NCJ Number
130844
Date Published
1989
Length
10 pages
Annotation
The subject of AIDS has been amplified by cultural voices of racism, familialism, nationalism, and a range of anxieties concerning sexual behavior in general and homosexual behavior in particular.
Abstract
The cultural agenda of AIDS affects all perceptions of the disease, regardless of how they may be mediated by factors such as class, race, gender, and sexuality. This cultural agenda relies on a limited set of heavily overdetermined words and images, any one of which can stand in isolation for the logic of the total structure. The cultural agenda contributes to a domino theory of the AIDS syndrome which proceeds from the initial notion of the AIDS virus to AIDS testing. Further, the cultural agenda has consistently presented the AIDS syndrome as an intrinsic property of particular social groups. Another aspect of AIDS is the individual who has the disease. Most people who have AIDS go about their lives like everyone else but with the added burden of a cultural agenda that makes employment, housing, insurance, health care, and ordinary social life difficult. Strategies of resistance to the cultural agenda of AIDS should be developed in relation to lay perceptions of health. The simple distinction between infection and contagion, once firmly established, is a significant block to the internal logic of AIDS commentary. Experience strongly suggests that people cannot be frightened into celibacy and that monogamy is no defense against HIV infection. 10 references