How To Have Promiscuity in An Epidemic PDF

How to Have Promiscuity in an Epidemic
Author(s): Douglas Crimp

Source: October, Vol. 43, AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism (Winter, 1987), pp. 237-
271
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3397576 .
Accessed: 18/01/2014 10:16
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to October.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
How to Have Promiscuity
in an Epidemic
DOUGLAS CRIMP
-AIDS: Questions and Answers

-AIDS: Get the Facts
-AIDS: Don't Die of Ignorance
The sloganeeringof AIDS education campaigns suggeststhat knowledge
about AIDS is readilyavailable, easily acquired, and undisputed. Anyone who
has sought to learn the "facts," however,knowsjust how hard it is to get them.
Since the beginningof the epidemic, one of the veryfew sources of up-to-date
informationon all aspectsof AIDS has been the gay press,but thisis a factthatno
education campaign (except those emanating from gay organizations)will tell
you. As Simon Watneyhas noted, the Britishgovernmentban on gay materials
coming fromthe US until late in 1986 meant, in effect,that people in the UK
were legallyprohibitedfromlearningabout AIDS duringa crucial period. The
ban also meantthatthe BritishDepartmentof Health had to sneak Americangay
publications into the countryin diplomatic pouches in order to prepare the
Thatcher government'sbullying"Don't Die of Ignorance" campaign.1
Among informationsources, perhaps the most acclaimed is the New York
Native,which has published news about AIDS virtuallyevery week since 1982.
But, although during the early years a number of leading medical reporters
wroteforthe newspaperand provided essentialinformation,the Native'soverall
record on AIDS is not so admirable. Like other tabloids,the Nativeexploitsthe
conflationof sex, fear,disease, and death in order to sell millionsof newspapers.
Banner headlines with grim predictions,new theories of "cause" and "cure,"
and scandals of scientificinfightingcombine with soft-coreshots of hot male
bodies to insure that we will rush to plunk down our two dollars for this ex-
tremelythinpublication.One curiousaspect of these headlinesover the past few
yearsis thattheynearlyalwaysrefernot to a major news or featurestory,but to a
short editorial column by the newspaper's publisher Charles Ortleb. These
1. AIDS, and theMedia, Minneapolis,University

See Simon Watney,PolicingDesire:Pornography,
of Minnesota Press, 1987, p. 13.

238 CRIMP
weeklydiatribesagainstthe likesof RobertGallo of the National Cancer Institute

and AnthonyFauci of the National InstituteforAllergyand InfectiousDiseases
mightappear to be manifestations of a healthyskepticismtoward establishment
science, but Ortleb's distrust takes an odd form. Rather than performinga
political analysis of the ideology of science, Ortleb merely touts the crackpot
theory of the week, championing whoever is the latestoutcastfromthe worldof
academic and governmentresearch. Never wantingto concede that establish-
mentsciencecould be rightabout the "cause" of AIDS -which is now generally
(if indeed skeptically)assumed to be the retrovirusdesignated HIV-Ortleb
latches onto any alternativetheory: African Swine Fever Virus, Epstein-Barr
Virus, reactivatedsyphilis.2The genuine concern by informedpeople thata full
acceptance of HIV as thecause of AIDS limitsresearch options, especiallyre-
gardingpossiblecofactors,is magnifiedand distortedby Ortleb intoad hominem
vilificationof anyone who assumesforthe momentthatHIV is the likelyprimary
causal agent of AIDS and ARC. Among the Native's maverickheroes in this
controversyabout originsis the BerkeleybiochemistPeter Duesberg, who is so
confidentthat HIV is harmlessthat he has claimed to be unafraidof injectingit
intohis veins.When asked by VillageVoicereporterAnn Giudici Fettnerwhathe
does think is causing the epidemic, Duesberg replied, "We don't have a new
disease. It's a collectionof [old] diseases caused bya lifestylethatwas criminal20
yearsago. Combined withbathhouses,all theseinfectionsgo withlifestyles which
enhance them."3As Fettnernotes,thisis "a stunningregressionto 1982," when
AIDS was presumed to be a consequence of "the gay life-style."
A scientistpushing"the gay life-style"as the cause of AIDS in 1987 might
seem a strange sort of hero for a gay newspaper to be celebrating,but then
anyone who has read theNativeregularlywillhave noted that,forOrtleb too, sex
has been the real culprit all along. And, in this, Ortleb is not alone among
powerful gay journalists. He is joined in this belief not only by right-wing
politicians and ideologues, but by Randy Shilts, AIDS reporter for the San
FranciscoChronicle and author of And theBand PlayedOn, the bestsellingbook on
AIDS.4 That this book is pernicious has already been noted by many people
workingin the struggleagainst AIDS. For anyone suspiciousof "mainstream"
American culture, it might seem enough simply to note that the book is a
bestseller,that it has been highlypraised throughoutthe dominant media, or,
even more damning,that the book has been optioned for a TV miniseriesby
Esther Shapiro, writerand producer of Dynasty.For some, the fact that Larry
2. For an overviewof theoriesof the cause of AIDS, see Robert Lederer, "Origin and Spread of
AIDS: Is the West Responsible?" CovertAction,no. 28 (Summer 1987), pp. 43-54; and no. 29
(Winter 1988), pp. 52-65.
3. Quoted in Ann Giudici Fettner, "Bad Science Makes Strange Bedfellows," Village Voice,
February2, 1988, p. 25.
4. Randy Shilts,And theBand Played On: Politics,People,and theAIDS Epidemic,New York, St.
Martin'sPress, 1987. Page numbersforall citationsfromthe book appear in parenthesesin the text.

How toHave Promiscuity
in an Epidemic 239
Krameris said to be vyingforthejob of scriptwriter of the serieswilladd to these

suspicions(whoever reads the book will note that, any case, the adaptationwill
in
be an easy task,since it is already written,effectively, as a miniseries).The fact
thatShiltsplaces blame forthe spread of AIDS equally on the Reagan Adminis-
tration,various governmentagencies, the scientificand medical establishments,
and thegay community, is reason enough for many of us to condemn the book.
And theBand PlayedOn is predicatedon a seriesof oppositions;it is, firstand
foremost,a storyof heroes and villains,of common sense against prejudice, of
rationalityagainst irrationality;it is also an account of scientificadvance versus
politicalmaneuvering,public health versuscivilrights,a safeblood supplyversus
blood-bankingindustryprofits, homosexuals versus heterosexuals, hard cold
factsversus what Shiltscalls AIDSpeak.
We mightassume we know what is meant by this neologism: AIDSpeak
would be, forexample, "the AIDS test,""AIDS victims,""promiscuity."But no,
Shilts employs these imprecise,callous, or moralizingtermsjust as do all his
fellow mainstreamjournalists,withoutquotation marks,withoutapology. For
Shilts,AIDSpeak is, instead,a language inventedto cover up the truth.An early
indicationof whatShiltsthinksthislanguage is appears in his account of theJune
5, 1981, articlein the Morbidity and Mortality WeeklyReportabout cases of Pneu-
mocystis in
pneumonia gay men. Shilts writes:
The report appeared . . . not on page one of the MMWR but in a
more inconspicuoussloton page two. Any referenceto homosexuality
was dropped fromthe title,and the headline simplyread: Pneumocystis
pneumonia- Los Angeles.
Don't offendthe gaysand don't inflamethe homophobes.These
were the twinhornson whichthe handlingof thisepidemic would be
torn fromthe firstday of the epidemic. Inspired by the best inten-
tions, such argumentspaved the road toward the destinationgood
intentionsinevitablylead (pp. 68-69).
It was a great shock to read thisin 1987, aftersix yearsof headlines about "the
gay plague" and the railingof moralistsabout God's punishmentforsodomy,or,
more recently,statementssuch as "AIDS is no longerjust a gay disease." Lan-
guage destinedto offendgaysand inflamehomophobia has been, fromthe very
beginning-in science, in the media, and in politics-the main language of
AIDS discussion,althoughthe language has been altered at timesin order thatit
would, for example, offendHaitians and inflameracism,or offendwomen and
inflamesexism.But to ShiltsAIDSpeak is not thislanguage guaranteedto offend
and inflame.On the contrary,it is
. . a new language forged by public health officials,anxious gay

politicians,and the burgeoning ranks of "AIDS activists."The lin-
guistic roots of AIDSpeak sprouted not so much from the truthas

240 CRIMP
from what was politicallyfacile and psychologicallyreassuring. Se-

manticswas the major denominatorof AIDSpeak jargon, because the
language went to great lengthsnever to offend.
A new lexicon was evolving. Under the rules of AIDSpeak, for
example, AIDS victimscould not be called victims.Instead, theywere
to be called People With AIDS, or PWAs, as if contractingthis
uniquelybrutal disease was not a victimizingexperience. "Promiscu-
ous" became "sexuallyactive," because gay politiciansdeclared "pro-
miscuous" to be "judgmental,"a major cuss word in AIDSpeak ...
. . . The new syntaxallowed gay politicalleaders to address and
largelydeterminepublic health policy in the coming years, because
public health officialsquicklymasteredAIDSpeak, and it was a funda-
mentallypolitical tongue (p. 315).
Shilts'scontemptfor gay politicalleaders, AIDS activists,and people with
AIDS, and his delusions about theirpower to influencepublic health policyare
deeply revealing of his own politics. But to Shilts,politics is somethingalien,
somethingothershave, and politicalspeech is AIDSpeak. Shiltshas no politics,
onlycommon sense; he speaks onlythe "truth,"even ifthe truthis "brutal," like
being "victimized" by AIDS.
As an immediateresponseto thisview,I willstatemyown politicalposition:
Anything said or doneaboutAIDS thatdoesnotgiveprecedenceto theknowledge, the
needs, and thedemands ofpeoplelivingwith AIDS must be condemned. The passage
fromAnd theBand Played On quoted above-and indeed the entire book-is
writtenin flagrantdisregardforthese people. Their firstprinciple,thattheynot
be called victims,is flauntedby Shilts.I willconcede thatpeople livingwithAIDS
are victimsin one sense: theyhave been and continueto be victimizedbyall those
who will not listen to them, including Randy Shilts. But we cannot stop at
condemnation. Shilts's book is too full of useful information,amassed in part
withthe help of the Freedom of InformationAct, simplyto dismissit. But while
it may be extremelyuseful,it is also extremelydangerous-and thus has to be
read verycritically.
In piecing together his tale of heroes and villains-which intersperses
vignettesabout scientistsfromthe Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the
National Institutesof Health in Bethesda, and the Pasteur Institutein Paris;
doctors with AIDS patients in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles;
blood-banking industryexecutives; various people with AIDS (always white,
usuallygay men livingin San Francisco); officialsin the Departmentof Health
and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration;gay activistsand
AIDS service organization volunteers-Shilts always returnsto a single com-
plaint. With all the people gettingsick and dying,and withall the scandals of
inaction, stonewalling,and infightingthat are arguably the primarycause of
their illness and death, journalists never bothered to investigate.They always

in an Epidemic 241
bought the government'slies, never looked behind those lies to get the "truth."
There was, of course, one exception,the lonelyjournalist for the San Francisco
Chronicleassigned full-timeto the AIDS beat. He is never named, but we know
his name is Randy Shilts,the book's one unqualifiedhero, who appears discreetly
in severalof itsepisodes. Of course, thatjournalistknowsthe reason forthe lack
of investigativezeal on the part of his fellows:the people who were dyingwere
gay men, and mainstreamAmericanjournalistsdon't care what happens to gay
men. Those journalistswould ratherprinthysteria-producing, blame-the-victim
storiesthan uncover the "truth."
So Shilts would printthat truthin And theBand Played On, "investigative
journalism at its best," as the flyleafstates.The book is an extremelydetailed,
virtuallyday-by-dayaccount of the epidemic up to the revelation that Rock
Hudson was dyingof AIDS, the moment,in 1985, when the American media
finallytook notice.5But takingnotice of Rock Hudson was, in itself,a scandal,
because by the timethe Rock Hudson storycaptured the attentionof the media,
Shilts notes, "the number of AIDS cases in the United States had surpassed
12,000 . . . of whom 6,079 had died" (p. 580). Moreover, what constituteda
storyfor the media was only scandal itself:a famous movie star simultaneously
revealed to be gay and to be dyingof AIDS.
How surprised,then,could Shiltshave been that,when his own book was
published, the media once again avoided mention of the six years of political
scandal thatcontributedso significantly to the scope of the AIDS epidemic?that
they were instead intriguedby an altogetherdifferentstory,the one theyhad
been printingall along-the dirty little story of gay male promiscuityand
irresponsibility?
In the press release issued by Shilts's publisher,St. Martin's,the media's
attentionwas directed to the storythat would ensure the book's success:
PATIENT ZERO: The Man WhoBroughtAIDS to NorthAmerica

What remainsa mysteryfor most people is where AIDS came from
and how it spread so rapidlythroughAmerica. In the most bizarre
story of the epidemic, Shilts also found the man whom the CDC
dubbed the "Patient Zero" of the epidemic. Patient Zero, a French-
Canadian airline steward,was one of the firstNorth Americansdiag-
nosed withAIDS. Because he traveled throughthe gay communities
of major urban areas, he spread the AIDS virus [sic] throughoutthe
continent.Indeed, studies later revealed 40 of the first200 AIDS
cases in Americawere documentedeitherto have had sex withPatient
Zero or have had sex withsomeone who did.
5. The factthatShiltschose thismomentas the end pointof his narrativesuggeststhatthe book's

of all journalistsbut Shiltshimself,makinghim
centralpurpose is indeed to prove the irresponsibility
the book's true hero.

242 CRIMP
The storyof Gaetan Dugas, or "Patient Zero," is woven throughoutthe

book in over twentyseparateepisodes, beginningon page 11 and endingonlyon
page 439, where the young man's death. is recounted. "At one time," Shilts
writesin a typicallyportentoustone, "Gaetan had been what everyman wanted
fromgay life;by the timehe died, he had become whateveryman feared." It is
interestingindeed that Shilts,a gay man who appears notto have wanted from
gay life what Gaetan Dugas may or may not have been, should nevertheless
assume that what all gay men want is identical.
The publisher'sploy worked,forwhichtheyappear to be proud. Included
in the presskitsentto me were xeroxes of the followingnews storiesand reviews:
-New YorkTimes:Canadian Said to Have Had Key Role in Spread of
AIDS
-New YorkPost: THE MAN WHO GAVE US AIDS
-NY Daily News: The man who flewtoo much
- Time:The Appalling Saga of Patient Zero
-McClean's: "Patient Zero" and the AIDS virus
Peoplemagazine made "Patient Zero" one of its "25 mostintriguingpeople

of '87," togetherwithRonald Reagan, MikhailGorbachev, Oliver North,Fawn
Hall, Princess Diana, Vincent van Gogh, and Baby Jessica. Shilts's success in
givingthe media the scandalous storythat would overshadow his book's other
"revelations"-and that would ensure that the blame for AIDS would remain
focused on gay men-can be seen even in the way the story appeared in
Germany'sleading liberalweeklyDer Spiegel.Underneatha photographof cruis-
ing gay men at the end of ChristopherStreet in New York City, the story's
sensationaltitlereads "Ich werde sterben,und du auch" ("I'm going to die, and
so are you"), a line the Canadian airline stewardis supposed to have utteredto
his bathhouse sex partnersas he turned up the lightsafter an encounter and
pointed to his KS lesions.
Shilts'spainstakingeffortsat tellingthe "true" storyof the epidemic'searly
years thus resulted in two media stories:the storyof the man who brought us
AIDS, and the storyof the man who brought us the storyof the man who
broughtus AIDS. Gaetan Dugas and Randy Shiltsbecame overnightmedia stars.
Being fullyof the media establishment,Shilts'scriticismof that establishmentis
limitedto pittinggood journalistsagainst bad. He is apparentlyoblivious to the
economic and ideological mechanismsthat largelydeterminehow AIDS will be
constructedin the media, and he thus contributesto that constructionrather
than to its critique.
The criticismmostoftenleveled againstShilts'sbook by itsgay criticsis that

GA

244 CRIMP
it is a productof internalizedhomophobia. In thisview,Shiltsis seen to identify

withthe heterosexistsocietythatloatheshim forhis homosexuality,and through
that identificationto project his loathingonto the gay community.Thus, "Pa-
tientZero," the veryfigureof the homosexual as imagined by heterosexuals-
sexually voracious, murderouslyirresponsible-is Shilts's homophobic night-
mare of himself,a nightmarethathe mustconstantlydenyby makingit trueonly
of others.Shiltsthereforeoffersup the scapegoat forhis heterosexualcolleagues
in order to prove that he, like them,is horrifiedby such creatures.
It is truethatShilts'sbook reproducesvirtuallyeveryclicheof homophobia.
Like Queen Victoria's proverbial inabilityto fathomwhat lesbians do in bed,
Shilts'sdisdainforthe sexual habitsof gay men extendseven to findingcertainof
those habits "unimaginable." In one of his manyfulminationsagainst gay bath-
houses, Shiltswrites,"Justabout everytypeof unsafesex imaginable,and many
variationsthatwere unimaginable,were being practicedwithcarefreeabandon-
ment [sic]at the facilities"(p. 481).
Shilts'sfailureof imaginationis in thiscase merelya trope,a way of saying
that certainsexual acts are beyond the pale for mostpeople. But in resortingto
such a trope, Shiltsunconsciouslyidentifieswithall those who would rathersee
gay men die than allow homosexualityto invade theirconsciousness.
And theBand Played On is writtennot only as a chronologyof events,but
also as a cleverlyplotted series of episodes. Hundreds of narrativethreads are
woven around individualcharactersdescribedin conventionalnovelisticfashion.
Often Shiltsuses peoples' regionalaccentsand physiquesmetonymically to stand
for their characters: "Everyone cheered enthusiasticallywhen Paul Popham
[presidentof the Gay Men's Health Crisis] addressed the crowd in his broad,
plainspoken Oregon accent" (p. 139). A hundred pages earlier, Popham is
introducedwiththe sentence,"At the Y, Larry [Kramer] had told Paul that he
had such a naturallywell-definedbody thathe didn't need to workout, and Paul
responded with a shy aw-shucksingenuousnessthat reminded Larry of Gary
Cooper or JimmyStewart" (p. 26). Shilts'schoice of novelisticformallows him
these tricksof omniscientnarration.Not only does he tell us what Paul said and
Larrythought,he also reveals his characters'dreams and nightmares,and even,
in a fewcases, what people withAIDS were thinkingand feelingat the moment
of death. These aspects of bourgeois writingwould seem to representa strange
choice indeed forthe separationof factfromfiction,6 but I wantto argue thatit is
precisely thischoice thatdeterminesShilts'shomophobia. For it is mycontention
not simplythat Shilts has internalizedhomophobia, but that he has sought to
6. Shiltswritesin his "Notes on Sources," "This book is a workofjournalism.There has been no

fictionalization.For purposes of narrative flow, I reconstructscenes, recount conversationsand
occasionallyattributeobservationsto people with such phrases as 'he thought' or 'she felt.' Such
referencesare drawn fromeitherthe researchinterviewsI conducted forthe book or fromresearch
conducted during my years coveringthe AIDS epidemic for the San FranciscoChronicle"(p. 607).

How to Have Promiscuityin an Epidemic 245
escape the effects of homophobia by employing a particular cultural form, one

that is thoroughly outmoded but still very much with us in its vulgarized variants.
In WritingDegree Zero, Roland Barthes writes:
Until [the 1850s], it was bourgeois ideology itself which gave the
measure of the universal by fulfillingit unchallenged. The bourgeois
writer, sole judge of other people's woes and without anyone else to
gaze on him, was not torn between his social condition and his intellec-
tual vocation.7
"Sole judge of other people's woes and without anyone else to gaze on him,"
Shilts adopted a no-longer-possible universal point of view-which is, among
other things, the heterosexual point of view-and thus erased his own social
condition, that of being a gay man in a homophobic society. Shilts wrote the story
of Gaetan Dugas not because it needed telling-because, in the journalist's mind
it was true and factual - but because it was required by the bourgeois novelistic
form that Shilts used as his shield. The book's arch-villain has a special function,
that of securing the identity of his polar opposite, the book's true hero. Shilts
created the character of "Patient Zero" to embody everything that the book
-
purports to expose: irresponsibility,delay, denial ultimately murder.8 "Patient
Zero" stands for all the evil that is "really" the cause of the epidemic, and Shilts's
portrait of "Patient Zero" stands for Shilts's own heroic act of "exposing" that
evil.
If I have dwelt for so long on And theBand Played On, it is not only because
its enthusiastic reception demands a response. It is also because the book demon-
strates so clearly that cultural conventions rigidly dictate what can and will be
said about AIDS. And these cultural conventions exist everywhere the epidemic
is constructed: in newspaper stories and magazine articles, in television documen-
taries and fiction films, in political debate and health-care policy, in scientific
research, in art, in activism, and in sexuality. The way AIDS is understood is in
large measure predetermined by the forms these discourses take. Randy Shilts
7. RolandBarthes,Writing DegreeZero,trans.AnnetteLaversand ColinSmith,Boston,Beacon

Press,1967,p. 60.
8. I saycreated
because,thoughGaetanDugaswasa realperson,hischaracter -in bothsensesof
theword-was invented byShilts.Moreover, contraryto theSt.Martin's
pressrelease,Shiltsdidnot
"discover""PatientZero."The storyabouthowvariousearlyAIDS researchers wereable to linka
numberofearlycasesofthesyndrome- whichwasdonenotto locatethe"source"oftheepidemic
and placeblame,butsimply to verify ofa causalagent-was toldearlierbyAnn
thetransmissibility
GiudiciFettnerand WilliamA. Check.Dugas is called"Eric" in theiraccount,and hischaracter is
describedsignificantly
differently:"'He feltterrible
abouthavingmadeotherpeoplesick,'says[Dr.
William]Darrow [a CDC sociologist].'He had come down withKaposi's but no one ever told him it
mightbe infectious.Even at CDC we didn't know then thatit was contagious. It is a general dogma
that cancer is not transmissible.Of course, we now know that the underlyingimmune-system
deficiencythat allows the cancer to grow is most likelytransmissible.'"(The TruthaboutAIDS, New
York, Henry Holt, revisededition, 1985, p. 86). Thanks to Paula Treichler forcallingthispassage to
myattention.

246 CRIMP
providedthe viciouslyhomophobicportraitof "Patient Zero" because histhriller

narrativedemanded it, and the news media reportedthat storyand none of the
restbecause whatis newsand whatis not is dictatedbythe formthe news takesin
our society. In a recent op-ed piece about his recognitionthat AIDS is now
newsworthy, A. M. Rosenthal,executiveeditorof the New YorkTimesduringthe
entirefive-yearperiod when the epidemic was a nonstoryfor the Times,offered
the followingreflectionon the news-story form:"Journalistscall events,trivialor
historic,'stories'because we reallyare tellersof talesand to us thereis no pointin
knowingor learningifwe can't run out and tellsomebody.That's just the waywe
are; go ask a psychiatrist why."9
"Patient Zero" is a news storywhile the criminalinaction of the Reagan
Administrationis not- "go ask a psychiatrist why." Rock Hudson is a story,but
the thousandsof other people withAIDS are not- "go ask a psychiatrist why."
Heterosexuals withAIDS is a story;homosexuals withAIDS is not-"go ask a
psychiatrist why." Shiltslamentsthissituation.His book contributesnothingto
understandingand changingit.
Among the heroes of And theBand PlayedOn is Larry Kramer,who shares
Shilts'snegative view of gay politicsand sexuality.Here is how Shiltsdescribes
the receptionof Kramer's play about AIDS, The NormalHeart:
April 21 [1985]
PUBLIC THEATER
New YorkCity
A thunderousovationechoed throughthe theater.The people rose to
their feet, applauding the cast returningto the stage to take their
bows. Larry Kramer looked to his eighty-five-year-old mother. She
had alwayswanted him to writefor the stage, and Kramer had done
that now. True, The Normal Heart was not your respectable Neil
Simon fare,but a virtuallyunanimouschorusof reviewershad already
proclaimed the play to be a masterpiece of political drama. Even
before the previewswere over, criticsfromeverymajor news organi-
zation in New York Cityhad scoured theirthesaurusesforsuperlatives
to describethe play. NBC said it "beats withpassion"; Timemagazine
said it was "deeply affecting,tense and touching"; the New YorkDaily
News called it "an angry,unremittingand grippingpiece of political
theater."One criticsaid Heartwas to the AIDS epidemicwhatArthur
Miller's The Cruciblehad been to the McCarthyera. New YorkMaga-
zine'scriticJohn Simon, who had recentlybeen overheardsayingthat
he looked forwardto when AIDS had killed all the homosexuals in
New York theater, conceded in an interviewthat he left the play
weeping (p. 556).
9. A. M. Rosenthal,"AIDS: Everyone'sBusiness,"New YorkTimes,December 29, 1987, p. A19.

in an Epidemic
How toHave Promiscuity 247
How is it thatforfouryearsthe deaths of thousandsof gay men could leave

the dominant media entirelyunmoved, but Larry Kramer's play could make
them weep? Shiltsoffersno explanation,nor is he suspiciousof thismomentary
change of heart. The NormalHeart is a piecea clefabout the Gay Men's Health
Crisis, the AIDS service organization Kramer helped found and which later
expelled him-because, as the play tells it, he, like Shilts,insistedon speaking
the truth.10In one of his manyfightswithhis felloworganizers,Ned Weeks, the
characterthat representsKramer,explodes, "Why is anythingI'm sayingcom-
pared to anythingbut common sense?" (p. 100). Common sense, in Kramer's
view,is thatgay men should stop havingso much sex, thatpromiscuitykills.But
thiscommonsense is, of course,conventionalmoralwisdom:itis not safesex, but
monogamythatis the solution.The play'smessageis thereforenot onlyreaction-
ary,it is lethal,since monogamyper se providesno protectionwhatsoeveragainst
a virus that mightalready have infectedone partnerin a relationship.
"I am sick of guys who can only thinkwiththeircocks" (p. 57), says Ned
Weeks,and later,"Being definedby our cocks is literallykillingus" (p. 115). For
Kramer,being definedby sex is the legacy of gay politics;promiscuityand gay
politicsare one and the same:
Ned [to Emma, the doctor who urges him to tell gay men to stop
havingsex]: Do you realize thatyou are talkingabout millionsof men
who have singled out promiscuityto be their principal political
agenda, the one they'd die before abandoning?(pp. 37-38).
Bruce [the president of GMHC]: . . . the entire gay political plat-

formis fucking(p. 57).
Ned: . . . the gay leaders who created thissexual liberationphiloso-

phy in the firstplace have been the death of us. Mickey,whydidn't
you guys fightfor the right to get married instead of the right to
legitimizepromiscuity?(p. 85).
This is the view of someone who did not participatein the gay movement,
and who has no sense of its history,its complexities,its theoryand practice(was
he too busytakingadvantage of itsgains?).Kramer's ignoranceof and contempt
for the gay movementare demonstratedthroughoutthe play:
Ned: Nobody witha brain gets involvedin gay politics.It's filledwith
the great unwashed radicals of any counterculture(p. 37).
Mickey:You know,the battleagainstthe police at Stonewallwas won
10. Larry Kramer, The Normal Heart, New York and Scarborough, Ontario, New American
Library,1985. Page numbersfor citationsare given in the text.

248 CRIMP
by transvestites.
We all foughtlike hell. It's you Brooks Brothersguys
who
Bruce: That's why I wasn't at Stonewall. I don't have anythingin
common withthose guys,girls,whateveryou call them.
Mickey: . . . and . . . how do you feel about Lesbians?
Bruce: Not verymuch. I mean, they're . . . somethingelse.
Mickey: I wonder what they'regoing to thinkabout all this?If past
historyis any guide, there'sneverbeen much supportby eitherhalfof
us for the other. Tommy, are you a Lesbian? (pp. 54-55).
I want to returnto gay politics,and specificallyto the role lesbians have
played in the struggleagainstAIDS, but firstit is necessaryto explain whyI have
been quoting Kramer's play as if it were not fictional,as if it could be unprob-
lematicallytaken to representKramer's own politicalviews.As I've already said,
The Normal Heart is a piece a clef,a form adopted for the very purpose of
presentingthe author's experience and viewsin dramaticform.But mycriticism
of the play is not merelythatKramer'spoliticalviews,as voiced by his characters,
are reactionary- though theycertainlyare--but that the genre employed by
Kramer willdictatea reactionarycontentof a differentkind: because the play is
writtenwithinthe most traditionalconventionsof bourgeois theater,its politics
are the politics of bourgeois individualism.Like And theBand Played On, The
NormalHeart is the storyof a lonelyvoice of reason smotheredby the deafening
chorusof unreason. It is a play witha hero, Kramerhimself,forwhomthe playis
an act of vengeance for all the wrong done him by his ungratefulcolleagues at
the Gay Men's Health Crisis. The Normal Heart is a purely personal-not a
political-drama, a drama of a few heroic individualsin the AIDS movement.
From time to time,some of these characterstalk "politics":
Emma: Health is a politicalissue. Everybody'sentitledto good medical
care. If you're not gettingit, you've got to fightfor it. Do you know
this is the only industrializedcountry in the world besides South
Africa that doesn't guarantee health care for everyone?(p. 36).
But thisis, of course, politicsin the mostrestrictedsense of the word. Such
a view refuses to see that power relations invade and shape all discourse. It
ignoresthe factthatthe choice of the bourgeois formof drama, forexample, is a
political choice that will have necessarypolitical consequences. Among these is
the fact that the play's "politics" sound very didactic, don't "work" with the
drama. Thus in TheNormalHeart,even these "politics" are mostlypushed to the
periphery;theybecome decor. In the New York Shakespeare Festivalproduction
of the play, "the walls of the set, made of construction-siteplywood, were
whitewashed.Everywherepossible, on this set and upon the theaterwalls too,
factsand figuresand names were painted, in black, simple lettering"(p. 19).
These were such factsas

in an Epidemic 249
--MAYOR KOCH: $75,000-MAYOR FEINSTEIN:

$16,000,000. (For public education and communityservices.)
-During the firstnineteen monthsof the epidemic, The New York

Timeswrote about it a total of seven times.
-During the firstthree monthsof the Tylenol scare in 1982, The

New YorkTimeswrote about it a total of 54 times(pp. 20-21).
No one would disputethatthesefactsand figureshave politicalsignificance,

that they are part of the political picture of AIDS. But in the context of The
NormalHeart,theyare absorbed by the personaldrama takingplace on the stage,
where theyhave no other functionthan to prove Ned Weeks right,to vindicate
Ned Weeks's--Larry Kramer's-rage. And that rage, the play itself,is very
largelydirected against other gay men.
Shilts'sbook and Kramer's play share a curious contradiction:theyblame
the lack of response to the epidemic on the misrepresentation of AIDS as a gay
disease even as theythemselvestreatAIDS almost exclusivelyas a gay problem.
Both display indifferenceto the other groups drasticallyaffectedby the epi-
demic, primarily,in the US, IV drug users, who remain statisticsfor the two
writers,just as gay men do for the people the two authors rail against.
The resolutionof thiscontradiction,whichis pervasivein AIDS discourse,
would appear to be simple enough. AIDS is not a gay disease, but in the US it
affectedgay men firstand, thus far,has affectedus in greater proportion.But
AIDS probablydid notaffectgay men first,even in the US. What is now called
AIDS was firstseenin middle-classgay men in America, in part because of our
access to medical care. Retrospectively,however,it appears that IV drug users
-whether gay or straight-were dyingof AIDS in New York Citythroughout
the '70s and early '80s, but a class-basedand racisthealth care systemfailed to
notice, and an epidemiology equally skewed by class and racial bias failed to
begin to look until1987.1 Moreover,AIDS has neverbeen restrictedto gay men
11. In October 1987, the New YorkTimesreportedthatthe New York CityDepartmentof Health
conducted a study of drug-relateddeaths from 1982 to 1986, which found an estimated 2,520
AIDS-related deaths thathad not been reportedas such. As a result,"AIDS-related deaths,involving
intravenousdrug users accounted for 53 percentof all AIDS-related deaths in New York Citysince
the epidemic began, while deaths involvingsexuallyactive homosexual and bisexual men accounted
for 38 percent." Even these statisticsare based on CDC epidemiology that continues to see the
beginningof the epidemic as 1981, followingthe early reportsof illnessesin gay men, in spite of
widespreadanecdotal reportingof a high rate of deaths throughoutthe 1970s fromwhatwas known
as "junkie pneumonia" and was likelyPneumocystis pneumonia. Moreover,the studywas undertaken
not throughany recognitionof the seriousnessof the problemposed to poor and minoritycommuni-
ties, but, as New York City Health CommissionerStephen Joseph was reported as saying,because
"the highernumbers . . . showed thatthe heterosexual'window' throughwhichAIDS presumably
couldjump to people who were not at highriskwas 'much widerthatwe believed'" (Ronald Sullivan,
"AIDS in New York City Killing More Drug Users," New YorkTimes,October 22, 1987, p. B1).

250 CRIMP
in Central Africa,where the syndromeis a problem of apocalypticdimensions,

but to this day receives almost no attentionin the US.
What is far more significantthan the real facts of HIV transmissionin
various populationsthroughoutthe world,however,is the initialconceptualiza-
tion of AIDS as a syndromeaffectinggay men. No insistenceon the factswill
render that discursiveconstructionobsolete, and not only because of the in-
tractabilityof homophobia. The idea of AIDS as a gay disease occasioned two
interconnected conditionsin the US: thatAIDS would be an epidemic of stigmati-
zation rooted in homophobia, and that the response to AIDS would depend in
verylarge measure on the verygay movementShiltsand Kramer decry.
The organization Larry Kramer helped found, the Gay Men's Health
Crisis,is as mucha partof the earlyconstructionof AIDS as were the firstreports
of the effectsof the syndrome in the Morbidityand MortalityWeeklyReport.
Though it maybe true thatfew,ifany,of the foundersof GMHC were centrally
involved in gay politics,everythingtheywere able to accomplish-from fund-
raising and recruitingvolunteers to consulting with openly gay health care
professionalsand gettingeducation out to the gay community-depended on
whathad already been achieved by the gay movement.Moreover,the continued
lifeof GMHC as the largestAIDS serviceorganizationin the US has necessarily
aligned it withother, considerablymore radical grass-rootsAIDS organizations
both in the gay communityand in other communitiesaffectedby the epidemic.
The Gay Men's Health Crisis,whose workforcecompriseslesbians and hetero-
sexual women as well as gay men (heterosexualmen are notablyabsent fromthe
AIDS movement),is now an organizationthat providesservicesforinfantswith
AIDS, IV drug users withAIDS, women withAIDS. It is an organizationthat
everyday puts the wordsgaymenin the mouthsof people who would otherwise
never speak them.More importantly, it is an organizationthathas put the words
gay men in the mouths of nongaypeople livingwiththe stigmaattached to AIDS
by those very words. The Gay Men's Health Crisis is thus a symbol,in its very
name, of the fact that the gay movementis at the center of the fightagainst
AIDS. The limitationsof thismovement-especially insofaras it is rivenby race
and class differences-are thereforein urgentneed of examination.
In doing this,we mustnever lose sightof the factthatthe gay movementis
responsibleforvirtuallyeverypositiveachievementin the struggleagainstAIDS
during the epidemic's early years. These achievementsare not only those of
politicallyorganized response-of fightingrepressivemeasures; of demanding
governmentfunding,scientificresearch,and media coverage; of creatingservice
organizationsto care for the sick and to educate the well. They are also the
achievementsof a sexual communitywhose theoryand practice of sex made it
possible to meet the epidemic's most urgent requirement:the developmentof
safe sex practices.But who counts as a memberof thiscommunity?Who willbe
protectedby the knowledgeof safe sex? Kramer's characterMickeywas rightin
sayingthatit was transvestites who foughtback at Stonewall.What he did not say

How to Have Promiscuity
in an Epidemic 251
was that those "guys in Brooks Brotherssuits" verysoon hounded transvestites

out of the movementinitiatedby Stonewall,because the "gay good citizens"12
didn't want to be associated with "those guys, girls,whateveryou call them."
Now, in 1988, what AIDS serviceorganizationsare providingtransvestites with
safe sex information? Who is educatinghustlers?Who is gettingsafe sex instruc-
tions, printed in Spanish, into gay bars in Queens that cater to working-class
Colombian immigrants?'3 It is these questions that cannot be satisfactorily an-
swered by a gay communitythat is far from inclusiveof the vast majorityof
people whose homosexual practicesplace them at risk. It is also these questions
thatwe mustask even more insistently of AIDS education programsthatare now
being taken out of the hands of gay people -AIDS education programsdevised
by the state, outside of any existingcommunity,whateverits limitations.
Kramer'ssummarydismissalof transvestites in TheNormalHeartis followed
by his assumption that lesbianswill show no interestin the AIDS crisis.Not only
has Kramerbeen provendead wrong,but hisassumptionis grounded in a failure
to recognizethe importanceof a gaypoliticalcommunitythathas alwaysincluded
both sexes. In spiteof the veryreal tensionsand differences betweenlesbiansand
gay men, our common oppressionhas taughtus the vital necessityof forminga
coalition.And havingnegotiatedand renegotiatedthiscoalitionover a period of
two decades has provided much of the groundworkfor the coalition politics
necessitatedby the shared oppression of all the radicallydifferentgroups af-
fectedby AIDS. But the question Larry Kramer and other gay men should be
askingin any case is not "What are lesbiansdoing to help us?" but rather"What
are we doing to help lesbians?" Althoughit is consistentlyclaimed thatlesbians,
as a group,are the least vulnerableto HIV transmission, thiswould appear to be
predicated, once again, on the failureto understand what lesbiansdo in bed. As
Lee Chiaramontewrote in an article entitled"The Very Last Fairy Tale,"
In order to believe thatlesbiansare not at riskforAIDS, or thatthose
who have alreadybeen infectedare merelyincidentalvictims,I would
have to knowand agree withthe standardsby whichwe are judged to
be safe. Meaning I would have to believe we are either sexless or
olympicallymonogamous;thatwe are not intravenousdrug users;that
we do not sleep withmen; that we do not engage in sexual activities
thatcould prove as dangerousas theyare titillating.I would also have
to believe that lesbians,unlike straightwomen, can get seven years'
12. I borrow the phrase from Guy Hocquenghem, who used it to describe a gay movement
increasinglydevoted to civilrightsratherthan to the more radical agenda issuingfromthe New Left
of the 1960s.
13. I do not want to suggest that there are no gay communityorganizationsfor or including
sex workers,or Latino immigrants,
transvestites, but ratherthatno organizationrepresentinghighly
marginalizedgroups has the fundingor the power to reach large numbersof people withsensitive
and specificAIDS information.

252 CRIMP
worthof honestanswersfromtheirloversabout forgottenpast lives.14

Chiaramontegoes on to cite a 1983 JournalofSex Researchstudyin whichit
was determinedthat lesbians have almost twice as much sex as straightwomen
and that theirnumbersof partnersare greaterthan straightwomen's by nearly
fifteento one. In a surveyconducted by Pat CalifiafortheJournalofHomosexual-
ity,over halfthe lesbiansquestioned preferrednonmonogamousrelationships.15
And, in addition to the risksof HIV infection,which only compound women's
problems with a sexist health care system,lesbians have, along with gay men,
borne the intensifiedhomophobia that has resultedfromAIDS.
Not surprisinglyit was a lesbian--Cindy Patton-who wrote one of the
firstserious politicalanalysesof the AIDS epidemic and who has more recently
coauthored a safe sex manual forwomen.16 "It is critical,"saysPatton,"that the
experience of the gay communityin AIDS organizingbe understood:the strate-
gies employed before 1985 or so grew out of gay liberation and feminist
theory."17The most significantof these strategieswas-again-the develop-
ment of safe sex guidelines,which,though clearlythe achievementof the orga-
nized gay community,are now being reinventedby "experts."
At the 1987 lesbian and gay health conferencein Los Angeles, many
longtimeAIDS activistswere surprisedby the extentto whichsafe sex
education had become the province of high level professionals.The
fact that safe sex organizing began and is highly successful as a
grassroots, community effort seemed to be forgotten....
Heterosexuals-and even gay people only beginning to confront
AIDS-express panic about how to make appropriateand satisfying
changesin theirsex lives,as ifno one had done thisbeforethem.It is a
mark of the intransigenceof homophobia that few look to the urban
gay communitiesfor advice, communitieswhich have an infrastruc-
ture and a trackrecord of highlysuccessfulbehavior change.18
As Patton insists, gay people invented safe sex. We knew that the
alternatives- monogamyand abstinence- were unsafe,unsafein the lattercase
because people do not abstain fromsex, and if you only tell them "just say no,"
14. Lee Chiaramonte,"Lesbian Safetyand AIDS: The Very Last Fairy Tale," Visibilities,vol. 1,
no. 1 (January-February 1988), p. 5.
15. Ibid., p. 7.
16. Cindy Patton,Sex and Germs:The PoliticsofAIDS, Boston, South End Press, 1985; and Cindy
Patton and Janis Kelly, MakingIt: A Woman'sGuide to Sex in theAge of AIDS, Ithaca, New York,
Firebrand Books, 1987.
17. Cindy Patton, "Resistance and the Erotic: Reclaiming History,SettingStrategyas We Face
AIDS," Radical America,vol. 20, no. 6 (Facing AIDS: A Special Issue), p. 68.
18. Ibid., p. 69.

in an Epidemic
How to Have Promiscuity 253
theywillhave unsafesex. We were able to inventsafesex because we have always

known that sex is not, in an epidemic or not, limitedto penetrativesex. Our
promiscuitytaughtus manythings,not onlyabout the pleasuresof sex, but about
the great multiplicityof those pleasures. It is that psychic preparation, that
experimentation,that conscious work on our own sexualitiesthat has allowed
manyof us to change our sexual behaviors-something thatbrutal "behavioral
therapies" tried unsuccessfullyfor over a century to force us to do-very
quickly and very dramatically.It is for this reason that Shilts's and Kramer's
attitudesabout the formulationof gay politicson the basis of our sexualityis so
perverselydistorted,whytheyinsistthatour promiscuitywilldestroyus when in
factit is our promiscuity
thatwill save us.
The elaboratenessof gay male sexual culture which may have once
contributedto the spread of AIDS has been rapidlytransformedinto
one thatinhibitsspread of the disease, stillpromotessexual liberation
defined),and is as marvelouslyfringeand offensive
(albeit differently
to middle America as ever.19
All those who contend that gay male promiscuityis merely sexual compulsion
resultingfromfear of intimacyare now faced withverystrongevidence against
their prejudices. For if compulsion were so easily overcome or redirected,it
would hardlydeservethe name. Gay male promiscuityshould be seen insteadas a
positive model of how sexual pleasures might be pursued by and granted to
everyoneifthose pleasureswere not confinedwithinthe narrowlimitsof institu-
tionalized sexuality.
Indeed, it is the lack of promiscuityand its lessonsthatsuggeststhat many
straightpeople will have a much harder time learning "how to have sex in an
epidemic" than we did.20This assumptionfollowsfromthe factthatriskreduc-
tion informationdirected at heterosexuals,even when not clearly antisex or
based on false morality,is still predicated upon the prevailing mythsabout
sexualityin our society.Firstamong these,of course, is the myththat monoga-
mous relationshipsare not only the norm but ultimatelyeveryone's deepest
desire. Thus, the message is oftennot about safe sex at all, but about how to find
a safe partner.
As Art Ulene, "familyphysician"to the TodayShowput it:
I thinkit's timeto stop talkingabout "safe sex." I believe we should be
talkingabout safe partnersinstead. A safe partner is one who has
neverbeen infectedwiththe AIDS virus[sic].Witha safe partner,you
don't have to worryabout gettingAIDS yourself--no matterwhat
19. Ibid., p. 72.

20. How to Have Sex in an Epidemicis the title of a 40-page pamphlet produced by gay men,
includingPWAs, as early as 1983. See Patton, ibid.,p. 69.

254 CRIMP
you do sexually,and no matterhow much protectionyou use while

you do it.21
The agenda here is one of maintainingthe us/themdichotomythatwas initially
performedby the CDC's "risk group" classifications-"Only gay men and IV
drug users get AIDS." But now that neat classificationsof othernessno longer
"protect" the "general population,"22how does one go about findinga safe
partner?One obvious way of answeringthis question is to urge HIV antibody
testing.If you and your sex partnerboth testnegative,you can stillhave unbri-
dled fun.23But Dr. Ulene has an additional solution:
One way to findsaferpartners-though a bit impracticalformost-
is to move to a place where the incidence of AIDS is low. There are
two statesthathave reportedonlyfourcases of AIDS since the disease
was discovered, while others are crowded with AIDS patients. Al-
though this near-freedomfrom AIDS cannot be expected to last
forever,the relativedifferencesbetweenstateslike Nebraskaand New
York are likelyto last.24
Dr. Ulene then graciouslyprovides a breakdown of AIDS cases by state.
Most safesex education materialsforheterosexuals,however,presumethat
theiraudience consistsof people who feel themselvesto be at some risk,perhaps
because theydo not limitthemselvesto a singlesex partner,perhapsbecause they
are unable to move to Nebraska. Still,in most cases, these safe sex instructions
focusalmost exclusivelyon penetrativesex and alwaysmake it a woman'sjob to
21 Art Ulene, M.D., Safe Sex in a DangerousWorld,New York, Vintage Books, 1987, p. 31.
22. In facttherecontinueto be concertedeffortsto deny thateveryoneis at riskof HIV infection.
The New YorkTimesperiodicallyprintsupdated epidemiologicalinformationeditoriallypresentedso
as to reassureitsreaders-clearly presumed to be middle class, white,and heterosexual-that they
have littleto worryabout. Two recent articlesthat resurrectold mythsto keep AIDS away from
heterosexualsare Michael A. Fumento,"AIDS: Are Heterosexualsat Risk?" Commentary, November
1987; and RobertE. Gould, "Reassuring News About AIDS: A Doctor Tells WhyYou May Not Be at
Risk," Cosmopolitan, January1988. That such articlesare based on racistand homophobic assump-
tionsgoes withoutsaying.The "fragileanus/ruggedvagina" thesisis generallytrottedout to explain
not onlythe differencesbetweenratesof infectionin gaysand straights,but also betweenblacksand
whites,Africansand Americans (blacks are said to resortto anal sex as a primitiveformof birth
control). But Gould's racismtakes him a step further.Claiming thatonly "rough" sex can resultin
transmissionthroughthe vagina, Gould writes,"Many men in Africatake theirwomen in a brutal
way,so that some heterosexualactivityregarded as normal by them would be closer to rape by our
standardsand thereforebe likelyto cause vaginal lacerationsthrough which the AIDS virus [sic]
could gain entryinto the bloodstream."
23. Cindy Patton tells of similaradvice given to gay men by a CDC officialat the 1985 Interna-
tional AIDS Conferencein Atlanta:"He suggestedthatgay men onlyhave sex withmen of the same
antibodystatus,as if gay male culture is littlemore than a giant dating service. This advice was
quicklyseen as dehumanizingand not usefulbecause it did not promotesafe sex, but renewedadvice
of this type is seen as reasonable withinthe heterosexualcommunityof late" ("Resistance and the
Erotic," p. 69).
24. Ulene, p. 49.

in an Epidemic
AIDS: ChangingtheRules. 1987

AIDSfilms.
get the condom on the cock. It appears to be a foregoneconclusionthatthereis

no use even tryingto get straightmen to take thisresponsibility themselves(the
titleof a recentbook is How toPersuadeYourLovertoUsea Condom. . . And Why
You Should).The one exception is a segmentof the video aired on PBS entitled
AIDS: ChangingtheRules, in which Ruben Blades talksto men directly,though
verycoyly,about condoms, but shows them only how to put one on a banana.
Evidentlycondoms have now become too closely associated with gay men for
straightmen to talk straightabout them. In addition, they have become too
closelyassociated withAIDS for the banana companies to approve of Changing
theRules's choice of props. The followingletterwas sent by the presidentof the
InternationalBanana Associationto the presidentof PBS; I cite it to give some
idea of how hilarious-if it weren't so deadly-the condom debate can be.
Dear Mr. Christiansen,
In this program,a banana is used as a substitutefor a human
penis in a demonstrationof how condoms should be used.
I must tell you, Mr. Christiansen,as I have told representatives
of WETA, that our industryfindssuch usage of our product to be
totallyunacceptable. The choice of a banana ratherthan some other
inanimate prop constitutesarbitraryand reckless disregard for the
unsavoryassociationthatwillbe drawn by the public and the damage
to our industrythat will resulttherefrom.
The banana is an importantproductand deserves to be treated
with respect and consideration.It is the most extensivelyconsumed
fruitin the United States, being purchased by over 98 percent of

256 CRIMP
households. It is importantto the economies of many developing

Latin American nations.The banana's continued image in the minds
of consumersas a healthfuland nutritiousproduct is criticallyimpor-
tantto the industry'scontinuedabilityto be held in such high regard
by the public and to dischargeitsresponsibilities
to its Latin American
hosts..
Mr. Christiansen,I have no alternativebut to advise you thatwe
intendto hold PBS fullyresponsibleforany and all damages sustained
by our industryas a result of the showing of this AIDS program
depictingthe banana in the associationalcontextplanned. Further,we
reserve all legal rightsto protect the industry'sinterestsfrom this
arbitrary,unnecessary,and insensitiveaction.
Yours verytruly,
Robert M. Moore
The debate about condoms,and safe sex education generally,is one of the
most alarming in the historyof the AIDS epidemic thus far, because it will
certainlyresult in many more thousands of deaths that could be avoided. It
demonstrateshow practicesdevised at the grass-rootslevel to meet the needs of
people at riskcan be demeaned, distorted,and ultimatelydestroyedwhen those
practicesare coopted by statepower. Perhaps no portionof thiscontroversyis as
revealingas the October 14, 1987, debate over the Helms amendment.25
In presentinghis amendment to the Senate, Helms made the off-hand
remark,"Now we had all this mob over here this weekend, which was itselfa
25. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations of this debate are taken from the Congressional
Record,October 14, 1987, pp. S14202-S14220.

in an Epidemic
dishearteningspectacle." He was referringto the largestcivil rightsdemonstra-

tion in US history,in which over half a millionpeople, led by PWAs and their
friends,marchedon Washingtonforlesbianand gay rights.Earlyin the morning
before the march, the Names Project inaugurated its memorial quilt, whose
panels withthe names of people who had died of AIDS occupied a space on the
Mall equivalentto two footballfields.As the three-by-six-foot cloth panels made
by friends, family, and admirers of the dead were carefullyunfurled, 1,920
names were solemnlyread to a crowd of weepingspectators.Though represent-
ing only a small percentage of the people who have died in the epidemic, the
seeminglyendless litanyof names,togetherwiththe astonishingsize of the quilt,
brought home the enormityof our loss so dramaticallyas to leave everyone
stunned.
But to Helms and his ilk this was just a "mob" enactinga "disheartening
spectacle." In the followingmonth's issue of the right-wingCampus Review,a
front-pagearticleby GaryBauer, assistantto PresidentReagan and spokesperson
for the Administration'sAIDS policy, was accompanied by a political cartoon
entitled "The AIDS Quilt." It depicts a faggot and a junkie sewing panels
bearing the words sodomy and IV Drugs. Bauer's article explains:
"Safe sex" campaigns are not giving students the full storyabout
AIDS. Indeed manystudentsare arguablybeing denied the informa-
tion that is most likely to assist them in avoiding the AIDS virus
[sic]. . . . Many of today's education effortsare what could be called
"sexually egalitarian." That is, they refuse to distinguishor even
appear to preferone typeof sexual practiceover another.Yet medical
researchshows that sodomy is probablythe most efficientmethod to
transferthe AIDS virus [sic] as well as other diseases-for obvious

I1n' 1
jP
I
. 4l
-- 7'
. I
EI
X I
ts I M I 11
VJ
--
I
I,6 Iit
-
- _O *A
4 t~.
i"
o. ) }
. -.q

.............. .. ......
in an Epidemic
Volume 3 Number 8
Campust3ebtiel Khr- ritht ---- of tht
tibt -- -- dtnrt November 1987
..I
AIDS and the College Student

saw's mm; Ihue SIk at mP dPrst w the
tobea*b at o
Xmeat
Altawrw oemedta wa ela d by stats
adus_l.atsaesaaee
i 1e dos,
'
.eMAID. dW* -j_ mlea . Yet, as
C. Bwe Kooph-
8Ram Gea_st
seely ad UJ. SA ad ame to.
surnr ael thi AIDS elula mu- a fte nal foiproao way to avoid tis
datay. A adielty a*ftll Nt COlmp dmiae. Are we to aam tut thily
Revrim ha Pam w
arammued edtcatedyoungAenetseoaare o n-
trak. b ypressre lMa om ameLralty'y Iavrd b thCtr pwmm that they are
payemamdy. sable to limt thaurauw er ot partners
Thu ma . wtar
We rtie traMa Whte ranual activtUm - even if falin to do
N
time a batae o tothe si
_"netaimt o riak dath? AttUaly, much rewarch
mm
.eme m any
_. .""
ite bttoy to buid an Ihe healthy
byGary BMr. when the sue is
tMdeadci, prtktrly
I
AoiatarMtothePNreMta
We or dos?
On huendr atocrtegeaad ahvrmty Second,may d today'seducathital
campuses tis year, stdmeos have fort are wat ctld be called "sexualy
returned ot aly to be greted by he eaatahan." That is. ty refueeto
usualpanoplyd actvriteandirmaM.
hut dWUattuahor evenapper to preer oe
also hy a new enmade - ats ax. typeod etxual overanother.
practice Yet
ti,aeftngto the growing national medicalrsearch showsthatsodomnv u
reasons. Whyis thisinformationcensored on so manycampuses?Does

it illustratethe growing power of gay rightsactivistswho not only
want to be tolerated, but want the culture at large to affirmand
supportthe legitimacyof the gay life-style?26
Three daysafterthe historicmarchon Washingtonand the inaugurationof
the Names Project,Jesse Helms would seek to ensure thatsuch affirmation and
supportwould never occur-at least in the contextof AIDS. The senator from
North Carolina introduced his amendment to a Labor, Health and Human
Services,and Education bill allocatingnearlya billiondollars forAIDS research
and education in fiscal 1988. Amendmentno. 956 began:
Purpose: To prohibitthe use of any fundsprovided under thisAct to
the Centers for Disease Control from being used to provide AIDS
education, information,or prevention materials and activitiesthat
promote,encourage, or condone homosexual sexual activitiesor the
intravenoususe of illegal drugs.
26. Gary Bauer, "AIDS and the College Student," CampusReview,November 1987, pp. 1, 12.
InaugurationoftheNamesProjectQuilt, 1987. (Photo:

Jane Rosett.)

GMHC. Safer Sex Comix #4. Artwork
byDonelan.
StorybyGreg.
/\ ^/ X7r t6TH?ER
rHIAJKI'VE FOOA1D
SESLC,wn'--^ / c ^--r>-^ / <T AT
AJr3DS Js
A/T7-/AT7
?/P6'S ALLFIXF>. f <t -5<_
-i^-r /
PIPL-^A^ N (,LOOK
YOU^ LIKE Jsr ,
'
OH? cjHf ^
6'AA)
The"need" for the amendmentand the termsof the ensuingdebate (involving
The "need" for the amendmentand the termsof the ensuingdebate (involving
only two other senators)were establishedby Helms in his opening remarks:
About 2 monthsago, I received a copy of some AIDS comic books
that are being distributedby the Gay Men's Health Crisis, Inc., of
New York City, an organization which has received $674,679 in
Federal dollars for so-called AIDS education and information.These
comic books told the story,in graphicdetail, of the sexual encounter
of two homosexual men.
The comic books do not encourage and change [sic]any of the
pervertedbehavior. In fact,the comic book promotessodomyand the
homosexual lifestyleas an acceptable alternativein American soci-
ety. ... I believe that if the American people saw these books, they
would be on the verge of revolt.
I obtained one copy of thisbook and I had photostatsmade for
about 15 or 20 Senators. I sent each of the Senators a copy-if you
will forgivethe expression-in a brown envelope marked "Personal
and Confidential,for Senator's Eyes Only." Without exception, the
Senators were revolted, and they suggested to me that President
Reagan ought to knowwhatis being done under the pretenseof AIDS
education.
So, about 10 days ago, I went down to the White House and I
visitedwiththe President.
I said, "Mr. President,I don't want to ruin your day, but I feel
obliged to hand you thisand let you look at what is being distributed
under the pretense of AIDS educational material....
The Presidentopened the book, looked at a couple of pages, and
shook his head, and hit his desk withhis fist.

in an Epidemic
Helms goes on to describe,witheven greaterdisdain,the grantapplication

withwhichGMHC soughtfederalfunds(none of whichwere, in any case, spent
on the productionof the safe-sexcomics). GMHC's proposal involvedwhat any
college-levelpsychologystudent would understandas prerequisiteto the very
task of helpingpeople change theirsexual habits. Helms read GMHC's
difficult
statementof the problem:
As gay men have reaffirmed theirgay identitythroughsexual expres-
sion, recommendationsto change sexual behavior may be seen as
oppressive.For many,safe sex has been equated withboring,unsatis-
fyingsex. Meaningfulalternativesare oftennot realized. These per-
ceived barriersmustbe consideredand alternativesto high-riskprac-
tices promoted in the implementation of AIDS risk-reduction
education.
Afterreading thisthoroughlyunextraordinarystatement,Helms fumes:
This Senator is not a goody-goodytwo-shoes.I have lived a long time.
I have seen a lot of things.I have served 4 years in the Navy. I have
been around the track. But every Christian,religious, moral ethic
withinme criesout to do something.It is embarrassingto standon the
Senate floorand talk about the details of this travesty.
Throughout the floordebate, Helms continued in this vein:

We have got to call a spade a spade and a pervertedhuman being a
pervertedhuman being.
-Every AIDS case can be traced back to a homosexual act.

262 CRIMP
-It [the amendment]will forcethiscountryto slam the door on the

wayward,warped sexual revolutionwhichhas ravaged thisNation for
the past quarter of a century.27
--I thinkwe need to do some AIDS testingon a broad level and

unlesswe get around to thatand stop talkingabout all of thisbusiness
of civil rights,and so forth,we will not stop the spread of AIDS. We
used to quarantine for typhoidfeverand scarletfever,and it did not
ruin the civil libertiesof anybodyto do that.
There were, all told, two responseson the Senate floorto Helms's amend-
ment. The firstcame from Senator Chiles of Florida, who worried about the
amendment'sinclusionof IV drug usersamong those to whom education would
be preventedby the legislation-worried because thisgroup includes
effectively
heterosexuals:
I like to talk about heterosexuals.That is gettinginto my neighbor-

hood. That is gettinginto where it can be involvedwithpeople that I
know and love and care about, and that is where it is getting to
children.And again, these children,when you thinkabout a child as
an AIDS victim,there is just no reason in the world that should
happen. And so we have to tryto do what we can to preventit.
The ritual hand-wringingsentimentsabout innocent children with AIDS per-
vade the debate, as they pervade the discussion of AIDS everywhere.This
27. Compare Larry Kramer's characterNed Weeks's statement:"You don't know what it's been
like since the sexual revolutionhit thiscountry.It's been crazy,gay or straight"(p. 36).

How to Have Promiscuityin an Epidemic 263
.-}-\ / < 7(Dx Lr VO

MYA/ P,IPE
a '-T^F
S\
bJ^ ^ a trrA- MwsLcF...IF U' VE
F-^,~Z; ~ioob.~~7)t~aIBf~H6-P AtoEr V6Co
)U.
unquestioned sentiment must be seen for what it is: a vicious apportioning of

degrees of guilt and innocence to people with AIDS. It reflects, in addition, our
society's extreme devaluation of life and experience. (The hypocrisy of this
distorted set of values does not, however, translate into funding for such necessi-
ties for the welfare of children as prenatal care, child care, education, and so
forth.)
Because Chiles only liked to talk about heterosexuals, it was left to Senator
Weicker of Connecticut to defend safe sex education for gay people. "It is not
easy to stand up in the face of language such as this and oppose it," said Weicker,
"but I do." Weicker's defense was not made any easier by the fact that he knew
what he was talking about: "I know exactly the material that the Senator from
North Carolina is referring to. I have seen it. I think it is demeaning in every
way." And later, ". .. this is as repugnant to me as it is to anybody else."
Because Weicker finds innocuous little drawings of gay male sex as demeaning
and repugnant as the North Carolina senator does, he must resort to "science" to
oppose Helms's " philosophy":28 "We better do exactly what we have been told
to do by those of science and medicine, which is, No. 1, put our money into
research and, No. 2, put our money into education." "The comic book," says
Weicker, "has nothing to do with the issue at hand."
28. In the Senate debate, positionssuch as Helms's are referredto as philosophical.Thus Senator
Weicker: "This education process has been monkeyedaround withlong enough by thisadministra-
tion. This subcommitteeover 6 monthsago allocated $20 million requested by the Centers for
Disease Control foran educational mailerto be mailed to everyhousehold in the United States ....
That is yetto be done. It is yetto be done not because of anybodyin the CentersforDisease Control,
or not anybody in Secretary [of Health and Human Services] Bowen's office,but because the
philosophersin the White House decided theydid not want a mailerto go to everyhousehold in the
United States. So the education effortis set back" (CongressionalRecord, October 14, 1987,
p. S14206).

264 CRIMP
But of course the comic book has everythingto do withthe issue at hand-
because it is preciselythe sort of safe sex education material that has been
proven to work,developed by the organizationthat has produced the greatest
amount of safe sex educationmaterialof any in the country,including,of course,
the federal government.29
Given the degree of Senate agreementthat gay men's safe sex education
material was "garbage," in Helms's word, it seemed possible to compromise
enough on the amendment's language to please all three participantsin the
debate. The amendment was thus reworded to eliminateany referenceto IV
drug users,therebyassuagingSenator Chiles's fearsthatsomeone he knowsand
cares about--or someone in his neighborhood,or at least someone he doesn't
mind talkingabout-could be affected.Helms veryreluctantlyagreed to strike
the word condone,but managed to add directlyor indirectly after promoteor
encourageand before homosexual sexual Thus
activity. the amendment now reads:
. . none of the fundsmade available under thisAct to the Centers
for Disease Control shall be used to provide AIDS education, infor-
mation,or preventionmaterialsand activitiesthatpromoteor encour-
age, directlyor indirectly,homosexual sexual activities.
Afterfurther,verybriefdebate, duringwhichWeickercontinuedto oppose the
amendment,a roll-callvote was taken. Two senators-Weicker and Moynihan
-voted against; ninety-foursenatorsvotedfor theHelmsamendment, includingall
other Senate sponsors of the federal gay and lesbian civil rightsbill. Senator
Kennedy perhaps voiced the opinion of his fellowliberal senatorswhen he said,
"The currentversion[the reworded amendment]is toothlessand it can in good
consciencebe supportedby the Senate. It maynot do any good, but it willnot do
any harm." Under the amendment,as passed, most AIDS organizationsprovid-
ing education and servicesto gay men, the group mostaffectedand, thusfar,at
29. "George Rutherfordof the San Francisco Departmentof Public Health last year told a US
Congressional Committee investigatingAIDS that the spread of the virus dramaticallyslowed in
1983, when public health education programmesdirected at gay men began. The year before, 21
percentof the unexposed gay population had developed antibodiesto HIV, indicatingthattheyhad
been exposed to the virusover the previousthree months.But in 1983, thatfigureplummetedto 2
percent. In 1986 it was 0.8 percent,and researchersexpect that it will continue to fall. . . . The
campaigns to promote safe sex among gay men, and educate them about AIDS have been almost
totallysuccessfulin less than four years. Such rapid changes in behaviour contrastsharplywiththe
poor response over the past 25 yearsfromsmokersto warningsabout the risksto theirhealth from
cigarettes"("'Safe Sex' Stops the Spread of AIDS," New Science,January7, 1988, p. 36).
In a studyof the efficacyof various formsof safe sex education materials,commissionedby
GMHC and conducted by Dr. Michael Quadland, professorof psychiatryat Mount Sinai School of
Medicine, it was determinedthat explicit,erotic filmsare more effectivethan other techniques.Dr.
Quadland was quoted as saying,"We know that in tryingto get people to change riskybehavior,
stopping smoking,for example, or wearing seat belts, that fear is effective.But sex is different.
People cannotjust give sex up" (Gina Kolata, "Erotic Filmsin AIDS StudyCut RiskyBehavior,"New
YorkTimes,November 3, 1987).

in an Epidemic
highest risk in the epidemic, would no longer qualify for federal funding.5?
Founded and directedby gay men, the Gay Men's Health Crisisis hardlylikelyto
stop "promotingor encouraging,directlyor indirectly,homosexual sexual activ-
ity." Despite the factthatGMHC is the oldest and largestAIDS serviceorganiza-
tion in the US; despite the fact that it provides direct servicesto thousands of
people livingwithAIDS, whethergay men or not; despitethe factthatGMHC's
safe sex comicsare nothingmore scandalous than simple,schematicallydepicted
scenariosof gaymale safe sex; despitethe factthattheyhave undoubtedlyhelped
save thousandsof lives-GMHC is considered unworthyof federal funding.
When we see how compromisedany effortsat respondingto AIDS will be
when conducted by the state, we are forced to recognize that all productive
practicesconcerningAIDS will remain at the grass-rootslevel. At stake is the
culturalspecificity of thesepractices,as well as theirabilityto take
and sensitivity
account of psychicresistanceto behavioralchanges,especiallychanges involving
behaviorsas psychicallycomplex and charged as sexualityand drug use.31Gov-
ernmentofficials,school board members,public health officers,Catholic cardi-
nals insistthatAIDS education mustbe sensitiveto "communityvalues." But the
values theyhave in mind are those of no existingcommunityaffectedby AIDS.
When "communityvalues" are invoked,it is only forthe purpose of imposing the
purportedvalues of those (thusfar)unaffectedby AIDS on the people (thus far)
mostaffected.Instead of the specific,concrete languages of those whose behav-
iors put them at risk for AIDS, "communityvalues" require a "universal"
language that no one speaks and many do not understand. "Don't exchange
bodilyfluids"is nobody's spoken language. "Don't come in his ass" or "pull out
beforeyou come" is whatwesay. "If you have mainlinedor skinpoppednow or in
the past you maybe at riskof gettingAIDS. If you have shared needles, cookers,
syringes,eyedroppers,water,or cotton withanyone, you are at riskof getting
AIDS."32 This is not abstract"communityvalues" talking.This is the language
of membersof the IV drug using community.It is thereforeessentialthat the
word community be reclaimed by those to whom it belongs, and that abstract
30. Afterthe House of Representativespassed the amendmentby a vote of 368-47, a full-scale

lobbyingeffortwas undertakenby AIDS organizationsand gay activiststo defeat it in House-Senate
ConferenceCommittee.Ultimately,the amendmentwas retainedas written,although indirectly was
strickenand the followingrideradded: "The language in the bill should not be construedto prohibit
descriptionsof methodsto reduce the riskof HIV transmission, to limiteligibilityforfederalfundsof
a granteeor potentialgrantee because of its nonfederallyfundedactivities,nor shall it be construed
to limitcounselingor referralsto agencies that are not federallyfunded."
31. Richard Goldstein has writtenabout the necessityto take account of the social and psychic
dimensionsof IV drug use in tryingto bring about behavior changes: "Rescuing the IV-user may
involvesome of the same techniquesthathave workedin the gay community.The sharingof needles
mustbe understoodin the same contextas anal sex-as an ecstaticact thatenhances social solidar-
ity" ("AIDS and the Social Contract," VillageVoice,December 29, 1987, p. 19).
32. Quoted from a pamphlet issued by ADAPT (Association for Drug Abuse Preventionand
Treatment),Brooklyn,New York.

266 CRIMP
usages of such termsbe vigorouslycontested."Communityvalues" are, in fact,

just what we need, but theymustbe the values of our actual communities,not
those of some abstract,universalizedcommunitythatdoes not and cannot exist.
One curious aspect of AIDS education campaigns devised by advertising
agencies contracted by governmentsis their failure to take into account any
aspect of the psychicbut fear. An industrythat has used sexual desire to sell
everythingfromcars to detergentssuddenlyfindsitselfat a loss forhow to sell a
condom. This paralysisin the face of sex itselfon the part of our most sophisti-
cated producers of propaganda is perhaps partiallyexplained by the strictures
placed on the industryby the contractinggovernments-by their notion of
"communityvalues" -but it is also to be explained by advertising'sconstruction
of its audience only as a group of largelyundifferentiated consumers.
In PolicingDesire,Watneywritesof the Britishgovernment'sAIDS propa-
ganda campaign, produced for them by the world's largest advertisingfirm,
Saatchi and Saatchi:
Advertisementsspelled out the word "AIDS" in seasonal giftwrap-
ping paper, togetherwith the accompanyingquestion: "How many
people willget it forChristmas?"Anotheradvertconveysthe message
that "Your next sexual partnercould be thatveryspecial person"-
framedinside a heart like a Valentine--with a supplementbeneath
whichterselyadds, "The one thatgivesyou AIDS." The officialline is
clearly anti-sex,and draws on an assumed rhetoric from previous
AIDS commentary concerning "promiscuity" as the supposed
"cause" of AIDS.33
Similarployswere used forads paid forby the MetropolitanLife Insurance

Company and posted throughoutthe New York Citysubwaysystemby the city
health department.One is a blow-up of a newspaper personals section withan
appealing notice circled (intended to be appealing, that is, to a heterosexual
woman) and the statement"I got AIDS throughthe personals." The other is a
cartoon of a man and woman in bed, each witha thoughtbubble saying"I hope
he [she] doesn't have AIDS!" And below: "You can't live on hope."
"What's the big secret?" asked the poster that was pasted over the city's
worse-than-uselesswarnings, "You can protect yourself from AIDS." And,
below, carefullydesigned and worded safe sex and clean works information.
This was a guerrillaaction by an AIDS activistgroup callingitselfthe Metropoli-
tan Health Association(MHA), whose membersalso pasted stripsprintedwith
the words government inactionover thepersonalsor hopeto work the changes "I
got AIDS from governmentinaction" or "You can't live on governmentinac-
tion." But saving lives is clearly less importantto the citythan protectingthe
33. Watney,p. 136.

Metropolitan
HealthAssociation.
Interventions
onNew
YorkCitysubwayadvertisements.
1988.

268 CRIMP
transitauthority'sadvertisingspace, so MHA's "reinformation"was quickly

removed.34
The cityhealth department'sscare tacticswere next directedat teenagers
-and specificallyteenagers of color-in a series of public service announce-
mentsmade fortelevision.Using a strategyof enticementfollowedby bluntand
brutal admonishment,one of these shows scenes of heavy pettingin cars and
alleysover a sound trackof the pop song "Boom Boom": "Let's go back to my
room so we can do it all nightand you can make me feel right." Suddenly the
music cuts out and the scene changes to a shot of a boy wrapped in a blanket,
lookingfrightened,miserable,and ill. A voice-overwarns,"If you have sex with
someone who has the AIDS virus[sic],you can get it,too. So beforeyou do it,ask
yourselfhow bad you reallywant it. Don't ask forAIDS, don't get it." The final
phrase serves as a titlefor the series-"AIDS: Don't get it." The confusionof
antecedentsforit-both sex and AIDS -is, of course, deliberate.Witha clever
linguisticmaneuver,the health departmenttells kids that sex and AIDS are the
same thing. But the abilityof these PSAs to shock their intended audience is
based not only on this manipulativelanguage and quick edit from scenes of
sexual pleasure to the close-up of a face with KS lesions on it-the media's
standard"face of AIDS." The real shockcomes because imagesof sexyteenagers
and sounds of a disco beat are usuallyfollowedon TV by Pepsi Cola and a voice
tellingyou to get it. One can only wonder about the degree of psychicdamage
thatmightresultfromthe PSAs' substitution.But AIDS willnot be preventedby
psychicdamage to teenagers caused by ads on TV. It will only be stopped by
respectingand celebratingtheirpleasure in sex and by tellingthemexactlywhat
theyneed and want to know in order to maintainthat pleasure.
The ADS epidemic
Is sweeping the nation
Acquired dread of sex
Fear and panic

In the whole population
Acquired dread of sex
This is not a Death in Venice

It's a cheap, unholymenace
Please ignore the moral message
This is not a Death in Venice
34. I borrowthe termreinformation fromMichael Isenmengerand Diane Neumaier,who coined it

to describe cultural practices whose goal is to counter the disinformationto which we are all
constantlysubject.

JohnGreyson.The ADS Epidemic. 1987.
r~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~----

270 CRIMP
This is the refrainofJohn Greyson'smusic-videoparodyof Death in Venice.The

plague in Greyson's version of the tale is ADS, acquired dread of sex-
somethingyou can get from,among other things,watchingTV. Tadzio is a
pleasure-lovingblonde who discoversthat condoms are "his veryfavoritething
to wear," and Aschenbachis a middle-classbigotwho,observingthe sexyshenan-
igans of Tadzio and his boyfriend,succumbsto acquired dread of sex. Made fora
thirty-six-monitor video wall in the Square One shopping mall in Mississauga,a
suburbof Toronto, TheADS Epidemic,like the PSAs just described,is directedat
adolescents and appropriates a format they're used to, but in this case the
message is both pro-sexand made for the kids most seriouslyat risk-sexually
active gay boys. The playfulnessof Greyson's tape should not obscure this
immenselyimportantfact:not a singlepiece of government-sponsored education
about AIDS for young people, in Canada or the US, has been targetedat a gay
audience, even though governmentsnever tire of emphasizing the statistics
showingthatthe overwhelmingnumbersof reportedcases of AIDS occur in gay
and bisexual men.
The impulse to counteract the sex-negativemessages of the advertising
industry'sPSAs also informsBritishfilmmakerIsaac Julien'sThisIs Not an AIDS
Advertisement.35There is no hint of a didactic message here, but rather an
attemptto give voice to the complexitiesof gay subjectivityand experience at a
criticalhistoricalmoment. In Julien's case, the specificexperience is that of a
black gay man livingin the increasinglyracistand homophobic atmosphereof
Thatcher's Britain.36Using footage shot in Venice and London, This Is Not an
AIDS Advertisement is divided into two parts,the firstelegiac, lyrical;the second,
buildingupon and repeatingimages fromthe first,paced to a BronskiBeat rock
of
song. Images gay male sexual desireare coupled withthe song's refrain,"This
is not an AIDS advertisement.Feel no guilt in your desire."
Greyson'sand Julien'svideos signal a new phase in gay men's responsesto
the epidemic. Having learned to supportand grieve for our lovers and friends;
havingjoined the fightagainst fear, hatred, repression,and inaction; having
adjusted our sex lives so as to protectourselvesand one another-we are now
reclaimingour subjectivities,our communities,our culture . . . and our pro-
miscuous love of sex.
35. Available throughThird World Newsreel, New York City.

36. In late 1987, a Helms-styleanti-gayclause was insertedin Britain's Local GovernmentBill.
Clause 28 says, "A local authorityshall not (a) promote homosexualityor publish materialfor the
promotionof homosexuality;(b) promote the teachingin any maintainedschool of the acceptability
of homosexualityas a pretendedfamilyrelationshipby the publicationof such materialor otherwise;
and (c) give financialassistanceto any person foreitherof the purposes referredto in paragraphs(a)
and (b) above." Unlike the Helms Amendment,however,the Britishbill, thougha more sweeping
prohibitionof pro-gaymaterials,specificallyforbidsthe use of the bill "to prohibitthe doing of
anythingfor the purpose of treatingor preventingthe spread of disease."

IsaacJulien.
This Is Not an AIDS Advertisement.
I987.


How To Have Promiscuity in An Epidemic PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

How To Have Promiscuity in An Epidemic PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

How to Have Promiscuity in an Epidemic

Author(s): Douglas Crimp

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

-AIDS: Questions and Answers

1. AIDS, and theMedia, Minneapolis,University

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

weeklydiatribesagainstthe likesof RobertGallo of the National Cancer Institute

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

Krameris said to be vyingforthejob of scriptwriter of the serieswilladd to these

. . a new language forged by public health officials,anxious gay

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

from what was politicallyfacile and psychologicallyreassuring. Se-

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

PATIENT ZERO: The Man WhoBroughtAIDS to NorthAmerica

5. The factthatShiltschose thismomentas the end pointof his narrativesuggeststhatthe book's

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

The storyof Gaetan Dugas, or "Patient Zero," is woven throughoutthe

-New YorkPost: THE MAN WHO GAVE US AIDS

-NY Daily News: The man who flewtoo much

- Time:The Appalling Saga of Patient Zero

-McClean's: "Patient Zero" and the AIDS virus

Peoplemagazine made "Patient Zero" one of its "25 mostintriguingpeople

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

it is a productof internalizedhomophobia. In thisview,Shiltsis seen to identify

6. Shiltswritesin his "Notes on Sources," "This book is a workofjournalism.There has been no

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

escape the effects of homophobia by employing a particular cultural form, one

7. RolandBarthes,Writing DegreeZero,trans.AnnetteLaversand ColinSmith,Boston,Beacon

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

providedthe viciouslyhomophobicportraitof "Patient Zero" because histhriller

9. A. M. Rosenthal,"AIDS: Everyone'sBusiness,"New YorkTimes,December 29, 1987, p. A19.

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

How is it thatforfouryearsthe deaths of thousandsof gay men could leave

Bruce [the president of GMHC]: . . . the entire gay political plat-

Ned: . . . the gay leaders who created thissexual liberationphiloso-

Mickey:You know,the battleagainstthe police at Stonewallwas won

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

--MAYOR KOCH: $75,000-MAYOR FEINSTEIN:

-During the firstnineteen monthsof the epidemic, The New York

-During the firstthree monthsof the Tylenol scare in 1982, The

No one would disputethatthesefactsand figureshave politicalsignificance,

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

in Central Africa,where the syndromeis a problem of apocalypticdimensions,

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

was that those "guys in Brooks Brotherssuits" verysoon hounded transvestites

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

worthof honestanswersfromtheirloversabout forgottenpast lives.14

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

theywillhave unsafesex. We were able to inventsafesex because we have always

19. Ibid., p. 72.

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

you do sexually,and no matterhow much protectionyou use while

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

AIDS: ChangingtheRules. 1987

get the condom on the cock. It appears to be a foregoneconclusionthatthereis

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

households. It is importantto the economies of many developing

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

dishearteningspectacle." He was referringto the largestcivil rightsdemonstra-

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM

This content downloaded from 128.151.244.46 on Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:17:00 AM