Is Was Unfortunate That AIDS Hit The Gay Community First :: Gay Lesbian Issues Essays

Is Was Unfortunate That AIDS Hit The Gay Community First If the United States had known 20 years ago what it knows now about the transmission and progression of HIV, it would have most likely taken greater steps to contain the spread of the virus. However, it was then unknown that each diagnosed case of AIDS represented hundreds of cases of undiagnosed HIV in the greater population. It was also unknown that HIV's eight-year incubation coupled with its mode of sexual transmission would rapidly result in one of the worst epidemics in modern history. In hindsight it is unfortunate that AIDS first broke out among a sector of american society which was as marginalized and sexually liberated as was the gay male sector of american society. Despite all the positive measures taken by the gay community to promote AIDS awareness and research after the epidemic broke out, the adversarial relationship they had with the Reagan administration and the promiscuity associated with their sexual revolution contributed towards the spread of AIDS. In the HBO movie, And the Band Played On, adapted from Randy Shilts's best-selling book of the same title, it is suggested that the spread of the AIDS epidemic could have been contained had the health issue been given appropriate attention and funding from the outset. This may not be true. Whether or not AIDS could have been contained may have depended on the population it was affecting. If so, the fact that AIDS hit the homosexual population first may have been particularly unfavorable for two reasons. First, according to the best information on the risk of transmission associated with certain behaviors made available by the CDC, anal sex is the act mostly likely to transmit AIDS. Anal sex is practiced in the male homosexual population far more than in any other sector of american society. Second, the gay male population was considerably promiscuous in the early 1980s as a result of their recent sexual revolution. Sexually transmitted disease such as syphilis, gonorrhea, and HIV ran rampant through public bath houses, where gay men would engage in anonymous sex with other men. These two factors contributed significantly to the spread of AIDS. While it is impossible to know if the AIDS epidemic could have been completely contained, it is certainly true that an earlier understanding of the HIV virus and its modes of transmission would have dissuaded some people from engaging in the types of high-risk behaviors associated with HIV transmission, and hence saved lives.