“When you have sex with someone today, you also have sex with everyone they’ve had sex with for the last five to seven years.” That’s the one line that most people remember from the recent blunt and graphic CBS documentary called “AIDS Hits Home.”
What an awful thought! Just imagine all those other people in the same bed with you and your current lover! Crowded, isn’t it! And even if you think you are a good judge of the character, cleanliness and lifestyle of your sex partner, you can’t possibly evaluate all those who preceded you.
The CBS program did a good job of showing that AIDS is hopeless (there is no cure), horrible (it’s a slow, painful death), depressing (all the victims are young), and costly (each AIDS victim requires about $250,000 in medical services). CBS had only one recommendation to save us from AIDS: the condom.
It was curious how many times the AIDS victims invoked the name of God when discussing their plight. It reminds us of the saying that there are no atheists in foxholes. Impending death requires men to face up to the moment of truth when we meet our Maker.
Dan Rather and other CBS reporters asked AIDS victims and their grieving parents the same question over and over again, “What’s the hardest part?” Yet, every day of the year, victims of disease and accident face death and don’t complain about that factor. We will all die someday. If the AIDS victims were to respond truthfully, the answer in the majority of cases probably would be remorse because the disease was the result of illicit behavior, either their own or that of someone close to them. In some cases, the disease was the result of negligence by the blood banks in not barring blood donations from high-risk groups.
Unfortunately, media messages, overt and subliminal, still invite young people to enjoy the forbidden fruits of the Sexual Revolution without regard to the now-obvious disease consequences.
There are already 15,000 deaths from AIDS, and, with a million and a half Americans now infected and infectious with the virus, Dan Rather predicts there could be 200,000 deaths by 1990. At $250,000 in medical costs per death, the load on insurance companies, private savings, Medicaid, and welfare will be horrendous.
On the other hand, a storm cloud for some can be blue sky for others. As rumors circulate about possible miracle drugs to treat AIDS, Wall Street is reacting with anticipation and financial gyrations.
The CBS documentary pitched strongly for a drug called AZT and showed some tear-jerking interviews complaining that the Food and Drug Administration isn’t approving it fast enough to help AIDS victims now dying. AZT is made by Burroughs-Wellcome, a $554 million dollar company, whose stock rose 20 percent after word about AZT began buzzing about.
Burroughs-Wellcome recently embarked on a series of expensive full-page magazine ads in TIME and NEWSWEEK. The ads are very curious because they do not sell any product.
The first series of ads showed a handsome young couple, with concerned looks on their faces, under the headline: “The hardest thing he ever had to do was tell Sally he had Herpes. But thanks to his doctor, he could also tell her it’s controllable.” The more recent series of these ads shows another young couple, beautiful, happy, and smiling, under the headline: “When they met last year, he was the only one with Herpes. With the help of his doctor, he’s still the only one.”
The ads are selling promiscuity by showing attractive young people who are sexually active, and apparently enjoying the good life, even though they have an incurable venereal disease. The ads imply that infected persons can still get and hold a good-looking lover because it’s now quite acceptable and normal to have Herpes.
The ads imply that, if you are one of the some 20 million Americans who have Venereal Herpes, don’t worry, you can just see your doctor for counseling and find out how Herpes is controllable. “Controllable” is not defined in the ad.
A study of the Burroughs-Wellcome published materials shows that “controllable” apparently means avoiding all physical contact with everyone during all the times when you have an outbreak of Herpes, which can last up to ten days and occur up to once a month. Condoms don’t protect you. New research also indicates that Herpes can be transmitted to your partner even when you have no visible symptoms. Thus, to have Venereal Herpes and be as carefree as the smiling couple in the ad, you will have to live a lifestyle much like the so-called “rhythm” method of natural birth control. But instead of avoiding sex on the woman’s fertile days of the month in order to avoid getting pregnant, you will have to avoid sex on your Herpes days of the month to avoid getting an unpleasant, incurable VD.
A lot of people are making a lot of money out of promiscuity. Maybe someday their customers will wake up and realize that free sex isn’t free at all. It’s quite costly, and someone else is making the profit.
