Reading Andrew (Dancer from the Dance) Holleran's latest (and Stonewall award-winning) novel Grief. Came across the following passage:

"AIDS is over. At least in this country - it had it's cultural moment, and produced some art that will probably last longer than thirties agit-prop. It galvanised the nation for a brief period, but that moment is past. There is still no cure, and people are still going to die, and it still interferes with sex, but when the public learned that it was not going to affect them, that it was mainly a gay disease, it moved on."

Is he right? Is that why (some of us feel) the focus of public policy has shifted away from education & prevention and is beginning to move towards the criminalisation of risky sexual behaviours?

Matt xx

I'd say he was right - about the gay 'community' as much as about public policy. AIDS seems to have disappeared from the gay cultural agenda (when was the last AIDS related outsiders film?) , and I don't find the level of HIV awareness among gay men that there used to be. I can guarantee that, in Manchester this coming weekend, there will be barebacking on a huge scale...

When was the last AIDS-related Outsiders film?

Nothing so far this year - you're quite right. We screened Meth - a documentary about the risks associated with the drug Crystal Meth - in November last year just before World AIDS Day and only 32 people came. It changed the way I think about our HIV/AIDS film programming - we need to move towards doing free or cheap screenings around this subject matter with guests (hopefully) to make the events more interesting.

So I applied earlier this year to Liverpool PCT Charitable Funds for some extra money for free/cheaper screenings - and we actually just heard today that we got the money. So watch this space!

In the meantime, during the festival this year, we'll be showing:

Gay Sex in the 70s
Screening with Reporter Zero

Dir. Joseph Lovett. USA 2005. 67 mins (+ 25 mins).
Featuring Tom Bianchi, Larry Kramer, Robert Alvarez

Life after Stonewall and before AIDS was different, of course, and as the documentary Gay Sex in the 70s makes explicitly clear, life in New York City was a ball, a blast and a hedonist’s paradise. Life on Mars it may seem to us now, but this was once the future, our future – on Fire Island. Taking us through the triumphs and excesses of those years are, among others, Tom Bianchi and Larry Kramer – with archive footage visually documenting our Age of Innocence: if you could bend time and space, where and when, exactly, would you choose to live? … Screening with Reporter Zero, Carrie Lozano’s short film about Randy Shilts, author of the classic and impossible-to-ignore And the Band Played On.

Check out the movies at:
http://www.gaysexinthe70s.com/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455953/
and,
http://www.reporterzero.com/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808444/

Matt xx

Yes and no.

The public health campaign was a great historic achievement. And yes once it was contained in a minority group and general (heterosexual) society was safe then HIV declined in importance.

However, sexual health services are now being described as at their worst state since 1917. Overall, sexual health issues have been ignored and heterosexual transmission of HIV is not being dealt with effectively.
I think the problem is with an incompetent Government, too subservient to conservative opinion and newspapers, and with a Christian disposition.
It is a failure of leadership, and of senior public health officials.
If Mrs (the Lady) Thatcher could authorise that great health campaign ....

As for prosecuting transmission of HIV: The good old Offences Against the Person Act has been there since 1861. Wilful transmission of any terminal illness was always illegal (until some Judge decided a Wife didn't count as she was her husband's property). The HIV issue was avoided for years. Now that the gay community is not being persecuted the issue can be addressed. So far it is mainly hetrosexual transmission involving wilful deception which has been prosecuted.

Many years ago a Home Secretary tried to have transmission of STI's made illegal. Before penicillin. I think it was supported by Liverpool Corporation. The proposal was laughed out of Parliament and ridiculed in the press.