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AIDS AT 30

Sex, Drugs And HIV-Phobia: 10 Lessons From Early AIDS Awareness Posters

By Daniel Villarreal December 1, 2011 at 3:58am
This year’s World AIDS Day also marks the 30th year of the pandemic. So over this month we’ll be examining AIDS-related poster campaigns, works of art and interviews with contemporary HIV-positive LGBTs to discuss the best way to promote prevention in an age where HIV is no longer a death sentence and the younger generation feels increasingly open to bareback sex. The posters shown here span a time from the dawn of AIDS—when people knew very little about the disease—to the 1990s, when the high cost of HIV treatments offset a new wave of LGBT activism. The posters faced the enormous task of changing public attitudes and behaviors amongst widespread ignorance and fear. And while some of the campaigns’ ideas and messages evolved and remain a vital part of our current HIV conversations, others have seemingly vanished from public discourse, reminding us of the numerous social factors that complicate the road to an eventual cure. If you like, you can check out more AIDS awareness campaign posters at the University of Minnesota’s AIDS Poster Collection and in the River Campus Libraries Special Collections.   Click through for a slide show of AIDS awareness campaign posters  
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1986 – AIDS Causes Blindness created by the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, Inc. When AIDS first emerged, neither the press, the medical community nor the general public knew much about its transmission or how to avoid it. As a result, 47 percent of all Americans in 1985 said that they’d avoid someone who had tested positive, 54 percent said that people with AIDS should carry an AIDS-identification card for employment and 25 percent thought that employers should be able to fire anyone infected with AIDS. Even today, some Americans and medical professionals still fear associating with HIV-positive people.  
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1986 – If You’ve Had Two Sex Partners created by the Texas Department of Health This poster reads, “If you’ve had two sex partners and your partners had each had two sex partners and their partners had each had two sex partners… then it’s as if you’ve had sex with 512 people.” The ad does not mention condoms, but then again, it wasn’t until 1988 that the U.S. even aired a televised PSA explicitly mentioning condom use for AIDS prevention.
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1987 – None of These Will Give You AIDS created by the New York State Department of Health In the epidemic’s early years, stories spread that you could get AIDS from mosquito bites, swimming pools, public telephones, blood donations and shaking hands. Heck, the U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop didn’t issue a set of HIV prevention guidelines until the mid 1980s—partially blaming “intradepartmental politics” (and right wingers such as Reagan aide Gary Bauer) for cutting him out of all AIDS discussions during the first five years of the Reagan administration. So in the absence of nationally-approved health information, early local campaigns sought to calm public hysteria by reassuring people that AIDS could not spread through casual contact. Such information not only helped AIDS patients but those who worked and lived with AIDS-infected individuals.
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1987 – I Have AIDS. Please Hug Me. created by the Center for Attitudinal Healing In 1984, 13-year old Ryan White learned that he had contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion as a three-day-old. When White tried to return to his middle school, 117 parents and 50 teachers signed a petition asking the administrators to forbid his return. The day they school board finally allowed White to return, half of his 360 schoolmates stayed home. White’s school required him to eat with disposable utensils, use separate bathrooms and forbade him from taking gym class. His family faced hostility, homophobia, legal and death threats—when someone fired a bullet through their window, they finally changed neighborhoods. The poster’s colorful child-like drawing and compassionate plea for acceptance stem directly from White’s story, stressing the need for empathy and knowledge over ignorance and discrimination.
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1988 – She Has Her Father’s Eyes and Her Mother’s AIDS created by Clement Communications Near the late 1980s, AIDS campaigns began addressing minority risk communities such as sexually active young adults, blacks, Hispanics and women. By 1988 half of all female AIDS cases were African-American—today that number is 60 percent. HIV positive mothers can pass the virus onto their children during pregnancy, delivery or breastfeeding. And while modern-day anti-retroviral therapy, sperm washing and artificial insemination can reduce the likelihood of HIV transmission, they do not guarantee it. So while the poster shocks viewers by juxtaposing AIDS with a healthy, happy baby, it also serves as a reminder for pregnant women to get tested because AIDS does not discriminate between race, gender or age.
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1988 – AIDS is a White Man’s Disease created by People of Color Against AIDS The initial government guidelines for AIDS treatment addressed gay white males rather than the black and Latinos who faced homophobia, poverty, unemployment and lack of health care while seeking the information, testing, diagnoses and treatment they so badly needed. The “Famous Last Words” series sought to disabuse urban people of color of the notion that they couldn’t contract the disease by quoting common, lethal misconceptions such as “I don’t need to wear one of those” and “Okay, but next time you have to wear one.” While the viewer may have heard or even uttered such phrases, the bold red lettering below underscores the lethality of such attitudes.
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1989 – If You’re Dabbling in Drugs created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control AIDS campaigns posters in the late ’80s also began targeting intravenous drug users—possibly the most marginalized group at risk for HIV. Intravenous drug use is illegal almost worldwide and many IV drug users turn to sex work to pay for their fix, HIV-infected users face a confluence of health and legal challenges further complicated by social stigma and a wealth of other factors such as criminal background, nonexistent family support structure, homelessness, use of other drugs and mental health issues. Even now roughly one tenth of new HIV infections result from needle sharing; almost 25 percent of the young American men who died of AIDS in 2007 contracted the disease from IV drug use—among women that figure was 38 percent. The poster above uses an informal style of tough talk to discourage young people from “dabbling” with IV drugs:
Skin popping, on occasion, seems a lot safer than mainlining. Right? You ask yourself: What can happen? Well, a lot can happen. That’s because there’s a new game in town. It’s called AIDS. So far there are no winners. If you share needles, you’re at risk. All it takes is one exposure to the AIDS virus and you’ve just dabbled your life away.
While the poster conjures memories of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign, it slyly wields a bit of sex appeal as the handsome young man in the tank top and track pants locks eyes with the viewer.
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1989 – This Is How AIDS Victims See Themselves created by James Thorpe In 1987, the Food and Drug Administration finally approved Retrovir, a breakthrough AZT-based drug that successfully slowed the spread HIV and AIDS within the body. But hopes for worldwide access got quickly dashed when Burroughs Wellcome, the pharmaceutical company behind the drug, announced the cost—$188 per bottle—approximately $7,000-$10,000 per year. The ACT-UP demonstrations, media coverage and congressional hearings that soon followed shamed the company into slashing Retrovir’s cost by 40 percent within two years. But in the meanwhile, people living with AIDS still had to face a series of personal, psychological and financial losses at the hands of their phobic associates. Here, the AIDS victim becomes a dehumanized target surrounded by an ever-tightening circle of devastating personal blows, reminding HIV-negative audiences about the relatable, day-to-day challenges faced by infected indviduals.
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1990 – Be A Rubberman created by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation Considering the initial association of gay men with HIV, it’s astounding how few of the posters from the epidemic’s first decade actually acknowledge gay male audiences or contain any sexual overtures whatsoever. In this case the San Francisco AIDS Foundation avoids overtly mentioning the disease and portraying sex as something to fear. Quite the contrary, they invite viewers to feel turned on and empowered about choosing to have hot, protected sex. This poster predates contemporary safe-sex posters from Hot House Studios (NSFW) and the DC FUK!T campaign which both feature actual porn stars using condoms for explicit sex. Some modern campaigns also feature tamer, affectionate couples using condoms as an act of love.

1987 – AIDSGATE
1992 – Healthcare not Wealthcare
created by ACT-UP

No ’80s era AIDS poster collection would be complete without a few from the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (aka ACT UP).

After resigning as a founding board member of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, outspoken AIDS activist Larry Kramer went on to form ACT-UP, a more militant, direct action political group that pressured the government and medical researchers to provide greater access to drugs, research and policy development.

It wasn’t until 1987 that Ronald Reagan finally used the word “AIDS” in a public speech. But even after then he contended that the U.S. Government should not provide AIDS or sex education because “How that information is used must be up to schools and parents, not government.”

He added “Let’s be honest with ourselves, AIDS information can not be what some call ‘value neutral.’ After all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don’t medicine and morality teach the same lessons?” He soon learned that the epidemic and its survivors had some new lessons to teach him as well.

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14 Comments*

  • Mike in Asheville

    Oh, yes, Number 10, “Be a Rubber Man”

    Loved that one, all the celebrity of guys asking me about posing for that campaign — even more free drinks at the bars! Even an artist friend for whom I was modeling, asked me about being the Rubber Man.

    It wasn’t me but boy did we look alike; hooked up one fun night, and yes, we were both Rubber Men.

  • Stop and think

    Number 4, good old Teflon president Reagan isn’t responsible for anything. He’s just a figurehead, after all, little more then the queen of England…….

  • Observer

    Why are these warning messages unintelligible? “Dabbling with your life”??? AIDSgate? It’s one long exercise in confusing people, when what the public really needed was clarity.

  • Damon

    I could be wrong, but it sure looks like number 4 and number 10 were the only helpful posters.

  • Andy

    Thanks for number 6 Daniel. Since queerty is just brimming with breastfeeders with HIV, that was completely useful and relevant information that doesn’t in any way call into question your motivation in publishing it.

  • Daniel Villarreal

    @Andy: You’re right Andy. No HIV+ women read this site. Nor do mothers. Just intelligent men like you.

  • Mike in Asheville

    @WillBFair: I suppose for the “glass is half empty” crowd, you are somewhat right. But for those of us in the “glass is half full” group, the variety of posters appeared because concerned citizens saw areas where information was lacking and decided to do something about that.

    To critique that national response is certainly valid. The truth of the matter is that until ActUP began its demonstrations, demonstrations that often inconvenienced large segments of the general public — like the tens-of-thousands of commuters on the Golden Gate Bridge, there was little governmental and national response.

    You use of “stupidity and incompetence” is dangles over the individual groups that did take action. And amid the excruciating pain caused by the stupidity and incompetence of governmental leadership, it is exactly the leadership of grass-root groups that made things happen on both the education and research/treatment fronts. I am alive today because these various groups did do something, and collectively, got a national response started.

  • WillBFair

    @Mike in Asheville: I’m not one for the glass half full/empty meme. I thank goodness for the new drugs, as we all should. And I’m happy that so many lives have been saved. But ninety some percent of my generation are gone. So it’s not easy for me to fall back on a cliche.
    I’m talking about gay leadership’s incompetence. Instead of working on prevention from day one, they sat around blaming others and spitting profanity at anyone who broached the subject. Now it’s thirty years later. We’ve got a ton of people on the meds. And they still haven’t addressed prevention. Please.
    At any rate, I’m glad to hear that you’re doing ok.

  • DenverBarbie

    @Andy: @Daniel Villarreal: Looks like he caught you, Daniel. Might as well fess up- you’re trying to raise us for your heterosexual, right-wing, militia, aren’t you?
    Or worse yet, perhaps you are trying to include women in the conversation?! Absolutely OUTRAGEOUS!

  • Andy

    @DenverBarbie: Oh please, its not like there’s an abundance of HIV+ mothers who regularly read a site called “Queerty”. To hide behind the idea that he’s “trying to include women in the conversation” in this context is to literally use them as human shields. That is every bit as loathsome as the repeated snarky opportunism, serophobia and assorted other bigotries that define his writing.

  • Andy

    @WillBFair: You keep saying things like “they still haven’t addressed prevention”. What exactly are you talking about? What sort of “prevention message” are you looking for?

  • eric

    thank you for sharing these posters.

  • Jaime

    Dear Andy. I am a heterosexual woman and gay rights advocate. I read all of these posters.

    Dear Daniel, thank you for considering me and others like me when others might not. I thoroughly enjoyed this forray into my culture’s not so distant past. I was born in 1985, so seeing media such as this is way more enlightening than my brief, public school textbook education on the history of aids in America.

  • Christopher Banks

    It’s interesting that the UNAIDS theme for World AIDS Day this year was “getting to zero”, which is a great utopian vision, but I think it’s setting yourself up for failure when so many things are missing from the current battle (apologies to those who don’t like war analogies).

    The three components of “getting to zero” were zero new HIV infections, zero new AIDS-related deaths, and zero stigma. Big goals, right?

    I wrote a piece about what I think needs to change before we can start setting ourselves such ambitious goals. It refers specifically to New Zealand, where I live, but I think the messages are universal to gay communities in Western countries worldwide:

    http://bipolarbear.co.nz/2011/11/25/getting-to-zero/

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