Aids Can Also Be a Good Method for Intimidation

Have you also got the feeling that AIDS is (too) often being used for spreading these and other phobias?

AIDS can be used as a metaphor for a number of marginalised groups. In Japan, for example, AIDS is connected with foreigners, particularly Asian prostitutes who supposedly spread it to Japan. In that way, of course, xenophobia is incited. In the USA, conservative Christian moralists used AIDS to promote their views on morals and sexuality.

Aids is a constant topic of political discussions

According to the history of medicine about AIDS and political discussions about it, there’s the prevailing thesis that AIDS is a result of “uncontrolled promiscuity and sexual debauchery of homosexuals”. For that reason, fidelity and abstinence were often promoted as the most effective medication for the disease. In a way, this is also a defence strategy of the system because the “straight” moral code is foisted on people instead of allowing them to have other desires.

The first name was GRID

In the early stages of the disease, medical experts used the name GRID (Gay Related Immune Disorder) for the set of symptoms related to AIDS, whereas the terms “gay plague” or “gay cancer” were used in everyday language, which created an impression that homosexual people are the only “risky group”. These terms were promoted despite the fact that intravenous drug users already showed similar symptoms in the 1970s.

At that time, doctors reported about an increasing number of deaths caused by “junkie  pneumonia”. Even when women started dying because of similar symptoms (from 1981 to 1986), it was generally believed that homosexual people are the main risky group – wrongdoers and victims.

AIDS as the new term

In July 1982, the disease was officially termed Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). At the same time, state officials knew that AIDS can also be contracted by intravenous drug users – there were a lot of new cases among heterosexuals in Haiti, in the USA. Reports about similar cases were already identified in 1969, while a case of the disease was reported in England in 1959. The equation of the epidemic with homosexuality, which appeared with the first diagnosis of HIV/AIDS in gay men, continued and intensified the hatred towards homosexual people.

Hatred towards homosexual people

This hatred has a strong impact on the development of the public policy. Owing to a high risk, presidents generally avoid new and unexplained health problems in elections. For example, Reagan administration was irresponsible to ignore the AIDS epidemic in accordance with their Christian conservative views for the first seven years.

This policy put a stop to the research on infections, diseases and treatment, subjected people infected with AIDS to discrimination, and failed to ensure a sufficient number of preventive educational programmes, which resulted in an increasing number of infected people. Reagan’s policy on AIDS was the product of indifference, ignorance, contempt and political capitulation to religious republican voters.

Influence of conservative sexual morals

The occurrence of AIDS, on the other hand, forced many state legislative authorities to start addressing the phenomenon of homosexuality, even though they called upon people only to abstain from sexual intercourse. For example, priests Pat Roberson and Jerry Fallwell described gays as ill sinners and promoted the idea that AIDS is God’s punishment and that the activities of the gay movement should be terminated.

The White House Secretary of Education, William Bennett, and his adviser, Gary Bauer tried to fulfil these requirements and thus achieved that the research on AIDS wasn’t largely funded by the state. Also, conservatives turned the fact that AIDS spread among heterosexual people to their advantage: they believed that they discovered the weapon to restore the traditional sexual morals. Thus, their vision of a better world was accepted, where homosexuality remains hidden from the public and where monogamy is worshipped, while sexual conduct is subject the law.

Conservatives continued ignoring intravenous drug users, as the use of drugs supposedly had no connection with chastity and monogamy. Stigmatisation of homosexuality continued despite the fact that, at that time, homosexual people were the most active and efficient in warning against risks and emphasising the need for preventive action.

Read more about homosexuality in the Encyclopedia of Sexuality.