Sex Wars and AIDS

1980s and Sexuality

• UK: In 1988, the Thatcher government enacted Section 28 of the Local Government Act, prohibiting local authorities from supporting anything perceived as promoting homosexual relationships as an alternative to heterosexual family life.
• US: In 1982, the US Army declared homosexuality incompatible with military service.
• Australia:
  • Lesbian mothers faced stigmatization. The first national lesbian mothers conference was held in 1984.
  • Homosexuality was legalized in Victoria in 1980 and in NSW in 1983.
  • Employment discrimination based on homosexuality and transgender status was outlawed in NSW in 1983, and homosexuality was decriminalized in 1984.
  • Between 1974 and 1983, the US, UK, and Australia saw an increase in child custody cases involving lesbian mothers.
• Other Countries: Laws tightened in some countries:
  • Homosexuality became illegal in Trinidad and Tobago in 1986.
  • Serving openly in the military became illegal in Dubai in 1987.
  • Homosexual activity became illegal in Guinea in 1988.
• Campaign against Section 28 in the UK.
• Focus on relationships between gay men in the 1980s.

Theorists

Adrienne Rich

• Lesbian Continuum: Rich proposed the concept of a "lesbian continuum," suggesting that all women, regardless of self-identified sexual orientation, exist on a continuum of woman-identified experience. > If we consider the possibility that all women—from the infant suckling her mother's breast, to the grown woman experiencing orgasmic sensations while suckling her own child, perhaps recalling her mother's milk-smell in her own; to two women . . . who share a laboratory; to the woman dying at ninety, touched and handled by women—exist on a lesbian continuum, we can see ourselves as moving in and out of this continuum, whether we identify ourselves as lesbian or not.
  • Source: Adrienne Rich, ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence’, 1980.

Adrienne Rich: Suppression of Female Sexuality

• Rich outlined ways male power has historically suppressed female sexuality:
  1. Denial of Women's Sexuality: Destruction of female sexuality displayed throughout history in sacred documents.
  2. Forcing Male Sexuality Upon Women: Rape, incest, torture serve as constant reminders of male superiority.
  3. Exploitation of Labor to Control Production: Women lack control over reproductive choices like childbirth, abortion, and birth control, with limited access to related knowledge.
  4. Control Over Their Children: Lesbian mothers are deemed unfit, with malpractice occurring in society and courts to favor men.
  5. Confinement: Women are restricted in wardrobe choices (feminine dress as the only way), experience economic dependence on men, and face overall limited life options.
  6. Male Transactions: Women are given away as gifts by fathers or used as hostesses by husbands for personal gain.
  7. Cramping Women's Creativeness: Men are seen as more assimilated into society, allowed greater cultural participation, and deemed culturally more important.
  8. Men Withholding Attainment of Knowledge: The "Great Silence" refers to the historical suppression of lesbian existence, along with discrimination against women professionals.

Conference Statement: The Scholar and the Feminist IX: Towards a Politics of Sexuality

• Held in 1982 at Barnard College, Columbia, and run by Carole Vance, Kate Millet, Gayle Rubin, and Joan Nestle.
• Addressed women's sexual pleasure, choice, and autonomy.
• Acknowledged sexuality as a domain of restriction, repression, and danger, as well as exploration, pleasure, and agency.
• Focused on:
  • Women's right to sexual pleasure detached from reproduction.
  • Sexual violence and victimization.
  • The meaning and effect of pornography.
  • Sexual safety versus sexual adventure.
  • The significance of sexual styles (e.g., butch/femme).
  • Male and female sexual nature.
  • Politically correct and incorrect sexual positions.
• Addressed the Right Wing attack on feminist gains, which attempted to reinstate traditional sexual arrangements and the link between reproduction and sexuality.
• Argued that feminists must deepen and expand radical insights into sexual theory and practice to encourage more women to act in their sexual self-interest.
• Identified social and political changes wrought by capitalist transformations and the women's movement as contributing factors.
• Breakdown in the traditional bargain: "good" women (sexually circumspect) would be protected by men, while "bad" women would be violated and punished.

Gayle Rubin

• 1975: The Traffic in Women: Introduced the concept of the 'sex-gender system'.
• 1984: Thinking Sex: Introduced the concept of the 'Charmed Circle'.
• Charmed Circle: A framework for categorizing sexual behaviors as "good, normal, natural, blessed" vs. "bad, abnormal, unnatural, damned."
  • Inner Circle:
    • Heterosexual
    • Married
    • Monogamous
    • Procreative
    • Non-commercial
    • In pairs
    • In a relationship
    • Same generation
    • In private
    • No pornography
    • Bodies only
    • Vanilla
  • Outer Limits:
    • Homosexual
    • Unmarried
    • Promiscuous
    • Commercial
    • Alone or in groups
    • Casual
    • Cross-generational
    • In public
    • Pornography
    • With manufactured objects
    • Sadomasochistic

HIV/AIDS

• HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus):
  • A viral infection of the blood that attacks and may destroy the body’s immune system.
  • Not contagious in the traditional sense.
  • Infection occurs through the transfer of blood, semen, vaginal fluid, pre-ejaculate, or breast milk.
• AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome):
  • A collective name for a wide range of opportunistic infections.
  • Occurs as a result of the body’s weakened self-defenses due to HIV.
  • Includes cancers and tumors that are not themselves infectious.

Early Reports and Hysteria

• Early CBS news reports on HIV/AIDS (June 12, 1982).
• July 3, 1981: MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) reported Kaposi's Sarcoma and Pneumocystis Pneumonia among homosexual men in New York City and California.
  • During the past 30 months, Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) has been diagnosed in 26 homosexual men (20 in New York City [NYC]; 6 in California).
  • The 26 patients range in age from 26-51 years (mean 39 years).
    *Hysteria and Homophobia:
  • Media promoted hatred and fear.
  • Headlines such as "AIDS IS THE WRATH OF GOD, SAYS VICAR" and "Britain threatened by gay virus plague".
• Gay men were bashed because of AIDS.

AIDS Quilt

• 1987: AIDS Memorial Quilt on National Mall.

High Profile Celebrities and AIDS

• Rock Hudson (1925-1985) Confession.
• Freddie Mercury (1946-1991): Lead singer of Queen, diagnosed in 1987.
• Ryan White: Hemophiliac infected with HIV, barred from school.
• Magic Johnson: NBA Superstar, diagnosed in 1991.
• Gregory Louganis: Diver, diagnosed with HIV in 1988.

Princess Diana

• Challenging the stigma of AIDS.
• Opened the UK’s first HIV/AIDs unit at London Middlesex Hospital in April 1987.
• Shook hands with a HIV positive man without gloves, challenging the false belief that HIV could be contracted through touch.

Grim Reaper Ad

• Australia, 1987.
• Promoted fear and scaremongering.
• Provided little information.
  *By 1985, 4500 men in Australia had died of AIDS.

Education Programmes

• Developed around the world.
• Aimed to fight fear with facts.

Activism

• AIDS Action Committee (1983 – 85).
• AIDS Council of NSW (ACON) (1985 – ).
• Safe Sex Sluts (1988 – 90).
• Trade Union Working Party on AIDS (1984 – 86).
• Bobby Goldsmith Foundation.
• People With AIDS/ People Living with AIDS (1988 – ).
• Australian Memorial AIDS Quilt.
• Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations
  *People with AIDS group, Denver, 1983.: “We condemn attempts to label us as ‘victims,’ a term which implies defeat, and we are only occasionally ‘patients,’ a term which implies passivity, helplessness, and dependence upon the care of others. We are ‘People With AIDS.’ —Denver Principles, 1983

Simon Watney

• British writer, historian, AIDS activist.
• Published Policing Desire: Pornography, AIDS and the Media in 1986 and Imagine Hope: AIDS and the Gay Identity in 2000.
• Argued that AIDS is not only a medical crisis but also a crisis of representation, involving the framing of knowledge about the human body and its capacities for sexual pleasure.
• Examined the role of the media in understanding sexual desire and public and private pleasure.
• Linked publicity around AIDS to promiscuity/deviance.
• Grounded his work in notions about ‘the construction of social panic’, ideas of homophobia and sexual conformity.
• Examined media and government campaigns.

Representations and Knowledge About Sexualities in the Media

• How do we remember HIV AIDS of the 1980s now?
• Have far have we come in representations and knowledge about sexualities in the media?
• 2021 Netflix Drama.