AIDS

Discussing the topic of HIV/AIDS in class over the past week has been very interesting to me. I feel as though I have always been aware of HIV and known snippets about it, but I have never really understood the intricacies of how it works and how the rapid spread of AIDS impacted society as a whole and the LGBT community.

While, in high school, I had comprehensive sex education (for the most part), but very little detail was given about AIDS. We were told about other STDs, their symptoms, treatments, different ways of contacting them, etc. This sort of attention was not paid to HIV/AIDS. We were taught that it happens and that it is transmitted through sex, but that is about it.

My guess (although merely an educated speculation) is that we learned so little about it because it still carries the stigma of being a “gay disease”. I grew up in a conservative small town that has probably never been home to an openly AIDS-infected person, thus perpetuating the idea that it was not something that “our people” have to deal with.

In class we touched on the idea that while information about AIDS might be available, very few people are seeking it out for the sole purpose of knowing more, as we are. It scares me that over 20 years after the outbreak of AIDS, students are being taught almost nothing about it. There is some information available on the internet, and the U.S. government has an entire section of its site devoted entirely to AIDS, but after sifting through the site a bit, I find that it is hard to get any quick information. Almost every section of the site has an additional 5-10 links that are meant to provide information. As a member of the technology era, I, like most people, want quick, fast, straightforward information. If I find that interesting enough, I will dig in deeper to a subject. This seems like a simple and common idea that even the government is over-looking, making it hard for people with limited internet access or reading skills to get accurate information. It is under-education that leads to the continued spread of the disease, despite the fact that all its methods of transmission have been well known for years and it seems logical to me that the U.S. government (as well as others) should be doing everything in its power to stop this spread in both the United States and other countries.