When I told my youngest sister about my diagnosis (“I tested positive for HIV”), she sleepily responded, “Oh. Is that bad? What does that mean?”
I was nonplussed. But I knew her reaction wasn’t inspired by a lack of concern, but from a lack of exposure.
Then I remembered that her Catholic high school didn’t offer sex-ed classes; that many private schools (typically, religious ones) don’t offer it; that talk of homosexuality in many circles is still grossly taboo; that talk of sex is still grossly taboo; that being poz affords a stigma; and that the stigma, substantiated by ignorance, lack of exposure and fear, is what ultimately perpetuates the virus, afflicting millions of people around the globe.
No disease since leprosy (in Biblical times) has possessed such pejorative moral implications as HIV. Because people didn’t know how leprosy was passed (the Bible states that it’s passed through skin-to-skin contact; it’s passed through bodily fluids entering the blood stream), they assumed it was a stigma branded by God, representing a heritage of sin in the person (either individual or familial).
For better and worse, however, we know how HIV transmits, which is typically through sex, which people continue to demonize. And the result is that people are not getting tested.
The solution here seems obvious: Expose people to information about HIV and explain that it’s a global epidemic with a high infection rate in the States (although nothing compared to Africa), that it infects people indiscriminately and that it’s a treatable — and preventable — disease.
We all know this is easier said than done.
According to a recent article in The New York Times, HIV-infection rates peaked at 130,000 a year in the 1980s, and subsequently sank slowly. But rates have stubbornly remained at 50,000 new infections a year for a decade now. It’s safe to say, then, that the combined efforts of sex-ed classes and HIV activism is responsible for this drop in infection rates. The decade-long rate of infection, however, means that not only is it far from being under control, but that the efforts on all fronts have hit a wall.
And that wall, I believe, is the demonization of sex.
The old “birds and the bees” talk you get from your parents typically is the second conversation adolescents have about sex, the first being sex-ed classes taught in schools.
I never had a sex-ed class. And honestly, up until I was diagnosed, I assumed those classes just taught sex ABCs like, “This is what a penis and vagina look like and this is what they do. This is how babies are made. The end. (P.S. Oh, right, and wear condoms.)”
Now I know sex-ed classes are taught mainly for disease control (HIV and other STIs) and to prevent unintentional conception. (Did you know that?) Parents are expected to follow up with their own conversation about sex. But when parents decline to have that second conversation, they may nullify the school-taught lessons their children might otherwise heed.
The point here, however, isn’t to point fingers. Because I can guess what you’re thinking: The source of the sex taboo stems from proscriptions put on sex by Judeo-Christian religions; and, in my research, I admit I haven’t discovered any other cause for the predominant sex taboo. But counter-demonizing religion, even just its sex proscriptions, doesn’t solve anything.
Considering the rate of infections in the U.S. and the extant sex taboo, event if parents vilify homosexuality and premarital sex with their kids, it’s far better that they had the talk than if the notion of sex never entered the conversation. At the same time, I completely support the wildly free dissemination of educational, sexually related material — regarding relationships, disease control, alt-sex lifestyles and practices, this column! — to everyone, everywhere, of all ages, sexes, codes and creeds. Why? Because ignorance of sexual realities has proven to perpetuate the spread of disease, whereas even early education decreases it.
Judge this as you might (hope I’m not locked up for this): It’d be better that a child — yes, I said a child — in this society would stumble upon one of my columns about HIV and, clumsily, shockingly, obscenely, cutely ask his or her parents what the hell is up, than remain uneducated. Unless you lock’em up in a cage, children are going to run into sex one way or another.
Parents, I don’t give a flying fuck what your beliefs are: In this day and age, failing to engage your children in healthy discussions about sex and/or chastising their curiosity about sex is not only stupid, but downright harmful. The more they know, the safer they’ll be. And perhaps, just perhaps, the more compassionate they’ll be toward all sexually disparaged persons, poz folks in particular.
We’re all in this together, folks. Now get out there and talk about it.
Aaron Stella is editor-in-chief of Phillybroadcaster (www.phillybroadcaster.com), an all-inclusive A&E city blog site in Philadelphia. He has written for several publications and now devotes his life to tackling the new challenges of HIV in the 21st century.