40 years ago, the first cases of AIDS were reported in the US

My first encounter was to see some Polaroid pix in the window in a pharmacy on Castro warning us of a strange skin cancer.

A gay board filled older gay men and no comments? Perplexing.

I don't want to think about it anymore, r2, let alone post about it. Not perplexing, really.

I was just thinking that, R2. HIV/AIDS doesn’t interest the far-left.

R2 - “ A gay board filled older gay men and no comments? Perplexing”

Uh, Mary Jane, the thread is only two hours old. Give people some time to comment you tedious and impatient twat.

Learn to quote correctly^.

I was 10 in 1981. My teen years were spent being scared of having sex, getting sick and then dying.

They knew about it way before then. I am a straight female and was in the hospital in Dec. 1980 with cancer. I read an article while I was there in either Life or Look magazine about Aids. They were already discussing how it was affecting gay men in the US. I remember all this because the only reason I read the article was because the man they interviewed had the same first name as me which I thought was odd and even odder I was one of very very few people in the entire country to have that name. the article stuck with me and for the next few years I had to explain to people what it was because they were ignorant of the disease. I was released from the hospital on Christmas Eve of 1980. So I don't know where they got 1981 from.

I guess the AIDS crisis made this company second guess it’s name.

[quote]They knew about it way before then. I am a straight female and was in the hospital in Dec. 1980 with cancer. I read an article while I was there in either Life or Look magazine about Aids. They were already discussing how it was affecting gay men in the US.

R8, are you saying you read of a disease that was specifically named AIDS? I didn't think it was called that until 1982.

However, there were two men in my orbit who were sick in 1978 and early 1981 (the day Reagan was shot). The 1978 guy, Jim, had some sort of disease whereby he was losing weight and his doctor couldn't tell him why. He also had flu-like symptoms. We had no idea, but he had been fucking me at the time (I never became positive). We both ended up moving away from LA—he went back home to his parents—and I never heard from him again.

The second guy could have been one of the piss bottoms described in the recently bumped Mineshaft thread. He had intestinal issues mostly, from what I heard. He was in NY, and I was in Portland, OR, so my info was second or third hand. The friend who told me about it referred to it as "amoebas." Pissbottom was the first person I knew who died of it. I don't think it was called anything yet. He may well have been one of the gay men ennumerated in the 1981 Times article.

I was an RN back then; in the early days it was called HTLV III.

HTLV-III is what HIV was called. AIDS was called GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency).

So sad.

What I never understood is how this seemed to happen 'overnight' when didn't it take a few years for AIDS to develop? Seemed like people were dying quickly after diagnosis.

There had to have been other cases before that - it's just that someone saw clusters and saw a pattern?

r10 I don't remember if it even had a name yet. I just remember reading this story about a disease and they were trying to figure out why it was only affecting gay men.

When I look back on it now, maybe it came about so that eventually the gay communities could come out because it really is what changed everything.

R14 I've read theories that Aids developed during either the 1920s or 30s, there was a case of boy in the 60s who died from an illness that had similar symptoms to Aids. I think it's possible that Hiv/aids evolved to a point where it was easier to contract around the late 70s, and that's why it hit hard in the 80s.

R14, progression to AIDS is variable; some people develop AIDS within months of infection.

Not many comments perhaps because for many of us it was the most hurtful and sorrowful time in our lives. Years of fear, suspicion, overwhelming anxiety, and sorrow. You don't get over watching your young, vital, talented, and beautiful friends die a slow painful death, while the Reagan administration looks the other way. Those of us who survived carry a certain amount of survivor guilt. One cannot underestimate the horror it was for everyone involved.

I recall reading a book by one of Freddie Mercury's friends from those day in New York, where he states that of the dozen or so men in the pictures, only he and 2 others survived. Allegedly there were some rumblings and by the year's end, Freddie was in the kitchen explaining to his ex-girlfriend about his lifestyle and how, as such, an open marriage would be ideal. When she mentioned gay and disease he said "ok, we'll just leave it at that then". Lucky for her.

A WW for each of r18's friends who died, were they mine to give.

R18 - still very important because the younger generation acts like it didn't happen.

I’ve been HIV+ for 32 of those 40 years.

HIV isn’t something I think about much; I take my pills (thank you, Larry Kramer), fundraise for AIDS charities, and just get on with my life.

In 1989 I thought I’d be dead within 5 years - if not 2. But here I am.

R22 - don't the side effects affect you after that many years on medication?

R23: No, I’ve never had any noticeable side effects from the meds. Not even from AZT, which I took for a while at the beginning.

I’ve only been on meds consistently for about 15 years now; before that I used to take extended breaks. My numbers were, and are, fine.

And before anyone asks: no, I don’t have facial wasting or “Crix belly” or a hump.

1984/85 I went to 12 funerals of friends under 40. Such a scary sad period

A hump?

R24 - when you stopped taking the medication weren't you afraid of it turning into AIDS?

And they STILL haven't made a movie about the AIDS crisis

Recent research suggests that HIV came to NYC via Haiti around 1970. It made its way to California by the mid-70s.

HIV can take 5-10 years to become AIDS. If people started getting infected in the early 70s, it makes sense that the cases would start showing up in the late 70s. People probably died of it before then, but it was misdiagnosed as pneumonia or flu or cancer.

There is some speculation that Robert Rayford, the teenager who apparently died of AIDS in 1969, lived in St. Louis, a transportation hub. He was probably a child prostitute, and it's possible that someone from Africa or Haiti came through years before and infected him. I've also read speculation that the data on Rayford is inconclusive and he might not have had AIDS at all.

What year was it that HIV went from a terminal infection to a chronic one? Was it 1996 when the cocktail became widely available? Eldergays, when did you start noticing people coming back to life?

They’ll never be able to truly track it, just theories.

Looking back, the first cases Scientists think happened in the 1950s in Congo. A blood sample or tissue sample from 1959 showed the presence of HIV retrospectively. From there it spread to Europe and Haiti and came to the Americas. The teenager R30 mentioned was diagnosed later as having died from AIDS. It must have been spreading and adapting to humans during '60s and '70s as it is a fragile virus. By the time it was discovered it must have reached a point where it was spreading in larger numbers and finally diagnosed. Scientists think HIV is most adapted to spread through anal sex than any other forms and hence seen highest in gay men.

Just sent the link to my roommate because she is very interested in the subject which came about in an interesting way and because she recently sent me an article about how AIDS is on par with suicide and diabetes-related deaths in Bucharest. She says that since she suffered from major endometrial issues from the time she was a kid, she always had to go to the gynecologist who told her to be carefu5if she became sexually active because"AIDS is the one that kills" (1980's). Also, recalled the many orphans infected with AIDS in the 1980's and 1990's here. So many singers like Elton John and MJ donated.

R33 - actually the part about anal sex and how, hence, it is most common among gay men sounds, and has always sounded, a bit faulty. I mean in vaginal sex, there is just as much of a possibility and so many men were in the closet and probably infected their wives.

How the hell is Elton John still alive? That's my question. He was just as big a whore as Mercury and he did more drugs.

He was very, very lucky.

R36 - no clue. Maybe he really didn't have as much sex as he claims? In fact, Freddie tried to "escape" the AIDS crisis 2 times. Once with a rather pathetic 3rd proposal to his ex who was already in love with another man, then, by moving in with and making house with his hag who said it was impossible in the end. I often wonder if Elton doesn't have at least HIV and doesn't say?

John is of Northern European descent. That genetic group has a higher incidence of the CCR5-delta 32 mutation. Perhaps John was one of the lucky few and has partial or total resistance to HIV. Or, he IS HIV positive but his health held out until the cocktail became available. Of course, with his money he'd have access to the best drugs available early on.

[quote]How the hell is Elton John still alive? That's my question. He was just as big a whore as Mercury and he did more drugs.

There has been some speculation, not sure how much it has been studied or if it is still just theory, that some people have some kind of natural immunity to HIV. I thought I read something about these people being studied to try and develop a cure.

HIV jumped from chimps to humans in the early 20th century sometime in the 1920s. I assume it didn't make it to Europe and the Americas until much later because there was little travel back then. There has always been Ebola outbreaks but until now it has stayed in Africa. People are moving into and cutting the forest and coming into contact with more animals.

More information on delta 32:

[quote]A genetic mutation known as CCR5-delta 32 is responsible for the two types of HIV resistance that exist. CCR5-delta 32 hampers HIV's ability to infiltrate immune cells. The mutation causes the CCR5 co-receptor on the outside of cells to develop smaller than usual and no longer sit outside of the cell. CCR5 co-receptor is like door that allows HIV entrance into the cell. The CCR5-delta 32 mutation in a sense locks "the door" which prevents HIV from entering into the cell. 1% of people descended from Northern Europeans, particularly Swedes, are immune to HIV infection. These lucky people are homozygous carriers of the mutated gene - meaning that they inherited a copy from both of their parents. Another 10 -15% (the number has even suggested to be 18%) of people with European heritage inherited one copy of the gene. Just one copy of the mutation does not prevent against infection. It does however reduce carrier's chances of infection and delays the progress of AIDS. Since the CCR5-delta 32 is tied primarily to the Eurasia region, the mutation has not been found in Africans, East Asians, or Amerindians.

R15. That’s stupid and offensive—a virus doesn’t”come about” to galvanize a stigmatized group into collective action. It just happens, grows, mutates, and spreads through biological means. Any other explanation is the kind of crap Louise Hay used to preach. And you’re wrong about dates. The first mention of the “gay cancer” was 1981–there was not some secret journal only you had access to in 1980.

Go educate yourself. At best, your memory is faulty.

Yes-what a game changer the protease inhibitors were. It felt like the turning of the war Crazy 40 years later-32 million dead and no vaccine

All the speculation about promiscuity is offensive since you do not have to slut around to get it. A dab will do 'ya, as they used to say.

And frankly, from what I here from my eldergay, everyone back then fucked around A LOT more than today, no one thought twice about it. It was the norm, even your slutty mothers took a lot of dick back then.

A recent biography of Freddie Mercury pinpoints the period when Freddie probably contracted HIV:

[quote]It was during the U.S. leg of the tour that Freddie pursued his desire for gay sex in New York and on September 25th, while appearing on Saturday Night Live, he began exhibiting some symptoms associated with someone recently infected with HIV. In fact, he had secretly seen a doctor in the city some weeks earlier suffering from a white lesion on his tongue (likely to be hairy leukoplakia, one of the first signs of HIV infection) and this points to the period between 26th July and 13th August 1982 when Freddie contracted HIV during a break in the tour in New York.

Apparently, Freddie spent a lot of nights out at the baths and clubs in NYC during that period, and of course, NYC in 1982 was the epicenter of the early AIDS epidemic. BTW, the SNL performance where he's hoarse and obviously ill is available on YouTube. It's eerie to watch.

Of course, you didn't have to be promiscuous to catch HIV. However, the more people you fuck raw (or dirty needles you share), the higher the possibility that you will be infected. People like Elton John and Freddie Mercury, celebrities who fucked their way around the world during the 1970s and early 1980s when nobody was being careful, were probably exposed dozens of times. It's not surprising that Freddie died young of AIDS. It IS surprising that Elton John did not.

And the Band Played On is a such a great movie and gives a full history of the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Is it on HBO Plus?

I’ve always been very thankful that I did get infected. I started basically becoming active in 1981. I met my partner in 1982. We were together for 19 years. We were in what I thought was a monogamous relationship. In 1997 his doctor felt like he needed to be tested. The results came back as positive and his TCells were 199. I tested negative and we never used protection. After his diagnosis, I think he settled down some, but even 20 years later, I have people tell me about his antics. He left me for someone else in 2001, they stayed together for a week. I’ve often wondered if I have a natural immunity.

R49 here, the first line should have read thankful that I didn’t get infected

I was a kid, but the two biggest things I remember were people thought that you could get it from sharing the same utensils and water fountains. Then the next big thing was the Dynasty kiss between Rock Hudson and Linda Evans. I grew up in a small town, so it wasn't something we had to "see". The first time I knew of someone with it was a cousin who was at college and got it. He came home and died. But it was all very hush hush. I can remember his parents seeming ashamed and embarrassed. What an awful time.

The first gay male who died of AIDS was from NYC in 1979.

Awe, did my quoting style short circuit your hall monitor brain R6?

Another tedious twat. You quote your way, and I’ll quote my way.

R46 - Freddie's voice on the infamous SNL performance was thought to have become thus due to a screaming fight he had with his crazy lover at the time Bill Reid. This man also trashed the hotel where they stayed and bit Freddie's hand so hard that they had to rush him to the hospital. In fact, there is a picture of Freddie with an oxygen mask before going on stage. He certainly didn't look symptomatic until we see him raise his arm at Live Aid and there is a Kaposi Sarcoma on it.

Amazing that in my lifetime, the most deadly communicable diseases happened under 2 of the most incompetent REPUBLICAN Presidents. But then, incompetent and Republican seem to go together.

r36 how come some people never got covid? I said in an earlier post that I was in the hospital for cancer in 1980. My ex gave it to me. They didn't know about the papilloma virus HPV, yet and that it could be spread thru sex. The reason I knew was because he not only continuously cheated on me for 23 years but his next wife got the same exact cancer. Why didn't he get HPV instead of just carrying it and why didn't he get AIDS?

R56 - wait I am confused. You are a woman right? I assume so because HPV typically leads to uterine cancer and you said "next wife" so I assume you are his second wife? If he was having vaginal sex with women, it may have been harder for him to catch it had one of them been infected. Also, I am sorry to hear of your cancer and HPV. It is a silent and horrible killer and truly takes so many lives and causes so much suffering.

R22 you should thank Fauci and those greedy guys from Merck and other companies.

It was surreal to live through and what can you say about losing many of your close friends in the full bloom of youth- so horribly- and often rejected by their families? 96 was the turning point although the side effects of early HAART was difficult for many. Never mind the God damn GOP ignoring the whole plague as much as they could-

There's no way to know when Freddie did get infected. The book suggests that he was infected in the summer of 1982, and the hoarse SNL appearance was the sign of a recent HIV infection. Apparently, the newly infected will often experience flu-like symptoms which go away in a few weeks as the virus goes underground. They then remain asymptomatic for another 5-10 years. However, Freddie was so promiscuous, who knows?

I have a hard time believing that no gay man died of AIDS in NYC until 1979. The first documented case, yes, but it seems likely, if HIV came to NYC in 1970, that men died of it before that, and the deaths were misclassed as pneumonia or cancer.

R49, if you had regular unprotected sex with your HIV-positive partner for years and didn't contract the disease, it seems possible you have delta 32. Are you of Northern European descent?

It's not that surprising if earlier deaths were misclassed prior to the realization that something new had arrived, look at Covid it was assumed by a lot of doctors in the early days it was just a very bad flu, until someone noticed something worse going on.

I remember an earlier thread here where some eldergays who lived in NYC in the 70s said that they knew young men who died of pneumonia and cancer in the mid-70s and wondered later if they were early victims of AIDS.

As a teenager in the early 80s, I remember the misinformation being spread about HIV/AIDS, and the hostility shown towards those suffering from it. My parents were Christians, and I remember some of their Christian friends talking about how this was God's punishment for homosexuality. Those who expressed compassion were oftentimes scorned for doing so.

Being HIV+ is still a stigma, but at least it's no longer a death sentence. I hope to live long enough to see a cure for it.

R61) R49 here.... per 23&me, 98% northwestern European, with a little of the Scandinavian countries. I would say, given his last name, my ex was the same. We both have very generic last names

r57 yes, female, I was the 1st wife.

I was lucky and they caught it early but I got a Dr. that was not so good. I was sent to a large city because they figured the Dr.'s had more experience there. The Dr. cut my main artery and I lost almost all of my blood. I assume I died at one point because when in recovery when I opened my eyes my anesthetist was in my face leaning over me from behind and whispered, Thank God, you're alive. The Dr. proceeded to kill all the nerves to my bladder and partially paralyzed my intestines in the operating room. I had to have surgery again a year later to fix some of the damage but it didn't work. I learned to live with it and didn't sue but now I'm paying for it big time as I age. If I knew then what I know now I would have sued the Dr.'s and the hospital. But it is what it is.

Then delta 32 seems likely, R65. The article above estimated that 1% of people with your heritage are fully immune and as many as 18% are partially immune.

It makes sense that there were random guys who died in the mid/late '70s but fell under the radar until clusters began to pop up leading to the "aha" moment in the early '80s when doctors realized there was something going on. Isn't there a theory that all the clusters that suddenly popped up and snowballed in the early/mid '80s, at least on the East and West coasts, were the result of so many visitors during the bicentennial celebrations in 1976?

That was a theory presented by Randy Shilts in And the Band Played On. Recent epidemiology points to HIV coming to NYC around 1970 via Haiti. By the time of the Bicentennial, it was already established in the population.

Here's the NBC summary of the journal article in Nature which discussed the AIDS timeline. It came to NYC in 1970 or 1971. Possibly a single individual brought the virus to San Francisco in 1976. All of those wild and crazy parties at the Everard Baths and the meat rack on Fire Island were never safe after the early 70s. Large numbers of people just weren't getting noticeably ill until the early 80s.

I was around in the 70s and I know of no one dying of “cancer or pneumonia” in NYC. Young men can get Hodgkin disease and testicular cancer but that is not necessarily due to HIV. My first friend to die was Joe McDonald who was a very successful model. Seems like he was the first of a whole crowd- virtually all my friends who were models except for one. Another good friend from PA died early and he was not remotely promiscuous- just unlucky.

About what time did your friends start getting ill, Charlie?

Charlie, there you are! I was reading one of the older Halston threads the other night and I loved your wonderful posts.

Speaking of victims of the plague, what did you think of the recent Halston miniseries? You met Halston, correct? Did Ewan McGregor get him right?

It doesn't make sense that things suddenly went from 0 to 100, so to speak. It's hard to believe that all of a sudden, guys started dropping like flies. There had to have been scattered sporadic cases prior to those first clusters.

I came of age in the mid '80s, when everyone was dropping like flies. I was so scared I didn't even kiss a man until 1997.

I had sex with many, many men in New York and Los Angeles in the mid- and late '70s, r74. I don't remember ever seeing anyone with the Kaposi's blotches, though. Not that that proves anything, but it was one of the early, and most visible symptoms.

I was in my 20s in the early 80s, but NOT in a major city, so my experience(s) are so different from what is often posted in threads like this.

I did not live in an area where I went to funeral after funeral in the late 80s and the 90s.

I did know a few men who had HIV and yes, they died, but it was over a period of time, so it NEVER felt like everyone knew someone who was HIV.

I understand that this was an epidemic within the population of gay men, but the "epidemic" aspect really hit San Francisco, LA, NYC, Chicago, Miami, Dallas, Boston (probably) maybe a few other cities.

By 1983 I knew what safe sex was, decided that was how I'd fool around with other guys; and it helps that I never wanted a guy's cock up my ass and because I'm hung, rarely had a bottom willing to take my dick, so fucking was always with a condom.

History and memory are funny things... we really tend to conflate it, collapse time frames and confuse sequential events. I good timeline would be helpful.

Is it true that all the curable STDs that so many guys had over and over and over during the 1970s from all the promiscuity played havoc with their immune systems, allowing them to more easily contract HIV?

[quote] It came to NYC in 1970 or 1971.

That's impossible. Once infected, it does not take a whole decade to develop into full-blown AIDS. Gay men were not getting sick and dying until the1980s.

R77, that was a smart decision, but the truth is that by 1983, it was already too late for thousands of gay men in the US. They'd been infected years before.

Do you think the timing being lost gay liberation helped speed the spread?

We never understood what the fuss was about.

It’s now irrelevant, with PrEP

R67) Have never heard of that. Interesting and thanks. I was also heavily exposed to Covid, Thanksgiving 2020... I didn’t catch it. Just always thought I had a healthy immune system

R45, there's no evidence that people were much more promiscuous in the past than they are now. Anecdotes aren't statistics

[quote] I guess the AIDS crisis made this company second guess it’s name.

Oh, dear!

[quote] But here I am.

Where, hun?

I was one month shy of my 20th birthday. Deeply closeted and stuck in a small town in the Midwest. Self-hate plus guilt plus fear of death equaled a sad, sorry existence for me.

I'm not sure they could have launched an "It Gets Better" campaign back then. Even if, for me, it did.

I meant to type post gay liberation

HIV goes back to the early 20th century.

Why did some survive AZT and others didn’t? Better immune system?

I saw a man interviewed on MSNBC last night who said he was first diagnosed with HIV in 1980 and has had it his entire adult life.

Wow! Was he dead?

It was the 1976 Bi-Centennial, when the Africans brought it over during celebrations.

In August 1981 my sister attended her five year class reunion in small town Ohio. A classmate, rumored to be gay, had recently moved back home to live with his parents. He had left town for New York in 1976. He attended the reunion in a wheelchair, since he was suffering from “cancer” and pneumonia.

A few years later, having been armed with information about AIDS, she and I were at her house packing up for her upcoming move to Florida. We took a break and we’re flipping through some photo albums when I saw a couple pictures of Scott at the reunion some years earlier. He died in 1982 a couple weeks before my high school graduation. Anyway, it was clear that he had KS lesions on his neck, forearm, and forehead in the pictures.

There’s no way he would have been classified as an AIDS death. He moved away from the city many months before it was even called AIDS. It makes me wonder how many deaths happened after young men got sick and moved back to their hometowns then died. In 1983 my stepbrother moved home from Youngstown and died of AIDS, but not officially. Officially he died of pneumonia, but he wasted away to nothing over the course of a several weeks. He was my age, 19. His hair went gray and he had thrush. He couldn’t eat or drink anything. My stepmom gave him bleach baths and changed his bedsheets every day. He resembled a skeleton with skin the day he died. But like my sister’s former classmate, I cannot believe that his was counted as an AIDS death.

[quote] He was my age, 19.

JFC.

The first gay male who died of AIDS was from NYC in 1979.

Hardly r52, that sounds like a Patient Zero type comment, the first gay male or anyone was in Africa. Everyone seems to be so Euro American centric, the vast number of people who have HIV today or have died from AIDS have been in Africa. There is no comparison, outside of Africa is really just insignificant.

It is also a heterosexual disease in Africa, whole families have died out. If you're in Africa chances are you will just die.

R96. Not that you asked, but we were classmates in early elementary school. Then his mom and dad divorced and she moved away. By 13-14 years old, he had been in juvenile detention a couple times. Eventually he was placed in a sort of halfway home in Youngstown with a bunch of other boys. He engaged in high risk sexual behavior for money. He aged out of the home when he turned 18, then went to a catholic men’s shelter. A few months later, he got very sick and his mother, my dad’s wife, retrieved him from a really shabby hospital and put him up in her trailer. His sister and mother took turns checking in on him. I accompanied her many times. Our local podunk hospital diagnosed him with pneumonia and cancer but said it was terminal, so they sent him home. I was there one day when some of his friends came down from Youngstown to visit. It seemed that every other guy he asked about had died already or was in a hospital. He was definitely gay; we talked about it many times. He told me stories that shocked my isolated self. Alas, he died a painful, lonely death.

[quote] Not that you asked, but

I may not have asked but I am immensely grateful you told, even though it hurt my heart.

[quote] the far-left.

To Fox zombies, anyone who isn’t a fellow Fox zombie is “the far-left.”

Delete your account, defacturd.

[quote] He was definitely gay; we talked about it many times. He told me stories that shocked my isolated self. Alas, he died a painful, lonely death.

Don't know if you were with him with he died, but it looks to me like you were there for him when he was hurting and needed someone to talk to.

R98 That is so sad. How old were the other guys who died? Please tell some of those stories. We would like to hear them.

R35. You are incorrect. Anal tissue is quite friable - it tears, sloughs, and bleeds more easily when touched. Vaginal tissue is not friable and does not tear and bleed like anal tissue when disturbed.

Vaginal sex, due to these differences in anatomy, is quite less risky than anal sex in terms of HIV transmission.

R103 - but despite these differences, the sperm actually entering the body of the penetrated partner is what causes the infection. No way a bit of tearing of the the anal tissue or some vaginal fluids are enough to infect the active partner

For the first few years all I ever heard it called was "the gay disease".

R97- Calm down

It's the earliest DOCUMENTED AIDS death in the United States

Incorrect R104. HIV enters small blood vessels of the mucosal tissue through microscopic tears and breaks - ruptures in the integrity of the tissue . Women do not get infected via sperm entering the uterus. Here is a good article for you to read to better understand how women get infected with HIV.

And to another poster, it is gorillas that HIV 1 variants have been definitively traced to , not "chimps".

Before Oprah there was Phil Donahue. I greatly admired Phil’s talk show and was sorry to see him retire.

This is one of the first shows about AIDS from 1982. It’s a fascinating time capsule.

I still have trouble getting through Longtime Companion. Is that loosely based on the real-life story of a group of Fire Island friends who died early on in quick succession? I realize that story was probably reflective of a ton of gay friendships and relationships at the time, but I seem to recall there was one group that stood out from the rest, maybe because they were the first FI cluster to get anyone's attention in the medical field, and I always wondered in LT was "their" story.

Vaginas are built like a Michelin tire, they can stretch to push a basketball through. Nothing fragile about them.

As opposed to Dunlops or Pirellis, R110?

R107 This article says it was chimps and a type of monkey, but whatever.

"Killing Patient Zero"

R80, yes many men were already dying when I chose to start practicing safe sex, but many gay men did not like the early advice to have sex with a condom only. There was all sorts of outcry about not being told how gay men would live their lives... so many had just come out of the closet were living their lives honestly and enjoying themselves... how dare the medical establishment recommend a condom? I was totally perplexed by that attitude.

But them, over time, I remember how bowls filled condoms did start to appear in gay bars and then safe sex posters... posters above urinals, in the main areas, behind the bar.

I'm shocked that Revolta is still alive. He was supposedly a bathhouse tramp in the 70s and 80s

^Are you referring to John Travolta? He was married for mary years to Kelly Preston. Before that, he was in love with actress Diana Hyland, who tragically died young. The grief was insurmountable and it took him a long time to jump back in the dating pool. Not sure where you're getting your info from, but Mr. Travolta is not gay.

^ Welcome back to the datalounge, Cheryl!

As I dimly recall, they found HIV in frozen blood samples of a male sex worker who died in1968 from unknown causes.

It took a while for HIV to get a foothold.

[quote] I've also read speculation that the data on Rayford is inconclusive and he might not have had AIDS at all.

I recall there was an article that said something about the tissue samples being mishandled before the testing was done.

[quote] Before Oprah there was Phil Donahue. I greatly admired Phil’s talk show and was sorry to see him retire.

I enjoyed his talk show and he was one of the better talk show hosts of that time. He was a pallbearer at Ryan White's funeral along with Elton John and Howie Long. I always found the video footage to be quite sad.

[quote] And the Band Played On is a such a great movie and gives a full history of the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Is it on HBO Plus?

Yeah, it's there. I saw it the other day when I was browsing. It was also on Amazon Prime for a few years when they had that deal with HBO.

Phil Donahue was very much ahead of his time. Early on, he was sympathetic to gays, and he was good at calling out prejudice among the midwestern ladies who made up the bulk of his audience. Oprah stole his formula and eventually pulled more attention to herself than her guests.

Phil's brother in law was co-creator The Golden Girls. I love that every thread on this board can somehow be linked back to TGG.

Good on you R22. You rock. Sending a hug.

"Vaginal sex, due to these differences in anatomy, is quite less risky than anal sex"

It spread heterosexually in women due to the presence of vaginal lesions caused by stds. Infected sperm and sores were an effective way of seroconverting.

I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, so I did not know a lot of people who were affected by AIDS like those who lived in cities like New York, L.A., etc.; however, we did have one case, a man who worked at the bank where I worked for years (this was back in the late '80s). He was a single father with two young sons (I think he and his wife were divorced) and I believe he was gay, though I never got confirmation of that. He was such a lovely man, very nice and very kind, and I think was only in his early 40s when he died. He had taken extended leave from his job at the bank due to illness and, when he died, all we heard was that it was pneumonia-related but I think most of us figured it was likely AIDS. Never heard a word about what happened with his boys (he was a very devoted father), so I assume the mother got custody back after his death.

There was one other person at the bank, a teller, who I heard may have been HIV positive but he left the bank at some point and we never heard anything about him ever again after that. He was a nice guy, very quiet, so I hope everything turned out well for him.

Grateful I didn’t start having gay sex until 1984 - when others were informed even if I wasn’t. I had unsafe sex because I was a closeted horny kid who was desperate for sex anywhere I could find it - and didn’t have the self control or self confidence to say no to any kind of sex. I’ve always thought I must have some kind of immunity - had way too much unsafe sex to be negative yet here I am 35 years later. Living in terror for so long, I can truly enjoy being middle aged now. I made it. So many young, young men did not - and had horrible early deaths. Always remember AIDS and the Republicans response.

I once found an old copy of US Magazine while cleaning out some junk in grandparent's house. It had a headline that said something like mysterious cancer killing gay men.

From the date I remember thinking Us Magazine shockingly was more on target covering it than major media.

I wish I'd saved it.

I also grew up in a very small town, and was closeted for many years. The male librarian in town died in his 40s. This was sometime in the mid to late 1980s. He was very femme and sweet, yet guarded in a way, and he always appeared frail. He never married, and he pinged to the heavens. Always assumed his death was AIDS-related.

I saw this thread earlier today and it brought up so many thoughts and memories that I decided not to open and read until I could handle all of them better.

I was just out of college and living in Houston when an older friend of mine who was a idiot/clown, dropped by my apartment and handed me (with a very serious face) the "Village Voice" that was (I believe) their first coverage of AIDS (although I don't think it had a name at that time). He said he was scared to death......I read it and threw up. Not too much later I moved to NYC for work and found myself in the midst of it all.

Too many lost friends and acquaintances. Too many beautiful (physically as well as spiritually) people just gone. Too many funerals and memorial services. It's difficult to remember all of this.

But we must. I don't want all of those wonderful people that I knew to have died in vain. There still isn't a cure, and we need to keep the pressure up.

A cousin of mine died in the late 90s but I wasn't too close to him so I only know what I heard from family. We suspect he was gay although it wasnt confirmed. Conservative, religious parents who were immigrants from Poland and I think they didnt want to admit what he really died from.

Family initially told us he died of pneumonia/cancer but years later I found out more. He had apparently gone to the walk-in clinic with purple lesions on his face, the doctor looked at him and said, "let me get my colleague in here". Colleague comes in and they looked at him and said "go to the hospital ER immediately".

This was late 90s in Canada and I always wondered why he didnt get retrovirals unless he didnt have access or they were too expensive, you needed insurance to get them covered? I'm not sure. He was only about 23 when he died.

In Canada, his treatment should have been covered.

[quote] Phil Donahue was very much ahead of his time. Early on, he was sympathetic to gays, and he was good at calling out prejudice among the midwestern ladies who made up the bulk of his audience. Oprah stole his formula and eventually pulled more attention to herself than her guests.

Sally Jessy Raphael also stole his formula, but she couldn't pull it off all that well.

R132 - thanks.. then maybe he was on antiviral medication but from what I heard he seemed to be at an advanced stage by the time he caught it.

Sally Jesse Raphael was totally unlikable.

R108- Larry Kramer says in the video that he lost seventeen VERY close friends. How can anyone have that many CLOSE friends. It would be a full time job for me to maintain 17 VERY close friendships.

Different people define "close" differently.

I remember the 1987 episode Oprah did about this young man with AIDS who jumped into a public pool in his town. His name was Mike Sisco. This was the mindset (the reaction of many in the audience) back then. This is the first of 3 clips from a show she did 23 years later in 2010 that followed up with Mike’s family and some former members of the audience.

Part 2

Part 3

[quote]I remember the 1987 episode Oprah did about this young man with AIDS who jumped into a public pool in his town.

Carter Sickels' novel "The Prettiest Star," about a gay New Yorker who returns to his Ohio small town to die, fictionalizes such an incident.

I went to college in 1984 and didn't know anyone who had AIDS or died from it, even though I was at an almost all-gay music school. I don't know why that is. I actually feel I'm lucky that I was a shy nerd, because if I'd have been hot, I wouldn't be here today.

Larry Kramer was a handsome man. I bet he got lots of play pre-AIDS.

The novel The Book of Joe had a subplot with a gay character dying of AIDS is in his hometown.. The novel was set in 2002 or 2003, and they were flashbacks to the 1980s when the gay character was a teenager and having a secret relationship with a classmate. The gay character was treated poorly by several people in his town and his mom was raging homophobe as well.

Touched by An Angel did a similar episode, about a poz guy who comes home for Christmas, takes sick, and must then tell his family he is gay AND poz. He dies at the end of the episode, I think.

After what we just went through with Covid, I don't understand how gay men who lived through the AIDS epidemic were able to move on with their lives so easily. How did they not suffer PTSD from the horror of it all? We had to spend most of 2020 inside and wear a mask, but imagine if all of your friends were dropping dead around you. It's unimaginable really.

It almost makes me mad how that generation of gays was so nonchalant about it and moved on with their lives as though it was a minor inconvenience. Maybe there was so much stigma and secrecy around homosexuality at the time that they didn't feel like they could mourn openly and fully.

40 years later I can quite clearly recall Robert Bazell’s report on NBC nightly news on the paper just released describing it. I was 16 and it scared the hell out of me as I was coming to terms that I wasn’t “going through a phase” Maybe the impression Bazell’s piece left on me saved me from being a victim.

r146, maybe they just became numb to all the deaths, and AIDS fatigue set in. For many who experienced so many losses, there must've been some threshold in the bodies piling up where all the misery and grief just became one big blur.

R145 I cried when I first watched that episode. Touched by an Angel was a guilty pleasure show for me as a lot were cheesy. But, the episode about the gay man dying from AIDS and some of the episodes that touched on racism, ableism, and other social issues were decently done.

I came across this wikipedia which listed HIV positive some which were one episode characters on some shows like the kid on Mr. Belvedere and the gay fashion designer who died of AIDS on Designing Women. The Touched by an Angel episode with the gay man wasn't included. Characters from TV movies are mentioned like An Early Frost and the TV movie about Alison Gertz were included.

There were a few TV movies that weren't mentioned like Our Sons, Roommates, Then There Was One, and that TV movie where Linda Hamilton played a woman dying of AIDS who was trying to find a home for her son. I'm probably forgetting some other TV movies and shows that touched on HIV and AIDS.

R146. One answer is some of us never have. My best friend died of AIDS-related lymphoma in 1993. I’ve never had as close a friend since and there’s not a day I don’t think of him and wish I could see, hear, and speak with him again.

Larry Kramer 9/28/82

His March '83 article, "1112 and counting"

If you google some of the names at the end, like Rick Wellikoff, you see he was a very early AIDS death in 1980.

Geraldo Rivera of all people was the first interview of a person with AIDS on national network television, Ken Ramsauer, who died four days later.

[quote]I don't understand how gay men who lived through the AIDS epidemic were able to move on with their lives so easily. How did they not suffer PTSD from the horror of it all?

What makes you so sure we have "moved on with (our) lives so easily"? I know I suffer from PTSD and survivor's guilt. By this point, I don't know anyone who wants to hear about it, and I can only talk about it so much.

It's almost impossible, even now, for me to watch anything dramatic in which someone who is close to someone else dies, particularly in series television, where you spend years with some characters. I frequently think how fortunate my dead people are not to have lived through the 21st century. "Only the Good Die Young" is so much more than a pop song to me.

Humor has always been a coping, if not survival, tactic.

"Diseased Pariah News" was one of my favorites from the day. Dark and trenchant.

R146, it went on for almost 15 years before there was any hope for a viable treatment. NYC was very depressing, subdued, haunted even for at least a decade. I think those of us who lived through it tend to be more serious, less trusting and perhaps distant. Things got better but the party ended long ago and never came back.

R73, I thought the Halston Netflix got the big picture right but screwed up the details- big time. mcGregor did not resemble Halston, who was much more affected. Characters such as Babe Paley and Sassy Johnson were butchered.

Someone else asked when guys first started dying- I answered that- early 80’s two friends in particular stand out: one just bad luck and the other a very promiscuous well known beauty- and at his core- a very nice guy. Then came bedlam- and easily the most terrifying time in my life.

No one ever talks about Perry Ellis, who also died of AIDS. He seemed like a nicer guy than Halston and Calvin.

r157, your friend is mentioned in this 1983 article.

He was quite handsome.

I have wondered if Alice Elliott Dark's short story, "In the Gloaming" was inspired by a true story. I enjoyed the HBO adaptation, but it should have been slightly longer. I remember when HBO would sometimes air it before or after an airing of And The Band Played. HBO also covered a couple stories involving HIV positive people for the series Lifestories:Families in Crisis. One episode was about Joey DiPaolo who contracted HIV through a blood transfusion and was called "Staten Island's Ryan White" because parents didnt' want their kids in school with him. The other episode was about a young woman who got HIV from a college boyfriend. I can't recall her name, .

[quote] How did they not suffer PTSD from the horror of it all?

What the fuck makes you think we don’t?!

HIV goes back to the 1920s in the Congo thanks to the trade route. It spread thanks to animal meat. HIV is exactly the same as the animal version of it. The trading route also had prostitution.

Thank you, Mr. I Didn't Even Bother To Read The Thread.

Your contribution is enlightening.

Yeah it was awful....HEE HEE HEE

R162 - I absolutely know several elderly gay men who just told me how much it still haunts them. Terrible.

The ironic thing is that PrEP is causing guys to become lax with condoms, which could trigger a super-AIDS type of epidemic. I feel that it's an inevitability. I can't imagine how devastating that would be. It would make regular AIDS look like a summer cold. Do guys even use condoms anymore?

^^Not this shit again.

R164 is on the rag.

super-AIDS

There it goes! There won't be a super AIDS anything, the virus is actually weakening and becoming less virulent. If that was to happen, it would have already in AFRICA. Typical Euro American attitude, most people with HIV live in Africa not Europe or the Americas. Those are a tiny percentage of the total.

Prep has brought new cases down significantly, but the most vulnerable are the ones not using it.

I have no proof, but a lot of reading does lead me to believe that HIV was more virulent in the 80s than today.

Great insights from some of DL's highly accomplished resident immunologists and epidemiologists!

You whores have to admit that PrEP + no condoms is a formula for the transmission of a host of STDs. This is how it all started in the 1970s. All the endless curable STDs weakened guys' immune systems opening the door for a disease like AIDS. Why is it so hard to believe that history couldn't repeat itself, with an even more lethal form of AIDS?

I remember back in 1993 I met this white dude with a huge cock. Probably the biggest cock on a white boy. 12 inches long. 8 or 9 inches of girth. I couldn't suck it. The head was too big. Would never get fucked by that size. He was a total top. He was bragging to me how he never caught the aids because he always used condoms. Yeah, sure Jan. That was the reason. LOL. I hate big cocks. Anything over 8X7 is too big.

Very pertinent contribution to this particular thread, Miss R174.

[QUOTE] The second guy could have been one of the piss bottoms described in the recently bumped Mineshaft thread. He had intestinal issues

Gee, I mean that boggles the mind. This poor soul drank gallons of piss from strangers cocks every night and wound up with GI issues, and then later died of AIDS. Who saw THAT coming for him?

[quote] in 1986: fashion designer Perry Ellis dies at age 46 of AIDS-related causes (reported then as viral encephalitis).

I seem to recall Liza claiming to have this as well.

That’s only because she thought it was a drink.

R177 - I often wonder, given how much she drank and that she was Liza and so into that scene and gay lovers at that time, if she isn't POZ as well.

Encshephalitish

As usual someone like r173 spouts shit that is actually BACKWARDS than the facts, all to stigmatize gay men and the sex they have. It must be terrible to hate yourself. There will be no more lethal form of AIDS, viruses don't work that way, just like covid doesn't.

Surely not using PrEP and allowing HIV and AIDS to spread would cause a greater risk of it mutating to some super form?

When aids really started decimating the gay community by the mid 80s,I was in a long term relationship that lasted until 94 .I truly believe thats the only reason I didnt die. Before I hooked up with my husband,I slept around a LOT. Ive always wondered if I was somehow immune ,as my taste in men was questionable at best and a very low bar when I was drunk. I was always fucked up from mid 70s until 82 when I met my husband. I lost so many friends . The city I was from originally had a rather tight knit gay community ,so everyone knew everyone. Back then people didnt move as much either,so I knew many for years . Then all of a sudden (it seemed like) people were dying left and right. It was a terrifying thing to see.

you’re old R183

Again, viruses do not mutate to any super forms, but yes uncontrolled infections do mutate, but not worse mutations. They may mutate to be more contagious but not not more virulent.

In fact and I'm no expert, but becoming more contagious may mean that they are less virulent. It could be that it is infecting more people but not killing them since it is weaker. If a virus kills its hosts then it dies, that's bad for the virus.

Vaginas are tougher though. Anal sex can cause small tears in the wall of your anus and cause bleeding. it is basically a blood-borne disease. Aides is not really easy to get compared to airborne viruses. I worked in hospice and when we took care of aids patients we only had to wear gloves. When I took care of a MRSA patient, we had to wear full-body armor. cap, gloves, gown, and booties. It is rare for women to get aids through vaginal sex.

I remember that well. I was in graduate school working and my research director called me in. She had read it that morning. She said "I don't know what you're doing, but stop it!"

Since I never did anal, but was very active orally in those days, I may have been much less likely to get AIDS. Elton may just not be into anal sex.

I survived the plague years because I only did oral and sometimes rimming, never anal. I also never took loads in my mouth, I was a late bloomer to tasting cum and fucking, I avoided it all through the late 80s, the 90s, and early 00s up until around 2006 then I started trying other things.

Holleran wrote in Dancer that 'everyone is dying of cancer'. The book came out in 1978.

AIDS becoming less virulent is further proof it came from a lab in the 70s not the Congo in 1910.

On another thread about the history of HIV/AIDS, someone spoke of a mysterious research station in the Congo in the 50s where everyone died of a mysterious illness. I've never seen it confirmed anywhere else, but it was a creepy little story, sounded like a horror film.

Scientists have traced it to people near Lake Victoria eating raw monkey meat. 🤢

HIV/AIDS originated in chimps in the Congo and it would've stayed in chimps but unfortunately the people in that region ate chimp meat. The virus dies in cooked meat, but it most likely transferred to humans because someone cutting up a chimp also cut themselves and there was a blood exchange. This happened sometime around the 1920s or 30s, it's believed. The virus festered for decades in that region and then in the 1950s left the immediate area and traveled to a nearby city, and prostitutes became infected. In the 60s men from the Congo went to Haiti to work and the virus came with them. From there it jumped to the US sometime in the 70s. Most of those early AIDS deaths were thought to be something else, and also a lot of people died prematurely in Haiti and the Congo in that time period so nobody caught on that something was very wrong.

Then how did it find its way into the gay community, of all places?

Via sex tourism to Haiti, probably.

Ugandan Bareback Tours?

It was sex tourism.

The history of where this developed, what may have been early cases, etc I find so interesting, if not ominous. But once we hit 1980-odd, I just can't read about it anymore, it becomes too much.

Is Gaetan Dugas still considered Patient 0 in man-to-man transmission, or has that been debunked?

This Frontline documentary called The Age of AIDS is excellent. It goes into the history and origins of the virus.

One has to wonder how many terrified gay guys ran back into the closet with the advent of AIDS, and decided to marry women and living a more traditional life.

R200 It's been debunked. This article sums up how he got labeled Patient Zero.

5B is a great documentary about Ward 5B at San Francisco General Hospital, which was the AIDS ward. The doctors and nurses who worked on the ward in the 80s are interviewed and it is very moving.

Several years ago, there was a documentary on the AIDS quilt called The Last One.

A lot, r202. A lot.

Many of whom I know personally.

(Not me.)

Far and away the best AIDS memoir is Borrowed Time by Paul Monette but be wary as its very graphic when describing symptoms.

Anal sex has a greater risk of transmitting the virus than vaginal because the rectum tears more easily. The virus enters through tiny fissures.

Paul Monette's memoir "Becoming A Man" is also excellent, I highly recommend it. He was a wonderful writer who died far too soon.

Plus the anus is the domicile of Satan!

And Republicans did absolutely nothing about it . It only affects the Gay community so who cares about it.. attitude. It wasn’t until it was clear that the U.S blood bank had been contaminated that they began taking it serious. Hemophiliacs had contracted it and many who had received blood during surgery.

In fact Tom Fogerty, John Fogerty’s brother from (Creedence Clearwater) contracted HIV after a surgery and died as a result.

Lesbian nurses were the only ones who had the compassion to care for Gay men in those early days.

R211 Sure, Jan. Propagating the myth that lezzies are besties with gay men. Wrong. I've never seen any evidence of this anywhere. Neither group has any reason to have the other around.

Was it really just 1981? That seems like no time at all. Heart breaking.

And, yes, hats off to Phil Donahue and his integrity and courage. Something we need more of today.

[quote] Propagating the myth that lezzies are besties with gay men. Wrong. I've never seen any evidence of this anywhere.

So who is this about?

"In the mid-90s, after completing her undergraduate degree at Stanford, she joined ACT UP San Francisco, where she became part of the prison issues group. At that time, ACT UP San Francisco had a strong social issues agenda and a membership including many seasoned activists who had worked previously on various aspects of social inequality."

Elton John is a top.

R207 and R209: if you haven’t read his book of short essays, Last Night Of The Watch, it’s great too. A few of the essays are about his life with his partner Roger who Borrowed Time is about but there’s also some about his life after Borrowed Time and up to his death.

Another two AIDS memoirs I loved are Geography Of The Heart and The Sea Is Quiet Tonight. I forget the authors’ names off the top of my head but a google search will find them (which I could have done myself in the time to type this I know)

Phil Donahue was a closeted queen, that was the elephant in the room that I've always heard. Just look at Marlo, is that not a fag hag or what?!!

I was a high school senior in 1982......those years were filled with a fear of sex, getting sick, and dying a truly horrible death.......it destroyed my soul.....I have never recovered..........

[quote] Phil Donahue was a closeted queen,

Doubtful.

Gay men are like 3% of the population but yet to listen to these delusional queens on here, 100% of all men are cock sucking cum dumps.

[quote]R40 There has been some speculation… that some people have some kind of natural immunity to HIV.

I believe It is a mutation in the CCR5 receptors on the surface of their helper T cells. Without this protein present, the virus cannot bond to the cell and enter it.

^^ I don’t know who that professor is, but the causes given basically align with what I’ve read in the past.

[quote]r71 My first friend to die was Joe McDonald who was a very successful model. Seems like he was the first of a whole crowd

Wow. Imagine how many men must have thrown themselves at him! (Which in retrospect might not have been so great. ) What was he like?

Sorry you lost him, and so many friends [bold]: (

[quote]R116 Are you referring to John Travolta? He was married for mary years to Kelly Preston.

They were indeed MARY! years.

[quote]R212 Sure, Jan. Propagating the myth that lezzies are besties with gay men. Wrong. I've never seen any evidence of this anywhere. Neither group has any reason to have the other around.

Two of my best friends are lesbians. One died but I’m still super close with her (butch) widow. She’s really funny and practical, and down to earth.

Lesbians did show up a lot to support AIDS activism. (Gay men never quite returned the favor, however.)

[quote]Another two AIDS memoirs I loved are Geography Of The Heart and The Sea Is Quiet Tonight. I forget the authors’ names off the top of my head but a google search will find them

Geography of the Heart was written by Fenton Johnson, The Sea Is Quiet Tonight by Michael Ward.

R227 The fact most lesbians are genuine man haters, and many gay men are total misogynists does not bode well for being besties.

'if you haven’t read his book of short essays, Last Night Of The Watch, it’s great too. '

Yes! Absolutely compelling. His humour in the face of being overwheilmed by AIDS symptoms while trying to take part in a demo in NYC is admirable and endearing. I loved reading about his dog, Puck, his screenwriter boyfriend Stephen who also died of AIDs (very unexpectedly and quickly) and his third and last lover Winston, whose dog fought with Puck, and who cared for him when he was sick and dying. Larry Kramer also makes a cameo appearance.

[quote]R229 The fact [that] most lesbians are genuine man haters, and many gay men are total misogynists does not bode well for being besties.

If you’re attracted to stereotypes as friends I guess that would be an issue.

R228 - just bought the Sea is Quiet Tonight on Kindle. Another AIDS memoir that came out recently and that I'd recommend is All the Young Men.

R232: thanks, I bought that a while ago but haven’t got round to reading it yet but will do. I’m at my book shelf now and another two good ones are The Screaming Room by Barbara Peabody (a mother of an AIDS victim) and Ghosts of St Vincent’s by Tom Eubanks. The Screaming Room is out of print but I found a copy on a resale site a few years ago.

All the Young Men has been film optioned. I read the book a few weeks ago and it was heartbreaking in many parts.

Does anyone else remember the HBO documentary Before You Go? It was about a young woman whose father died of AIDS. She covered the last year of his life and he had been closeted for many years.

What about that lying Mormon (or something) who said she got HIV from her dentist. Did she ever apologize?

^^ oh wait. Sorry. Her name was Kimberly Bergalis.

It’s unclear if her dentist infected her (and 5 other patients.) what she lied about was being a virgin. She’d had multiple tests for STDs in the past.

I remember the coverage on Kimberly Bergalis. She and her family came off as holier than thou asshole types.

IIRC, didn't Bergalis try to get some law on the books that would have banned people with HIV from working in healthcare?

Kimberly Bergalis was one of the "innocent" victims of AIDS, as the media loved to call people who got it through blood transfusions or accidental blood to blood contact. You see, they weren't like those filthy homosexuals who "deserved" to get AIDS because they were immoral and deviant.

The "innocent victims" term was very common back then. It still makes me angry.

When it first hit, I remember thinking it seemed such a fringe thing it would never impact me. At first people were unsure how it was transmitted and I remember my Grandma fretting abot getting “Aid” from a drinking glass or something. It got real when my neightbor who was a flight attendant came home to die. He was older and we weren’t friends, but I wish I could have provided some companionship for him. I remember hearing that all of his teeth fell out.

The first time I ever gave/got oral I had a panic attack and drove like a maniac until I could buy some Listerine.

In the age of COVID-19, everyone should have a better understanding of how the US government let AIDS/HIV killed so many people before doing anything. The "free world" will let people die of "mystery diseases" because it is the natural course of "social Darwinism" to eliminate the unfit and undesirable from society. Only when enough of those considered "innocent" or "valuable" members of society get killed will there be any political will to fight the disease.

Silverlake Life.

R240 I remember the term "innocent victims" and it pissed me off then. I also remember the friend of David Acer who went to the media and stated he believed Acer infected people on purpose.

R240 it’s all bad but your desire to ass fuck bareback is different than a lifesaving blood transfusion. Not the same.

r245 you are a boil on the ass of humanity.

R22, I'm glad you are still here with us!

R98, you have seem like a solid fellow! I am glad that you are here on DL and able to share your story (quite eloquently, I may add).

R246 That’s how I feel about you - exactly.

I do know an older MTF transsexual was a nurse at St Vincent's Hospital in the Village who took care of AIDS patients.

r246/248 is nothing but a useless shitposter, if you look at his history.

[QUOTE] ....it destroyed my soul.....I have never recovered..........

oh for Chrissakes Mary

Eat shit r250

It's really difficult to feel sympathy for those guys who contracted HIV through sex or through sharing needles after it was proven that it was a sexually transmitted and bloodborne disease. All the arguments about how gay men needed to express themselves and feel liberation through sex are ridiculous. I am a gay man who came of age in the late '80s, and I always had protected sex. I cared too much about myself and would be heartbroken having to watch my family watch me died of some AIDS-related illness. Have some self-control for pete's sake. I have no issue with labeling kids, hemophiliacs, and recipients of blood transfusions as innocent victims, because that's what they were. I also see the first wave of gay men who died of AIDS as innocent victims. They didn't knowingly engage in behavior that put them at risk for a deadly disease. But all bets are off after we learned for sure just how you can and cannot get it. JMO.

r252 your posting history reveals nothing but childish shitposting and an appalling lack of intelligence. Your opinion is worthless.

St. MARY at R253 joins the conversation.

I don't care how much sex you had or how many drugs you did: Nobody deserved that death.

I always the thought the best comparison for arguments like R253 is “what if every accidental pregnancy instead was a death”? If every teenager who was knocked up instead died? My guess is there would have been more sympathy. The millions of accidental pregnancies that happen every year are not seen as evil or wrong - but the gay sex equivalent is seen as justification for the death penalty.

The AIDS documentary linked above goes into detail about the hate and hysteria that surrounded gay men in the 80s. It was insane.

As unpopular as "Mary" @ R253 's opinion may be I have to agree with it 1000%.

Yes, nobody should have to die for having sex. But aren't many of you judging people during this CV19 pandemic about not wearing masks and taking proper precautions even after all the SCIENCE has been telling us to do so? Isn't this sort of the same thing? SCIENCE began to realize what was causing the spread of HIV/AIDS, so why wouldn't it have been important to protect ourselves from transmission at that time?

When Larry Kramer started talking about gay men taking responsibility for their actions, he became very unpopular and was seen as an enemy of gaydom. He was basically saying "wear a mask" but in a different time and using a different prophylactic.

Didn't Larry Kramer seroconvert AFTER he'd said some of this stuff?

R259, you are a voice of historical accuracy here. I too remember the outrage from gay men when they were told to to use a condom if they wanted to fuck another man. I can remember how porn changed with the arrival of condoms; the wailing of some guys who hated seeing cocks wrapped up and then later, the initial resistance to the return of barebacking in porn.

Want to stay negative? Do not bareback as a bottom or do not get fucked at all. It was very simple, but the resistance was fierce.

Not getting pregnant is very simple too but...

Exactly R262 pats her bottom thinking of all the millions of butt-babies she's had.

[quote]One has to wonder how many terrified gay guys ran back into the closet with the advent of AIDS, and decided to marry women and living a more traditional life.

Elton John famously did.

People magazine did an article about AIDS around the time of Rock Hudson's announcement. A fascinating time capsule of a town that was scared shitless.

The article talked about the panic on the Dynasty set due to Rock and Linda Evans on screen kiss. How Linda was shunned by a few co workers (it didn't mention names) for fear that she had it.

It was a great article that also interviewed a number of celebrities to get their take on what was going on. Surprisingly for all of her Republican leanings, it was Joan Rivers who came off as very compassionate and understanding. Cher, meanwhile, said something ridiculous about how terrible it was because she didn't know whom she could kiss and whom she couldn't.

R265 Cher has always been a moron. What more can you expect from her.

A question mark?

Stick your ? mark in your dried up ole pussy.

R265 Didn't Linda get multiple HIV tests after the kiss with Rock?

You really can't blame Linda. It was the early days of the epidemic and no one really knew for sure if kissing facilitated transmission. Add to that the hysteria and paranoia.

I mean, they thought at first that it was airborne (because most viruses are) so of course they were worried. If you knew you'd kissed someone with covid you'd be terrified. Barely any research was done into it in the early days.

A big deal was made over the Linda Evans thing, but there how about the actresses on the soaps who had to kiss gay men. Edge of Night, for example, had at least three actors who were POZ during the show's run and later died. There must've been a lot situations like that.

The plague really hit EoN hard. The final episode of Dennis Parker is on YouTube, and it's really sad. He's so clearly very ill.

Go to 16:11 for one of his final scenes: He's so exhausted, he's leaning on the set's furniture.

Joel Crothers is in the final scene of the EoN episode with Dennis Parker. Joel was sick too, just not quite as far along as Dennis.

A year after that scene was shot, both men were dead.

So basically Magic Johnson be posting on DL. We love you r24.

All I know is in the early 1990's people were still dying from AIDS. I lost two co-workers to the disease. Also lost a fair number of friends outside work to it too.

Dynasty was one of the top rated shows in the country, and a hit around the world. It was going to be a huge deal that one of its actors had a disease that was still fairly unknown at that time.

Plus, Rock Hudson also came out with his announcement, so you had a double whammy.

I'm an Xer born in the mid 70s and I have never known anyone who died of the aids. I've known a few in the past who were poz but they never died on my watch. I caught ptsd in the 90s due to fear and terror of the virus though. So, I never escaped unharmed.

r278 later Xer here and my story is the same as yours. I was so paranoid about AIDS when I became sexually active in the early 90s but I've never known anyone who died from it.

'All I know is in the early 1990's people were still dying from AIDS. '

Of course they were! The numbers of people dying from AIDS increased exponentially year by year until the introduction of HAART meds in 1996 when they fell off a cliff, at least in the US.

Regarding soap actors and HIV/AIDS. I remember one of the soap mags did a really good tribute to Dack Rambo after he passed away.

If Dack Rambo had gone into porn, I wonder what stage name he would have chosen.

The Doctors lost several actors to AIDS too, including David O'Brien, Palmer Deane, and two of the Mike Powers actors--Peter Burnell (who committed suicide following his diagnosis) and Robert LeTourneaux, who was best known as the hustler in The Boys in the Band play and film adaptation.

[quote]If Dack Rambo had gone into porn, I wonder what stage name he would have chosen.

Dick Rambutt.