There is no room for sexual morality in an honest conversation about Aids

Campaigns concentrating on those at high risk of infection can promote denial, shame and a false sense of security

Helen Epstein
Thursday August 9, 2007
The Guardian

"What can be done? One thing that we can do is explore what happened in places where the epidemic did turn around. I've been thinking about this for nearly 15 years, and it's become increasingly clear to me that the key to fighting Aids lies in something for which public health has no name or programme. It is best described as a sense of solidarity, compassion and mutual aid that is impossible to quantify or measure. It has to be this way. Because our sexuality is shaped by society and because sex itself involves more than one person, behaviour change is a collective act, not one of individuals acting alone. That's the reason why social mobilisation is so important. And that's also why HIV prevention is so difficult.

But sometimes it works. Almost as soon as the first bulletins about a new disease affecting homosexual men appeared in US newspapers in 1981, the entire gay community rose up against it. Gays argued about bathhouses and condoms; they chained themselves to government buildings to protest official inaction; they nursed their dying friends. If you visit the Aids section of any library, you'll find a wall of literature from that time: poems, plays, memoirs, art books, philosophical essays. It was like a mass conversation. During this period, a huge shift in sexual norms occurred, and the incidence of HIV infection fell by about 80%."

To read the full article click here:There is no room for sexual morality in an honest conversation about Aids