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DelilahDeb -> RE: STDs (6/19/2008 1:57:45 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Stephann
Well, in truth, this time I'm not suggesting it's the government. I think this is more of a media issue, influenced by changing attitudes towards sex, gender roles, and gay culture. When AIDS first started to gain notoriety, gay culture was still considered to be fringe, and that gay men needed to keep their interests and activities in the closet. Since then, gay culture shares nearly equal representation in our media, in our politics, and in our communities. I think these are all great things, but I dislike the way that billions of dollars are being diverted into a problem in the US, when there are other, clear, and pressing problems with nearly no attention. Almost as many heterosexual men will become infected with HIV as adults will die of malnutrition, in the US; more than half of those will be over the age of 65. AIDS is a horrible way to die, but so is starving to death, old, and lonely. The problem is poverty isn't nearly as media friendly of a topic as AIDS; nobody has to actually see pictures of people dying of AIDS, because it strikes at our sexually repressed national identity.
Stephan
Boldface added by me.
Now, I recall vividly a 30-plus-year-old TV and radio commercial from Lyndon Johnson's term as U.S. President. Before the War on Drugs, there was the War on Poverty, and before that the War on Hunger.
<audio sound effect: can opener in use>
<voice over>
NARRATOR: This is the saddest sound in the world.
NARRATOR: This is the sound of a man opening a can.
NARRATOR: This is the sound of a man opening a can of cat food.
NARRATOR: This is the sound of a man opening a can of cat food for his dinner.
That particular commercial still has the power to make my stomach churn. And I was raised middle class, with a parent whose own parents, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, never needed to leave her hungry but often had to bore her with the same foods.
One of the few good things about the AIDS activism, however, is the side benefits of unscrewing the human immune system. And a good thing, because allergies and asthma treaments have benefitted from (at least) the first decade or so of investigations into "what the heck IS this thing". I was adult and reading the San Fran Examiner during 1977–1981, while the cluster of Kaposi's Sarcoma turned into a so-called "epidemic". What the heck, I eventually got to be grateful that I dodged a very polite pass from a bisexual gent in 1975.
Stephan, you make a great point. And there's another point about those statistics.
My mom used to make a point about statistics in general:
"Very few people die over the age of 100."
See? A true statistic…without context. WITH context, it might read:
"Very few people live to the age of 100; thus, very few people die over the age of 100."
The same fact has kept the "leading cause of death" in the U.S. a lovely moving target. First it was heart attacks. And then the American Heart Association led the AMA and the statistically significant victims (adult males) into improving that statistic, and *poof*…now the "leading cause of death" in the country was CANCER. And the American Cancer Society moved into the forefront. Now there's lovely scary ads about the "ticking time bombs" of heart disease in women. Well, guess what. I'm one of those women. And I don't effin' care. I'll take quality life over quantity having my diapers changed in a nursing home, thank you!
And besides that, the great American phobia is death. Well, [sm=tongue.gif]! Too many people on this planet now. But the bottom line?
"No one here gets out alive." —Jim Morrison
"Life is a death sentence; death is a life sentence." —Lady Delilah Deb
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