“...in Romania in the late 1920s, syphilis-envy figured in his adolescent expectations of literary glory: he would discover that he had contracted syphilis, be rewarded with several hyper productive years of genius, then collapse into madness...But with AIDS...”
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“...no compensatory mythology has arisen, or seems likely to arise.” —Sontag (1989) AIDS and Its Metaphors. Mapplethorpe and Jarman spring to mind. Mapplethrope went into work overdrive.
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Sontag writes some daft things about AIDS in this book. She complains that the depiction of AIDS as a tropical disease is too “stereotypical” (i.e. racist). Never mind that Africa has the greatest genetic diversity, hence greatest potential for this sort of thing.
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Sontag really does reject the science just because she finds the idea that disease like malaria orginate in Africa, or are somehow a slur against the people who happen to live there. She makes some good points, but this is silly.
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The book also shows quite how sour the left was over AIDS, because it basically derailed the sexual revolution. It’s “very convenient” that this epidemic lends credence to traditional sexual morality, note Sontag—almost implying someone “invented” AIDS.
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I can see how the left would fall for Soviet propaganda that said AIDS was invented by the CIA. They wanted to believe something like that, and the propaganda would find its niche.
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Not inconceivable that paedophilia would have been decriminalised in the West if AIDS hadn’t happened. I guesstimate it delayed same-sex marriage by about 10-15 years. You can watch TV discussion shows from 1970s where same-sex marriage was already under debate.
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