SEX AND GERMS

The politics of AIDS

By Cindy Patton

The tragic appearance of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome has produced a unique constellation of political, social, and cultural conflicts. Sex and Germs examines our response to AIDS and argues for a more comprehensive understanding of sexuality and its control by way of a reintegration of the body into political discourse.

Although the visceral quality of the backlash resulting form the AIDS epidemic cannot be fully explained historically, Patton begins by tracing both the rise of the medical enterprise and the evolution of the lesbian and gay community. this provides the background for her original conceptualization of “erotophobia”- the irrational fear of sexuality- and examines how this fear shapes the cultural understanding and social organization of sex.

Patton then explores the importance of opposing erotophobia in context of both new right assaults on the lesbian and gay community, and organizing efforts within that community around the issue of sexual practice. A final section considers other constituencies affected by AIDS, and proposes an organizing agenda for a sex-positive community health coalition.

Sex and Germs is a valuable resource for increasing one's factual knowledge and political perspective about [this] alarming illness. Patton has carefully broadened the subject of dangerous germs and erotic impulses into a scholarly probe of AIDS.--The Guardian

Cindy Patton is chair of an AIDS Action Committee and has written extensively on sexuality and culture in Gay Community News, the Women’s Review of Books, and other periodicals.

Table of Contents

SECTION I: LEARNING ABOUT AIDS

1. Introduction
2. They Said It Couldn’t Happen
3. The Search for a Magic Bullet
4. AIDS 1985: The Atlanta Update

SECTION II: THE BODY BESIEGED

5. Germphobia
6. Law and Medicine
7. The New Right

SECTION III: EROS LOSTAND EROS REGAINED

8. Erotophobia- Desire and Practice
9. Identity and Community
10. Safe Sex
11. AIDS Organizing
12. Epilogue

Notes
Bibliography
Index