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Legalize the Constitution |
I really don’t have any answers. I had a cousin that was gay back then. He was a Nebraska farm kid. Left home when he was old enough to leave and moved first to San Francisco, then Los Angeles. He contracted AIDS. He came home to my widower uncle on the farm and lived his remaining weeks there with my uncle. Uncle Bill was a B-17 pilot in WWII, and one might think could carry a heavy prejudice against his son’s lifestyle, but he didn’t. Yet another thing I admired him for. _______________________________________________________ despite them | |||
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| Member |
Keep in mind, SF had/does have a very large gay community as compared to the rest of the country so various groups/cliches from within were established: Castro was for gay men, Bernal Heights was the Lesbians area, Polk & Tenderloin was for the 'weirdos and deviants', Eureka Valley, Dolores Park and Noe Valley was were the well-off or, domesticated gays lived. Long time gay neighborhoods like Hollywood & Sunset Strip in LA, The Village in NYC or, Boystown in Chicago, had similar divisions. I think because you were in Florida, and for many parts of the country, if you weren't a 'normy', you found fellowship and common ground amongst those who didn't conform to societal norms, welcoming everyone was normal; what a concept  . Job fields like the arts, entertainment and, service sector was were many gays found employment and community thus, any business was good business. The 80's was also a coming of age for the gay community, the divisions and self-segregation that existed in the 60-70's, was slowly eroded away, as more gays within professional fields came out. | |||
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Member |
Thank you all for your most informative answers; it is very generous of you to use your spare time with my query - mostly considering that, even though I’ve been lurking here for a long time, I am a minor participant of this forum. Not being gay myself, it is hard to separate what is honest report, and what is propaganda. Of course one *can* acquire that knowledge, but one would have an entire library to go through, if one hasn’t lived it (I am from the mid-to-late 70s, and the whole “AIDS as an epidemic” thing is but a distant memory to me). No, it’s not an academic project. I left academia 20+ years ago, and my field was unrelated to public health (I took law). I’m studying this matter to educate myself in the subject. It’s a selfish pursuit, I guess. | |||
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| Muzzle flash aficionado  |
I had a gay cousin who died in 1977 from cancer. I don't think general awareness of the AIDS situation was widespread then. flashguy Texan by choice, not accident of birth | |||
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| You're going to feel a little pressure... |
Kaposi's sarcoma is a cancer that we now know represents an undeniable positive AIDS diagnosis. I wonder how many years we could go back and identify cases before the 80's. Bruce "The designer of the gun had clearly not been instructed to beat about the bush. 'Make it evil,' he'd been told. 'Make it totally clear that this gun has a right end and a wrong end. Make it totally clear to anyone standing at the wrong end that things are going badly for them. If that means sticking all sort of spikes and prongs and blackened bits all over it then so be it. This is not a gun for hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it is a gun for going out and making people miserable with." -Douglas Adams “It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to try to enslave a people that wants to remain free." -Niccolo Machiavelli The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. -Mencken | |||
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Member |
Stretching my knowledge here, most AIDS cancer deaths involved Kaposi's sarcoma, resulting from specific sexual activity. I think AIDS was first identified in the very early 80's. Cancer deaths in gays before that could have been AIDS related, more likely not because when it started showing up, it skyrocketed. **edit** I guess you posted just before me on KS, RNshooter. Set the controls for the heart of the Sun. | |||
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Age Quod Agis |
I spoke with a business partner of mine who is gay this afternoon. He is 63 and lived through the time period you describe. He is a professional (mathematician and programmer), has lived in a couple of gay hotspots, and mentors young gay men on how to manage being gay. First, he mentioned "And the Band Played On" by Shiltz as an essential read for you. He also expressed a willingness to speak with you if desired. As you don't have an email address in your profile, please contact me at my email if you are interested in speaking with him. I would want to speak with you in advance of any introduction. Please let me know. A "I vowed to myself to fight against evil more completely and more wholeheartedly than I ever did before. . . . That’s the only way to pay back part of that vast debt, to live up to and try to fulfill that tremendous obligation." Alfred Hornik, Sunday, December 2, 1945 to his family, on his continuing duty to others for surviving WW II. | |||
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| Member |
E-mail sent. Thanks. | |||
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| Just because you can, doesn't mean you should |
"I am not gay, but was in my early 20s in the '80s." JHE, may want to adjust a few words in that sentence, just for clarity.  ___________________________ Avoid buying ChiCom/CCP products whenever possible. | |||
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Web Clavin Extraordinaire |
One thing to consider when discussing "reckless" sexual behavior as it pertains to HIV is that the virus is more difficult to transmit via vaginal intercourse. Anal is a far riskier proposition. So while hetero couples may have been "reckless" in the era of AIDS, they were far less likely to transmit it, even if they were having unprotected sex while HIV positive. Of course not all hetero couples confine themselves to vaginal intercourse, but for a gay couple, anal's what you do, so by nature, they are locked into the far riskier sex act if they are "reckless" (i.e. unprotect and/or multiple partners). Hence why it was a "gay disease" and less of a concern to the vast majority of people. ---------------------------- Chuck Norris put the laughter in "manslaughter" Educating the youth of America, one declension at a time. | |||
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Member |
I grew up in Houston just several miles from the Montrose area - the progressive and homosexual area of town. I remember when AIDS popped up while I was in high school. At first, the reporting was about this virus being related to Haitians , and that it had been spread around by the refugees. Then reporting started shifting to the spread in the homosexual community. I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of homosexuals were aware of 5he dangers, but continued their promiscuous lifestyle knowing the dangers. My 92 year old FIL and mid 80s MIL go out and about during COVID with masks, but they know they aren’t fully effective and that they are both frail due to their advanced age. Just like the homosexuals, my in-laws continue on knowing the risks which could ultimately lead to death. I knew a homosexual who told me of his concerns while back in high school and shortly afterward. He was very reckless in his life, and I lost track of him after I left for the military. He was a reck of a person, and knowing him, he would be the type to get AIDS just to become a martyr. I wouldn’t doubt there was a population that didn’t necessarily want to get the disease, but were somehow at peace having it, feeling that they are a part of something bigger than themselves - The Cause. Retired Texas Lawman | |||
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Member |
My limited contact with the gay community from the 70's through retirement was in an official law enforcement context, when there was a problem of some sort. My general impression with the individuals I did have contact with was that there was not a lot of consideration for logical consequences. An outbreak of HIV in the porn industry in the 80's seemed to get everyone's attention and I recall a gay man at a domestic call commenting that it scared hell out of him. Gays in the military and in law enforcement in that period still were mostly underground so there was not a lot of open discussion within the agencies on the topic. I also recall hearing talk from the religious community that AIDS was God's way of punishing the Sodomites. CMSGT USAF (Retired) Chief of Police (Retired) | |||
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Step by step walk the thousand mile road |
Nice is overrated "It's every freedom-loving individual's duty to lie to the government." Airsoftguy, June 29, 2018 | |||
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| Freethinker |
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Thanks for those insights. I am finding this to be an informative thread about things I did not know at the time. ► 6.4/93.6 “ Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own mind without another’s guidance.” — Immanuel Kant | |||
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| Member |
Growing up in NYC at the time, it was interesting to say the least. NYC was like San Fran and other coastal cities, a bit more accepting of the gay lifestyle. Also, NYC had a large Haitian population, still do today. I remember the first couple of years of this "mystery" illness, the eggheads were trying to figure it out. Patterns was all they had... gay, hemophiliacs and Haitians. It was a strange combo and many theorized bodily fluid transfer of some type. I am reminded of how people reacted back then to how COVID19 spread these past 12 months. THe way people reacted... strange times. Anywho, before it was labeled AIDS, it was really ripping the gay community apart and the first name for it was GRIDs... Gay Related Immune Deficiency syndrome. The list of symptoms was solidified before the actual virus was isolated. Culturally, the gay community in the Village partied harder for sure. The fringe members of that subculture... it was the first time I learned of the term hedonism. I think it sent a chill thru their party attitude but it didn't stop them. Even today, with everything that we know about HIV and the drugs, there are still risky parties that take place. I've read about one where a single person is positive and the host invites many others who are not. Everyone knows someone is positive but takes a chance and hooks up anyway. It's kinda like Russian Roulette.... crazy. Of course heteros have their own versions too. Heck, there have been orgies that were busted at the peak of COVID. | |||
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| The Ice Cream Man |
I wonder how much of that was a result of the popularity of heroin and it being a “partying” crowd. Anal/African dry sex does have a much higher rate of transmission, but it’s hot swapped needles which devastated Africa. | |||
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Member |
Jimmy, do you remember any of these places? I worked Fort Lauderdale beach for 10 years starting in 1982. https://nomadicboys.com/best-g...ubs-fort-lauderdale/
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| You're going to feel a little pressure... |
Being 14 and straight, there was no sex for me, but I did spend a good bit of time at the Limelight in 1985. So did Madonna. It was pretty crazy. Bruce "The designer of the gun had clearly not been instructed to beat about the bush. 'Make it evil,' he'd been told. 'Make it totally clear that this gun has a right end and a wrong end. Make it totally clear to anyone standing at the wrong end that things are going badly for them. If that means sticking all sort of spikes and prongs and blackened bits all over it then so be it. This is not a gun for hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it is a gun for going out and making people miserable with." -Douglas Adams “It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to try to enslave a people that wants to remain free." -Niccolo Machiavelli The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. -Mencken | |||
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Member |
My impression of that period was that many (aka lots) of gay people were caught off guard, by whose fault I can't say, but if I'm remembering correctly that it was lack of timely information. However, I very clearly remember that the Feds said that Aids could not, under any circumstances, be transmitted through normal heterosexual sex. When I heard that, in spite of my lack of life experience in that time, I knew it was pure bullshit, figuring out before anyone else even mentioned that it was in fact bullshit. At that time I had so much biology, chemistry, and physics, combined with a natural gift of early-onset common sense, that many people would get sick and die via heterosexual sex. I remember bringing that up in conversation a couple times, that that disease would surely migrate via that mode of transmission at some point in the near future, but only getting rebutted, because the gubbmint said it could not happen. Government bullshit will never end, it's part of what make the government the government. The peter principle at its finest. Lover of the US Constitution Wile E. Coyote School of DIY Disaster | |||
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