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- Title
Safe Sex in the 1970s: Community Practitioners on the Eve of AIDS.
- Authors
Blair, Thomas R.
- Abstract
In the 1970s, groups of gay and gay-allied health professionals began to formulate guidelines for safer sexual activity, several years before HIV/AIDS. Through such organizations as the National Coalition of Gay Sexually Transmitted Disease Services, Bay Area Physicians for Human Rights, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, these practitioners developed materials that would define sexual health education for the next four decades, as well as such concepts as "bodily fluids" and the "safe sex hanky." To do so, they used their dual membership in the community and the health professions. Although the dichotomy between the gay community and the medical establishment helped define the early history of HIV/AIDS, the creative work of these socially "amphibious" activists played an equally important part. Amid current debates over preexposure prophylaxis against HIV and Zika virus transmission, lessons for sexual health include the importance of messaging, the difficulty of behavioral change, and the vitality of community-driven strategies to mitigate risk.
- Subjects
UNITED States; SAFE sex; ATTITUDES of medical personnel; HISTORY of AIDS; LGBTQ+ history; HISTORY of gay people; HIV prevention; HUMAN rights; ACTIVISTS; ZIKA virus; TWENTIETH century; PREVENTION; HISTORY of public health; COMMUNITY support; HEALTH education; ZIKA virus infections; ATTITUDE (Psychology); CHANGE; COMMUNICATION; GAY people; SEXUAL health; MEDICAL personnel; POLITICAL participation; HISTORY
- Publication
American Journal of Public Health, 2017, Vol 107, Issue 6, p872
- ISSN
0090-0036
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2105/AJPH.2017.303704