Aids Review

Ignorance, fear, brutality and neglect are not the main themes of this new book on AIDS, but something a little more insidious: the liberal and above all scientific discourses ofAIDS. It is here, as well as in the many more obvious abuses, that power, discrimination, homophobia, racism and prejudice reside. It is good to see a new book from Cindy Patton, one of the leading and most tireless activists, thinkers and writers about AIDS in the US. Her earlier book, Sex and Germs (South End Press), back in 1985, was one of the first and clearest attempts to sort out the biological, psychological, social and political issues surrounding the HIV virus, and the orchestrated epidemic offear and hatred with which so many responded to it, as well as one of the first to broadcast gay and lesbian resistance and practices of safe sex in the USA In her most recent book, Patton moves on to consider the apparently more progressive responses of 'the AIDS service industry' in the US, suggesting that the strictly 'scientific' approach it adopts has led to serious weaknesses in its educational strategies, as well as further discrimination against gays, women and black people

Criminology · Government (linguistics · Hatred · Homosexuality · Human sexuality · Ignorance · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Prejudice (legal term · Racism · Sociology · Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Gender Studies · Law · Sex work and related issues