Oh the ALP disappoints me too. We expected so much more from Anna – at the very least action like you said on the discriminatory ages of consent we have in QLD, or abortion law reform.

But I have more faith in the ALP to give a damn, because up here despite the LNP’s sucking up to the gay community with a gay candidate in a safe ALP inner-city seat here, and a Springborg interview there, they commit to no change on the same issues that the ALP stubbornly refuses to move against. And they use us as political footballs.

Just in case Jack’s not taking the piss

A Documentary that got some interesting interviews about the development and political consequences of Australia’s HIV strategy from the people who were active at the time.

And a Link to some real data.

One report indicates that HIV infections in AUS “peaked in 1984?.

What he says is not true Anna, or at least blatant misunderstanding or manipulating of the facts. 1984 was when some back-testing on blood samples was done. Of course the early years of the known epidemic have a spike as people were encouraged to come forward for testing – HIV has a long latency period.

From the mid-eighties onwards the authorities, and sensible members of the gay community, came to appreciate the public health risks of unhealthy forms of patronage and practice. So the establishment, attendance and, reportedly, the more sensational “practices” at gay bathhouses tapered off dramatically.

Um. Dude. Your making my point but not in the way you think. Education and engagement with the at risk communities such as in the Australian model (where the bath-houses were not closed) unlike the American model where the bath-houses were was much more successful. We have a much lower incidence of HIV than the US. That’s not just because of our of safe sex campaigns but more importantly in limiting the spread of HIV, our needle exchange programs.

associated ribald debaucheries in the gay sub-culture

Dude, your even creeping me out and I love gay sex. I repeat – sexually transmitted diseases are almost impossible to eradicate in both homosexual and heterosexual communities once they reach epidemic proportions. There is no need to continue your fascination with 1980′s gay beat sex.

Use condoms. If you don’t have one, be safe and aware of other options. I’d embed that pic if I knew how.

I’m sure Jack will now obediently trot out some completely unfactual bigoted screed against the wimmin now just to oblige.

Even if everything you say here is true, I have no idea what it has to do with proving why allowing gay men to marry and be faithful is a bad idea.

Jack Strocchi, 1. The table you link to at #15 aggregate the figures for all years up to and including 1987, then provide individual year figures from 1988 onwards. This makes single-year comparisons between the years prior to 1987 inclusive, and subsequent years, problematic.

Agreed that the annual data are non-commensurable with pre-1987 data for that graph. But all other evidence points to an AUS AIDS pandemic during the disco/bath house/beat era (~1977-85) of promiscuous unprotected sodomy. One report indicates that HIV infections in AUS “peaked in 1984″.

I was living in St Kilda that year and made my annual pilgrimage to the Cross. I am not particularly straight-laced but I remember being shocked at the reckless abandon. A Julian Gold authored report on the demographic incidence of AIDS states:

2341 cases of AIDS were reported as having been diagnosed in Australia during 1991–1993. Of these, 96 per cent were in males, of whom over 72 per cent were in the age group 25–44 years. Geographic concentration of AIDS cases was observed: over 55 per cent of cases were in New South Wales (NSW) and these were concentrated in inner Sydney, in particular, in two metropolitan health areas: Eastern Sydney and Central Sydney.

Of course there is a selection effect working on jurisdictions here. The population of those engaging in at-risk behaviour is obviously not randomly distributed. Still, XXX marks the spot.

Paul Norton says:

2. More substantially, cases of HIV/AIDS were not detected in Western countries (including Australia) until the early 1980s, and tests for HIV antibodies did not become widespread until the mid-1980s, so it is not surprising that a statistical “spike” in detcted HI and AIDS cases would have occurred in this period – for reasons quite apart from the legal status of homosexuality at the time. Further, Australia’s public policy response to HIV/AIDS only really got going in a serious way from the mid-1980s onwards, so again one would expect the situation to improve after this opint.

Of course. But this proves my point, which is that the initial burst of sub-cultural liberation ultimately had to be tempered by a restoration of authoritative public regulation and intervention.

Prior to AIDS-awareness the gay bathhouse scene in particular, and gay beat in general, carried on as if there was no tomorrow. Which in many cases, sadly, proved to be the case.

From the mid-eighties onwards the authorities, and sensible members of the gay community, came to appreciate the public health risks of unhealthy forms of patronage and practice. So the establishment, attendance and, reportedly, the more sensational “practices” at gay bathhouses tapered off dramatically.

The simultaneous legalisation of homosexuality and eruption of gay and straight recreational establishments was a case of unfortunate timing. In the bad old (post-War/pre-Stonewall) days gays could carry on their lifestyle in private mostly unmolested. However cops did occasionally bust gay venues which did tend to cramp gay style. But it probably curtailed the spread of STDs.

In the Brave New World of gay liberation during the seventies-eighties we had an ideological revolution accompanying an anthropological one. Ditto for indigenes with similarly tragic results.

It would have been better to legalise homosexuality but still let the cops shut down these gay beat scenes on grounds of public health, drug use, noise nuisance etc. It pains me to admit it but had Joh Bjelke Petersen been admiministering the regulation of recreational establishments throughout the Western world during the eighties it is likely that up to 100,000 more gay men would still be alive today.

Unfortunately it appears that many have still not learned the public health lessons so hard won during the latter part of the eighties. AIDS infections are now rising, including a significant rise amongst immigrant communities. Perhaps we need to be more careful about monitoring the behaviour of those we let into the country.

In AUS it is still the case that AIDS is predominantly a disease afflicting reckless sodomites, drug using needle-parties and foreign whore-mongers. Which at least indicates that there was some wisdom about traditional warnings regarding the unregulated practice of these “vices”.

So maybe the next time someone proposes a leap into liberation and equality could we please show a little more respect for the skeptics?

The liberalisation anti-sodomy laws was a mixed blessing for some of the more avante-garde members of the gay community. Thousands of whom paid with their lives for the reformist zeal of their more outraged comrades.

How else is one supposed to read that?

I suggested that AUS’s hasty liberalisation of anti-sodomy laws in the early 1980’s, and the associated ribald debaucheries in the gay sub-culture, were associated with the contemporary spike in reported HIV infections.

I think you are ignoring the extraordinary amount of evidence of a global epidemic of a sexually transmitted disease. I’m not a scientist but I can’t think of a sexually transmitted disease that has ever been successfully eliminated. You don’t need to make assumptions about the gays sexual habits vis a vis heterosexuals.

Besides, the only major states to decriminalise in the early to mid 80′s was NSW and Victoria. Both of which had presumably had infections before then. And your ignoring that our successfull strategies of outreach to the gay community didn’t involve criminalisation but education and condoms. Ditto with the brothels. And the intravenous drug users, though they wanted clean needles. And that was very successfull – there is study on the costs of that somewhere with respect to HIV if you got some google time. I don’t.

Whose side are you really on, the gay beat fringe or ordinary gay people?

Wtf? Honestly, how do you think poofters hooked up in the olden days? It was illegal and social persecution was alot more common than today. Read about the businesses that were closed down by the police because their clientele were ‘artistes’ or the illegal pubs that bribed the cops and sometimes were run by dodgy people. And even those meeting places only existed in major cities. Of course they fucked in parks at night. Whose friggin side are you on?

conservative precautionary principle….

Shorter Queen Victoria Gino: I don’t really care what the people do as long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses.

1. The table you link to at #15 aggregate the figures for all years up to and including 1987, then provide individual year figures from 1988 onwards. This makes single-year comparisons between the years prior to 1987 inclusive, and subsequent years, problematic.

2. More substantially, cases of HIV/AIDS were not detected in Western countries (including Australia) until the early 1980s, and tests for HIV antibodies did not become widespread until the mid-1980s, so it is not surprising that a statistical “spike” in detcted HI and AIDS cases would have occurred in this period – for reasons quite apart from the legal status of homosexuality at the time. Further, Australia’s public policy response to HIV/AIDS only really got going in a serious way from the mid-1980s onwards, so again one would expect the situation to improve after this opint. This policy response, it should be noted, was very much driven from the bottom-up by the queer community and other vulnerable groups, and has been remarkably successful by world standards.

Bill Bowtell’s paper on Australia’s HIV/AIDS response is worth a read.

Jack Strocchi, nice work. I haven’t seen anyone blame AIDS on the gays in a long time. Have a think about what you said because I can’t be bothered to point out the ways you are wrong and offensive right now.

You can be bothered to respond to other peoples comments chapter and verse. Yet you “can’t be bothered to point out the ways [I am] are wrong and offensive”. Stop bluffing and show us your cards.

Also, learn to read and deal with what I actually said. I didn’t, and don’t, “blame AIDS on the gays”. I suggested that AUS’s hasty liberalisation of anti-sodomy laws in the early 1980′s, and the associated ribald debaucheries in the gay sub-culture, were associated with the contemporary spike in reported HIV infections.

Of course this harmed, rather than helped, gays in general. Whose side are you really on, the gay beat fringe or ordinary gay people?

I also argued that this illustrates the validity of the conservative pre-cautionary principle: to be wary of the un-intended consequences of novel, far-reaching and rapid institutional reforms. This applies to the proposal to allow gay marriage.

Although FWIW I am more sympathetic to gay marriage because it will probably have an integrating, rather than differentiating, effect on social cohesion.