![]() ![]() But the passage of sexual repression from the penal to the psychiatric stage has never actually brought about the disappearance of the penal aspect.”īoth the sexuality of gay men and the sexuality of women are a threat to the primacy of patriarchal male heterosexual desire. “Certainly as we shall see later, psychiatry tends to replace legal repression with the internalization of guilt. Hocquenghem went on to suggest that even though the late 19th century brought a tendency to view homosexuality through the more “tolerant” lens of illness, the human need to view homosexuality as criminal is persistent. In 1972, gay liberation theorist Guy Hocquenghem flatly stated in his book Homosexual Desire: “Homosexuality is first of all a criminal category.” In the England of Henry VIII, the punishment for sodomy was death India today is still struggling to legalize same-sex encounters. This criminalization of homosexuals goes back as far as the notion of sodomy. Kelly is the victim of another kind of infection - the notion that gay men are criminals whose desires must be controlled. So why would a gay professor characterize PrEP as a bad thing? Why is he worried that gay men - en masse - will suddenly start practising unsafe sex? It is also due to the tireless efforts of gay men everywhere - many of whom became safe-sex activists during the last 35 years, distributing pamphlets, marching and just generally spreading the news. But the improvement in the lives of HIV-positive people everywhere is only in part due to the tireless efforts of doctors, researchers and health-care workers. It’s absolutely true that AIDS affects different demographics, ethnicities and geographies differently, and that gay men are not the only population to be affected by it worldwide. The protest was organized by ACT UP, a gay rights activist group. In this 1989 photo, protesters lie on the street in front of the New York Stock Exchange in a demonstration against the high cost of the AIDS treatment drug AZT. In 1987, Oprah Winfrey stated confidently that “research studies now project that one in five - listen to me, hard to believe - one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years.” This state of affairs seems particularly significant when one considers hysterical early predictions concerning the effects of the disease. “In 2013, 1.5 million people died from AIDS-related causes worldwide, compared with 2.4 million in 2005, a 35 per cent decrease.” In 2014, The Globe and Mail reported that worldwide deaths from AIDS were massively decreasing: Julio Montaner, director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, “ this was a pivotal moment, when HIV infection became a chronic manageable condition.” “ The gold standard in HIV treatment” (highly active antiretroviral therapy or HAART) was first introduced at the 1996 Vancouver International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference. ![]() Some might ask - isn’t AIDS still a lethal illness? Not so much. It is just one new tool in the “safe sex arsenal.” Why not be happy about the fact that PrEP will undoubtedly save many lives? Not a lethal illness anymore Why doesn’t he celebrate the fact that gay men - and everyone else - can now have sex without fear of death? PrEP makes sex safer for everyone. There is one sentiment that is missing from Kelly’s article. Doctors still recommend that everyone use condoms because although PrEP is effective as protection against HIV, it does not guard against the transmission of other sexually transmitted diseases. ![]()
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