest in. Sorry.
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A friend of mine send me and e-mail in which he provided me with some interesting facts about the HIV virus that I never knew.
He wrote:
Many do not realize that in the last few years it has become possible not only to determine whether HIV is present in a blood or plasma sample, but also to determine the particular subtype of the virus. Studying the subtype of virus of some of the earliest known instances of HIV infection has provided clues about the time it first appeared in humans and its subsequent evolution.
Initially, four of the earliest known instances of HIV infection were thought to be as follows:
1. A plasma sample taken in 1959 from an adult male living in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
2. A lymph node sample taken in 1960 from an adult female, also from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
3. HIV found in tissue samples from an American teenager who died in St. Louis in 1969.
4. HIV found in tissue samples from a Norwegian sailor who died around 1976.
In January 2000, the results of a new study suggested that the first case of HIV-1 infection occurred around 1931 in West Africa. This estimate (which had a 15 year margin of error) was based on a complex computer model of HIV's evolution.
However, a study in 2008 dated the origin of HIV to between 1884 and 1924, much earlier than previous estimates. The researchers compared the viral sequence from 1959 (the oldest known HIV-1 specimen) to the newly discovered sequence from 1960. They found a significant genetic difference between them, demonstrating diversification of HIV-1 occurred long before the AIDS pandemic was recognised. -
As bad as this sounds, I think Michael Johnson getting aids was the best thing for people with the disease. It showed that even a very macho hetro man can get it.-
Lol, that does sound pretty bad.
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I remember saying it at the time and almost getting my butt kicked. On the positive side, it was probably the first time some gym teacher types were defending someone with aids.
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Yes and I then contested the stereotype that it was an exclusively gay disease.
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Yeah that was absurd. "Judge not, lest they also be judged." -
My mom was a phlebotomist in the early 1980's when the HIV virus was just showing up. Oddly enough, the things she told me back around 1983 or so were all correct in terms of how it spread and what to do to protect yourself. It took the rest of the world about twenty years to catch up.-
Weird how that happens - how long it takes for the correct information to reach people.
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