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From: joe@emacs.UUCP (Joe Chapman)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Media accounts of AIDS, and a brief digression
Message-ID: <102@emacs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-Oct-85 22:49:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: emacs.102
Posted: Wed Oct  2 22:49:03 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Oct-85 15:11:10 EDT
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Recent reading: Harper's for October has a panel discussion on AIDS that
is one of the most coherent and intelligent presentations on the subject
I can remember seeing in the media over the past several months.
Some quotes:

Gary McDonald (AIDS Action Council): ``Look, I think the moment may have
arrived to desexualize this disease.  AIDS is not a ``gay disease,''
despite its epidemiology.  Yet we homosexualize it, and by doing so end
up posing the wrong questions.  There is no evidence to support the
notion that gay men in general are immunocompromised because they engage
in anal intercourse, despite the fact that semen itself may be immuno-
suppresive in some circumstances.  And gay men have been doing this for
centuries with no dire consequences.''

Mervyn Silverman (a consultant) (no joke): ``... And there are certainly
erotic and exciting sexual activities that do not entail an exchange of
body fluids.  Use your imagination.''

Ann Giudici Fettner (New York Native): ``Use your imagination?  What
kind of educational message is that?''

Mathew Shebar (Gay Men's Health Crisis): ``Margaret Heckler ... I call
her the secretary of health and heterosexual services.''

Along (alas) lines more typical of the media of the Republic, the
magazine New York for the 7th inst. purports to bear within its pages
``The Last Word on Avoiding AIDS''.  Some good material---a little
better than the Enquirer's coverage---particularly with regard to
catching the disease through casual contact.  On the other hand, as soon
as New York enters the bedroom things go a little haywire.  There are a
few choice nuggets: a sidebar labelled THE NEW SEXUAL ETIQUETTE advises:
``If you're a single woman, remember---no casual sex ever again,'' says
one expert. ``Know your partner.  Know whether he ever had a homosexual
experience or used injected drugs in the past eight years.''

One unworthy identified only as ``Kaplan of the Human Sexuality Program
at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center'' [ I assume he wears a
trenchcoat and introduces himself as ``Kaplan of the Center'' ] refers
to ``these high-risk people, these Typhoid Marys''.  It's possible he
meant this as a dish.  If he did, this is the only dish in the article.

The magazine is hardly worth dashing out and buying for the article in
question.  I myself bought it to get the show times for ``Vampire
Lesbians of Sodom'', a play which sounds oddly like the Attack of the
Killer Tomatoes remade for the Village.  A report of which, subject to
its intrinsic merit, the availability of tickets, and the fickle whims
of my fair traveling companion, may be forthcoming...

--
-- Joe Chapman	joe@cca-unix	decvax!cca!emacs!joe
	"I'd be a narcissist, but I'm not my type"