Quote Originally Posted by XXXWriterDude View Post
I don't think we should be backing ourselves into another corner where we are the ones blamed for bringing it into the world.
I understand that... but.... the people who believe that gay men brought "AIDS into the world" ALREADY believe it anyway. And if it weren't for AIDS, they would hate you for some other reason.

We can only do so much to fight ignorance and intolerance, and even with the epidemic, we have come a very very long way - in a very short amount of time.

Of course AIDS is not a "gay disease" - but the epidemiolgy in the US is this: The NUMBER ONE RISK FACTOR is men having unprotected sex with other men. The information is out there - the fact that there are so many new infections in the gay community is inexcusable, and something MUST be done about that. Saying that straight girls get AIDS too isn't doing a DAMN thing to stop aids in the gay community.

According to the GMHC, these are the stats in 2002

Men who have sex with men 368,971
Injection drug users 201,326
Men who have sex with men and inject drugs 51,293
Hemophilia/coagulation disorder 5,292
Heterosexual contact 90,131

Estimates of the gay population in the US, based on demographic reports puts the gay and lesbian population at about 1.5%, or around 4.3 Million people. Even adjusting that for undercounting, lets be generous and say there are a total of 3 million men who sleep with other men. And looking at the rest of the population, roughly esitmated there are 200 Million people between the ages of 16-64.

So - there are 197 million people who engage in heterosexual contact, and 3 million men who engage in homosexual contact - yet the AIDS rate among men who sleep with other men is 4x higher than the rate of people who aquire aids strictly though heterosexual contact with no other risk factors.

Epidemiolgically speaking - in the US ---- the makers of this advertisement have a point. The rate of infection for heterosexual contact is about 0.05%. The rate of infection for homosexual contact is about 13%. (If we use the govt figures of 1.5 percent of the population being gay, meaning about 2.2 million gay men, the rate is nearly 20%!)

Reasonable public policy could nearly eliminate infection among needle users (In Europe, you can buy syringes at the grocery store! It is beyond idiotic that you can't get needles in the US!). The non needle using aquistion of aids - while tragic - is low on a % basis.

The ONLY way to stop aids, within the gay community - is for everyone to STOP saying "yeah, but... in Africa" or "But what about the percentage of pregnant women...." and fight AIDS for the community, within the community. Because, generally speaking, you can't change a damn thing in this world until you accept responsibility for it (and please, understand, culpability and responsibility are very different things.)


I understand the fear that this Ad may further stigmatize gay men. But in order to end AIDS within the Gay community, it is imperative that the community itself take responsibility for the infection rate within its own ranks.

And if it takes an ad saying "AIDS is a Gay Disease - Own it" - and if that ad saves any lives, well - good on it.