WI: The Sexual Revolution Nipped In The Bud

What are the cultural and political ramifications of the HIV virus hitting the United States in a widespread manner during the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s? Say that it begins to spread among the heroin addicts in Haight-Ashbury rather than the gay population to begin with, and moves to the non-addict sexually active population in the early to mid-70s....
 
Ah, but it is sexually transmitted, and unlike the other treatable diseases at the time, it is eventually deadly.
 
It can just be seen as a sex disease, as I think was the meaning of what statichaos meant. I certainly think this would do the trick. With a disease destoring hippies and free love types, I can see this being publicized and hyped by the socially conservative as a plague to punish the wicked hippies.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Like syphillis... Oh wait.

I just mean; it could affect it, but I doubt it could nip it in the bud: by the 60s the roots of it were quite well underway already, the bud was there for a while.
 
I'm thinking that we're looking at a few factors at least, once it become obvious that we're looking at bodily fluid exchange. The first would be an even stronger "Jesus Freak" movement in response to the plague. The second would be an aborted gay rights movement, once it became clear that the virus was being more prominently transmitted there (after a crossover from the straight community). While one could argue that the AIDS epidemic caused a stronger gay community in terms of visibility and political influence, it was only due to the previous post-Stonewall visibility that they had anything to build on. The third would be--of course--a sharply curtailed sexual revolution, even for those who do not turn to religion.

Culturally, I can see the burgeoning sex industry (pornography, strippers, and so on) as facing major opposition from new local ordinances stemming from a health-oriented movement. We'd also be less likely to see the OTL loosening of network standards, which butterflies away much of what was interesting on television in the 70s.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Ah, but it is sexually transmitted, and unlike the other treatable diseases at the time, it is eventually deadly.

You need to take a closer look at HIV transmission in the U.S. and the West.

You would not get the results you might think. It is probable that HIV would STILL be considered a disease of IV druggies and Gays (although the term would be somewhat less PC at the time). If anything it might result in the Gay Rights movement being killed in the crib, this is 3 years before Stonewall, and even with a fairly solid Gay Rights movement in place in the early '80s there was a dramatic backlash one AIDS showed up.
 
You need to take a closer look at HIV transmission in the U.S. and the West.

You would not get the results you might think. It is probable that HIV would STILL be considered a disease of IV druggies and Gays (although the term would be somewhat less PC at the time). If anything it might result in the Gay Rights movement being killed in the crib, this is 3 years before Stonewall, and even with a fairly solid Gay Rights movement in place in the early '80s there was a dramatic backlash one AIDS showed up.

That's why I put it in the late 60s crucible of Haight-Ashbury, which at the time had devolved from being a "peace and love" hippie neighborhood into a den of heroin overuse and rampant sexual activity. It doesn't hit the gay community as quickly that way (though we're certainly looking at it hitting eventually), and would spread quickly between the IV drug usage and the promiscuity. While female-to-male transmission isn't quite as easy as male-female or male-male, it can still happen, and odds are that it would happen with some regularity in a sexually active environment.
 
Top