By 1983, the AIDS discourse had expanded from queer circles and the margins of the medical field to the forefront of American society; a front-page article in the New York Times had been published in May declaring the AIDS battle had become ”’the No. 1 priority’’ of the United States Public Health Service,” and over 1,500 cases had been reported in the US (Pear). In June, the New York Times released a second article on the disease titled “AIDS Spreads Pain and Fear Among Ill and Healthy Alike.” This article attempted to convey the various emotional responses to the AIDS crisis at a time when misinformation and paranoia surrounding the disease were rampant; close examination of the article reveals the thoughts and actions of various groups of American society during this harrowing period.
The structure of the article is revealing both of its ideological alignment and the severity of the AIDS crisis. That the first anecdote in the piece relates to a gay man is significant; it describes a restaurant owner in New York reflecting on how his lover died from AIDS after being “shunned by hospitals and airlines and then by undertakers” (Clendinen). In opening with this piece, the article establishes its solidarity with the queer community and acknowledgement of both the destructive impact and prejudice faced by gay men at this time. The other prominent and revealing structural choice the article makes is in not revealing the names behind a majority of the anecdotes which make most of the piece; this both reveals the extent to which association with AIDS could result in social belittlement and prejudice and creates a tone of omnipresence: the sentiments expressed here were being felt, thought, spoken, and experienced by everyone, everywhere.
Anecdotes from gay men in the piece provide insights on the behavioral changes within American queer communities necessitated by the AIDS crisis. One man remarks how despite having “made love with other men since high school,” he had never “thought that something from his sex life might kill him” (Clendinen). Another man remarked how he viewed the AIDS crisis as “the end of the sexual revolution, suggesting, in reference to gay sex life, the AIDS crisis “may lead to is a more responsible way of handling that part of our lives” (Clendinen). This idea of gay men’s promiscuity being partially to blame for the disease is emphasized throughout the piece; the safe-sex movement within AIDS discourse didn’t begin until the late 1980’s in the United States, and abstinence seems to take its place within this piece as the advisable course of action for gay men aiming to prevent infection and further transmission (National Library of Medicine). This is evident in the few lines of non-anecdotal writing in the piece, one of which claims AIDS was torturing “the whole ethic of ‘the gay lifestyle’” which is characterized by “casual, anonymous sex” (Clendinen).
The piece also gives voice to the sentiments from non-affected heterosexuals through similar quotes and anecdotes. Paranoia was clearly rampant at this time; described is a woman who called asking “how she should fumigate an apartment she bought from a homosexual” to prevent infections (Clendinen). Another straight man, prefacing his comment with an assertion that he feels “the deepest sympathy for AIDS victims,” said he was “upset that the Government is not spending more money to protect the general public from the gay plague” (Clendinen).’ It is clear through these anecdotes that the prevalence of AIDS within the gay community combined with existing homophobic sentiments lead to extensive prejudice and ostracization by many outside the gay community.
Finally, the piece gives anecdotes both from and about the medical and political establishments’ responses to AIDS which are incredibly revealing of the sentiments driving decisions in these fields. Conservative, homophobic groups saw AIDS as an opportunity to further their agenda; the article describes Fundamentalist preachers in Houston who rallied in support of health authorities closing “homosexual bars and to declare homosexual conduct a health hazard” (Clendinen). These sentiments weren’t ignored; the homophobia within the medical establishment is glaringly evident through the anecdote in which “a doctor wonders to a colleague if this is God’s punishment, saying that if it is, it is not harsh enough” (Clendinen). That members of the industry whose job it was to treat the disease viewed it as something positive for society is part of what made the AIDS crisis so damaging in its effects and so despicable in recollection. The effects of the homophobia within the medical world were brutal; one anecdote describes an already-deceased gay man who, upon arriving at the hospital he would never leave, was met by doctors who were “very afraid to handle him” and would not wash him (Clendinen).
The piece also explores the sentiments dominating the political discourse around AIDS. Pieces of information such as the then-mayor of San Francisco Dianne Feinstein’s heading of a group which worked with the “United States Conference of Mayors to alert the nation to the growing danger of AIDS” and the house approval of “$12 million in additional research money for AIDS” are contrasted with the Reagan administration’s silence and inaction (Clendinen). The wording of such anecdotes is particularly revealing in these cases; the piece labels Congress as “sympathetic” a mere sentence away from depicting the Reagan Administration’s suggestion “that money be taken from other health projects” for AIDS research (Clendinen).
Furthermore, the piece highlights the extent to which the shortcomings of both the political and medical establishments had been levied onto gay communities. In one of the few anecdotes with a name attributed in the piece, the article relays executive director of the National Gay Task Force Virginia Apuzzo’s charge that the “Federal Government, under a conservative Administration, is unsympathetic and that research is underfinanced” (Clendinen). The result, highlighted the non-anecdotal final paragraph of the piece, was that “the effort to organize in support of the victims has come from those most affected: homosexuals themselves,” and that this resulted in “forging homosexuals into a community as nothing has before, even bringing bankers, doctors and others out of the closet” (Clendinen). This ending is revealing of the class-based logic surrounding coming out at the time; white color homosexuals were, prior to AIDS, expected to remain in the closet to preserve their professional standing, while those in “gayer,” less prestigious professions were less likely to face social sanctions for coming-out. But the class-blind impact from AIDS meant such class division was no longer possible; homosexuals of all walks of life, abandoned by the establishment, had to band together to battle AIDS.