How AIDS changed sex in America. Or did it? Virus opened door to sex education ...

PMS NBC ^ | 06.04.06 | Brian Alexander

[OldFriend]

AIDS found it's way to the general population thanks to homosexuals who lied about their activities and donated blood.

Slick willie sold tainted AIDS blood from Arkansas prisons to unsuspecting people in Canada.

The blood supply was contaminated accidently and intentionally.

However, the supposedly millions of AIDS cases in Africa is a bit of a myth. Many people have never gone to a doctor and there is no way to know if they are infected or not.

Ramping up the numbers is just a way of getting dollars.

[SuziQ]

Sex education got going big time in the late 70's and early 80's, even before AIDS became widely known. SEICUS (Sex Education Information Council of the US) had been preparing booklets and movies for high schools. With AIDS however, it began to drift down into the middle schools, and by the early 90's folks were pushing it for Kindergarten. This tracked right along with the media and music working hard to sexualize our kids with sit-coms beginning to push the envelope, and singers like Madonna, Cyndi Lauper and Prince pushing the slut-puppy look.

[Lou L]

And I'm here to tell you that nakedness means, and can only mean, three things: (1)innocense (as in infants); (2) intimacy (as in faithful, trusting lovers); and (3) shame, as in slave auctions, trafficked women, and abuse.

This is an interesting summary and you make some good points of which I somewhat agree with, but how do you feel about nakedness in art? About works such as Michaelangelo's David?

[KoRn]

"It's the most politicised disease in history!!"

And the easiest to cure, by not getting it. The disease in 90+% of the cases is linked to behavior.

[TASMANIANRED]

"At first, AIDS appeared to be a disease of gay men"

All these years later it still appears to be a disease of gay men.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"... how do you feel about nakedness in art? About works such as Michaelangelo's David?"

An interesting question, and one I admit is out of my league since I know so little about art.

My guess is that male and female nakedness have somewhat different meanings. Women are naturally more modest and protective about their bodies, I think because of literal vulnerability (softer body, less heft of muscle and bone, easier to be hurt) and also because of a heightened sense of the body as a portal to inwardness: the heart and the soul, if you will.

Michelangelo's Adam goes along with innocense: although he had a mature male physique, his soul was innocent and he was uttely without either sin or shame.

Michelangelo's David is another matter, and more perplexing to me. It resembles classical Greek sculpture, and many of the ancient Greeks considered the young virile form to be the epitome of beauty. This had homosexual overtones: infatuation with a beautiful young man was a popular amusement to some of the elite (and they were the men who had the money to commission sculptures!)

Michelangelo admired the Greek aesthetic, and was much torn between his passionate Catholicism and bouts of strong homosexual feeling. So that might partly explain it.

[The just man]
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is--
Chríst--for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces
. (Gerard Manley Hopkins)

[crghill]

I've heard this about the African aids cases, but I'm not sure what to believe. I've walked on the mission field in S. Africa and have seen with my own eyes, the death that is there. I know for fact that the behavior in the villages is without moral regard and men sleep with anyone they please. Therefore, I know the actions that can perpetuate the spread of the disease are present, but I also know that post-mortem exams are rarely done. That being said, something is making the people there die very, very quickly. I'm pretty convinced it is aids.

[VengefulGod]

Except in Africa. In Africa, it is mostly a straight disease and it started there. So, it's not just gays but those africans too.

[OldFriend]

Many diseases can cause wasting and death.

The leaders insisting that there is no such thing as AIDS. The citizenry believing sex with infant children will cure AIDS.

This is not a place that can be saved.

Malnutrition is another factor. Political starvation is the norm in Africa.

[Energy Alley]

That is really only the case in the west - in Japan it is mostly heterosexual youth, in Africa it is basically everyone. In Southeast Asia it is mostly associated with women in the sex trade. In eastern europe drug addicts.

Queers might have spread it significantly in the US, but GRIDS was not an accurate definition of the illness on a global scale. It was only immediately visible in that community.

[redgolum]

AIDS is not about the disease, it is an agenda. If this was about public health there would have been a quarantine, but since it was spread by "protected" classes, that could never happen.

[Irish_Thatcherite]

That is true.

[Irish_Thatcherite]

Thanks for that.

[chris_ab]

Interesting point of view... you maybe correct.

Wait, are birds gay? : )

[chris_ab]

Parents:

In the seventh grade a kid in my sex ed. class was not given permission by his parents to learn from the school. He had to go to the library every day for 1 hour. I'm sure that kid is one of the most successful out of my 7th grade class. Those confortable with sexuality, in general, and their sexuality are usually disfunctional.

Pay for a community class, teach it yourself with other parents or find a learning center.

Kids from liberal families are a wreck and they fear nothing - not even becoming a loser kid. I enjoy seeing how non-liberal families allow their kids to have a healthy fear of certain things like sex.