What was yesterday again?
Yesterday was World AIDS Day. I don’t think most people knew that; I nearly missed it myself. I remember when it was a much bigger deal, though.
It was about 20 years ago, I was part of what some called a stupid stunt, others called a brave, ingenious act to spread awareness. I was on staff of the Traveler, the University of Arkansas student newspaper, and in a special AIDS Week edition we inserted a condom in every copy of the paper.
You read right, an individually-wrapped rubber went into each copy, with the paper folded around it. It was wild seeing the wholesale boxes of hundreds of condoms, and it took a lot of work to “load” the many copies of the paper by hand. Many jokes were made, and not just on campus. News spread across the state, and USA Today even mentioned it. The chairman of the Journalism department resigned in protest, a token action since he was due to retire anyway. He had opposed the condom insertion, thinking it beneath professional journalists, but University policy was that the faculty could not interfere with the student paper editor’s decisions unless an actual law would be violated.
The paper had articles related to the theme, and an editorial explaining what this was all about - not some wacky free-love invitation to hedonism, but actually a call for personal responsibility and concern for everyone’s health. The very serious underlying reason for this stunt was that the county wherein the University lay had one of the highest HIV infection rates by population in the country. And this was in an era when AIDS was still considered a death sentence. Not only no cure, but few treatments, and they were barely slowing the disease down, if at all.
The fear was real. It had extinguished the sexual revolution in the 80s, leaving behind the nervous uncertainty that would give emotional heft to the musical “Rent.” It had the government scrambling -- once the Reagan administration admitted it had a problem, potentially a crisis, and it wouldn’t stay hidden in the closet with its (at first) mostly-gay victims.
I contributed a column to that infamous edition of the Traveler, writing about my experience with the Army’s first round of HIV blood testing, and how they lost my initial results so that I had to be tested a second time. Second tests were usually for those with positive results, I wrote, making me wonder if in some small way I was marked with a scarlet letter. The second test was negative, and nothing more came of it, but I later felt inclined to help with the cause as best I could. My vampire live-role-play club took on the local AIDS agency as our designated charity. We volunteered to help with a display of the NAMES quilt.
It was years later, in the late 1990s --- not that long ago - that I attended a World AIDS Day ceremony in Little Rock, at a park where an AIDS memorial was being dedicated. The speaker was former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, who informed us that the CDC had just downgraded AIDS from “terminal” to “chronic.” The news was greeted with some degree of relief. The classification was similar to that for diabetes. It was possible to live with HIV, though it was still uncured and potentially deadly.
But it seems there is an unintended consequence of that change. Every year we hear less about our friends and neighbors dying of AIDS. Every year Magic Johnson, the most high-profile of infected celebrities, looks healthy as ever (though he likely is suffering in private). We usually refer to it by the name of the virus, HIV, than the overall disorder, which seems to add to the shift in attitude. In the public mind, AIDS kills, but HIV is manageable.
The focus on the pandemic is now on the frighteningly-high infection rates in Africa. But from an American perspective, we can’t help but think of it as “over there.” AIDS has changed from a “gay problem” to an “African problem,” still not thought of as touching mainstream U.S.A.
I even read a few years ago that there is a flippant attitude towards HIV/AIDS among young gays - to the horror of those who watched their friends and lovers die a generation ago - including a subculture of “bug-chasers” who see infection as a sort of gay rite of passage.
So we come to Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2010, and remember that it’s another Hump Day, a busy shopping day with Christmas coming on, at sundown the start of Hanukkah… Oh, and I think it’s also AIDS day - where did I put my red-ribbon pin?
- - -
Aside from being my thoughts on the occasion, this also works as my "Home Game" entry in LJ Idol, Topic: Afterthought. (It will not be considered for voting; these will.)
It was about 20 years ago, I was part of what some called a stupid stunt, others called a brave, ingenious act to spread awareness. I was on staff of the Traveler, the University of Arkansas student newspaper, and in a special AIDS Week edition we inserted a condom in every copy of the paper.
You read right, an individually-wrapped rubber went into each copy, with the paper folded around it. It was wild seeing the wholesale boxes of hundreds of condoms, and it took a lot of work to “load” the many copies of the paper by hand. Many jokes were made, and not just on campus. News spread across the state, and USA Today even mentioned it. The chairman of the Journalism department resigned in protest, a token action since he was due to retire anyway. He had opposed the condom insertion, thinking it beneath professional journalists, but University policy was that the faculty could not interfere with the student paper editor’s decisions unless an actual law would be violated.
The paper had articles related to the theme, and an editorial explaining what this was all about - not some wacky free-love invitation to hedonism, but actually a call for personal responsibility and concern for everyone’s health. The very serious underlying reason for this stunt was that the county wherein the University lay had one of the highest HIV infection rates by population in the country. And this was in an era when AIDS was still considered a death sentence. Not only no cure, but few treatments, and they were barely slowing the disease down, if at all.
The fear was real. It had extinguished the sexual revolution in the 80s, leaving behind the nervous uncertainty that would give emotional heft to the musical “Rent.” It had the government scrambling -- once the Reagan administration admitted it had a problem, potentially a crisis, and it wouldn’t stay hidden in the closet with its (at first) mostly-gay victims.
I contributed a column to that infamous edition of the Traveler, writing about my experience with the Army’s first round of HIV blood testing, and how they lost my initial results so that I had to be tested a second time. Second tests were usually for those with positive results, I wrote, making me wonder if in some small way I was marked with a scarlet letter. The second test was negative, and nothing more came of it, but I later felt inclined to help with the cause as best I could. My vampire live-role-play club took on the local AIDS agency as our designated charity. We volunteered to help with a display of the NAMES quilt.
It was years later, in the late 1990s --- not that long ago - that I attended a World AIDS Day ceremony in Little Rock, at a park where an AIDS memorial was being dedicated. The speaker was former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, who informed us that the CDC had just downgraded AIDS from “terminal” to “chronic.” The news was greeted with some degree of relief. The classification was similar to that for diabetes. It was possible to live with HIV, though it was still uncured and potentially deadly.
But it seems there is an unintended consequence of that change. Every year we hear less about our friends and neighbors dying of AIDS. Every year Magic Johnson, the most high-profile of infected celebrities, looks healthy as ever (though he likely is suffering in private). We usually refer to it by the name of the virus, HIV, than the overall disorder, which seems to add to the shift in attitude. In the public mind, AIDS kills, but HIV is manageable.
The focus on the pandemic is now on the frighteningly-high infection rates in Africa. But from an American perspective, we can’t help but think of it as “over there.” AIDS has changed from a “gay problem” to an “African problem,” still not thought of as touching mainstream U.S.A.
I even read a few years ago that there is a flippant attitude towards HIV/AIDS among young gays - to the horror of those who watched their friends and lovers die a generation ago - including a subculture of “bug-chasers” who see infection as a sort of gay rite of passage.
So we come to Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2010, and remember that it’s another Hump Day, a busy shopping day with Christmas coming on, at sundown the start of Hanukkah… Oh, and I think it’s also AIDS day - where did I put my red-ribbon pin?
- - -
Aside from being my thoughts on the occasion, this also works as my "Home Game" entry in LJ Idol, Topic: Afterthought. (It will not be considered for voting; these will.)