Truth suppressed by friends is the enemy's readiest weapon

The younger members of the community, or perhaps those with shorter memories, tend to forget the AIDS is only the latest spectre affecting the sex scene. Although the cure for syphilis emerged in the 1940's, at the time I was coming out in the 50's, there was still a huge fear of this venereal disease (VD as we all knew it then). And rightly so. Prior to the arrival of penicillin, syphilis infection was just as much a death sentence as HIV used to be. And in a nasty way. Death from neurosyphilis was said to be pretty awful - I recall a description of someone dying of the pox in one of James Clavell's early books - Tai Pan, I think it was.

Penicillin - and Stonewall (although I was not aware of it then) changed all that, as Gabriel Rotello recounts in Sexual Ecology. But wait! There was another one before AIDS. Yes, herpes. When I was living in Singapore in the early 80's. we heard rumours of this incurable disease. Of course it soon became apparent that it was by no means like the pox, but incurable and recurring really worried us.

I'm reminded of this by the fact that the most common search term on our web site every month is herpes. It ain't gone away, and many think it's often the entry point for HIV infection. We thought we could lick that; treat herpes and we'd reduce HIV incidence. Seemed too easy only a couple of years back when I listened to Connie Celum propose it. So go our dreams!

As I say, AIDS is only the latest in this series. There's a successor girding its loins right now. Is it one of the HTLV family? Sexual and particularly Injecting Ecology mean viruses that previously only mutated once a generation when transmitted from mother-to-child now get the opportunity to mutate and combine continuously as they move directly from bloodstream to bloodstream by shared needles.

Rotello's 1997 book deserves a re-read...

Babé