I recently watched the HBO documentary
The Celluloid Closet which really got me thinking on the massive effect HIV/AIDS had on the 'sexual revolution' of the 1960's-1980's in basically killing it in an almost literal sense. One of the more striking things was Vito Russo complaining about how the gay 'community had 'won,' succeeded in having the lifestyle at least tolerated in its urban enclaves and then 'THEY are telling us we have to stop fucking!' (paraphrase close to the actual quote) Which struck me because it seemed like Mr. Russo was blaming 'the other side' i.e. Regan/Conservatives who certainly could have done more at least in raising awareness (I have strong doubts though on pushing forward effective treatments more than a matter of a year or months at most considering it took 1990-2000 and many billions of dollars as well as exponentially powerful computers to come up with the management cocktails we have now.)
The documentary brought up two completely divergent scenarios in my head
1. Light HIV - The virus is a threat, but isn't any worse than herpes, gonorrhea or other STD's for the vast majority of people, disgusting and inconvenient, sure... 100% death rate? Absolutely not, a few unlucky people who are exceptionally sensitive to the virus die similar to OTL, but for most it is a silent virus that only makes them more vulnerable to getting a head cold or such once or twice.
or
2. Worse HIV - The virus is much hardier, being transmissible like a 'true' STD while retaining its long incubation time, symptoms, and eventual deadliness, basically sexual promiscuity in HIV exposed population = either Darwin Award or having to take pills for the rest of your life once management drugs come on the market. We're not talking about Vlad Tepes / Zombie Apocalypse award winning transmissible like herpes.
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This isn't my area of knowledge, and I'm wondering what people think about how these two scenarios play out in the Western world specifically with the liberal/feminist/sexual revolutions and evolutions occurring at the time and any conservative/reactionary counterrevolution.