In the ’90s, when the HIV / AIDS epidemic was still underway, movies, songs, and other media (was there an AOL keyword assigned I wonder?) contained references to the practice of safer sex via condom use to prevent the spread of HIV at the population level. As an adolescent growing up in the ’90s, I internalized these messages.
(And, yes, I’m grateful to have learned about sex, STIs, HIV, and reproduction in a blue-state* public school, which was / is not the case for everyone. I previously and incorrectly assumed everyone received this essential education.)
As time marched on and evaporated like the past is eaten up & digested by the Langoliers in the Stephen King novel that was adapted into a 1995 TV miniseries starring Bronson Pinchot [iykyk], I forgot that creators eventually dropped references to safer sex in media. We were served “mini” PSAs on this topic for a span of about a decade. This epidemiological campaign needs to be studied, and that’s exactly what I’m attempting to do here.
(An aside: YouTube link to The Langoliers.)
Now, this is where things get serious:
A certain extremist movement within the U.S. is seeking to take away access to birth control which would include barrier protection such as condoms. They’re not stopping at abort¡on. We’ve seen at least one instance of a store clerk refusing to sell condoms to people in stores citing their “moral objections.” [source]. This is all about control and “making sex more dangerous.”
Can you believe this, over 40 years since the HIV / AIDS epidemic began? If you were to tell me in 1999 or even in 2006 during the conservat¡ve POTUS 43 Administration, that certain extremist policymakers were trying to ban birth control / condoms, I would think you would be insane in the membrane / insane in the brain.
B*tches be cray cray.
Not withstanding the denial of service and care AIDS activists had to endure in the ’80s — and I honor the challenges they had to endure before medications were eventually brought to market in the ’90s — imagine an alternate history.
Can you imagine if certain states in the ’90s denied healthcare to patients newly enduring & navigating an HIV diagnosis? How horrifying would that have been? We have treatment, but we refuse to administer it due to “religious beliefs.” [This nightmare is happening to women who have no choice but to endure pregnancy complications by not getting proper & timely treatment in red states. A certain president¡al cand¡date continues to lie about & gaslight the existence and experience of pregnancy complications as seen on TV a few days ago.]
The solution…let’s remember, recall, & document together:
The obvious solution is to vote extremists out of office in November. That’s a no-brainer. The absence of votes is what got us in this mess to begin with.
This is an opportunity to raise awareness and educate for some who weren’t there or don’t remember and to remind those of us who remember the HIV epidemic but are behaving in a way that is aligned with the wrong side of history.
I have created a Google spreadsheet documenting these ’90s movie and media references to safer sex and the HIV epidemic. And I’m encouraging people to add directly to it: https://bit.ly/90sPSAs
Consider adding directly to the spreadsheet, but play nicely. Access can be revoked at any time and I have back-up copy of the spreadsheet.
I also created a Spotify playlist documenting ’90s music with safer sex messaging. https://spoti.fi/4cDKByg
Help us identify the last reference to the HIV epidemic. For now, it’s a mystery. Help uncover the mystery.
This post has been cross posted to Substack: https://bit.ly/3MJpO13
Footnote:
*Before the blue state & red state dichotomy existed, pre-2000 election.