There are three important main arguments the author is expressing in this article. First, explaining the slogan Silence = Death where as a figure it works a striking image to bring attention to itself and not a mere logo. Two, the internal opposition or struggle of activism and mourning in response to the AIDS crisis early on. Three, the gay community (primarily the gay men) should be more militant or active in combating AIDS.
Reading this article I felt the author was trying to get the LGBTQ community mobilized to combat a serious disease that affected that community much more than any other in the early days of the pandemic. I felt it relates to other concepts we've discussed in class in that it shows how dynamic the LGBTQ community really is. "Mourning and Militancy" complements "Medicalizing Homosexuality", by Jennifer Terry, by quoting Freud and discussing the libido and objects of affection. In "Mourning Militancy", Douglas Crimp, mentions Freud as saying (of mourning), "The testing of reality, having shown that the loved object no longer exists, requires forthwith that all the libido shall be withdrawn from its attachments to this object" and "....it may be universally observed that man never willingly abandons a libido-position, not even when a substitute is already beckoning to him"(Crimp, pg. 6). Where in "Medicalizing Homosexuality", Jennifer Terry mentions Freud's reworking constitutional disposition as, "He suggested that the intends sexual repression characteristic of bourgeois Victorian society led to a perversion of the body's inherent sex drive away from its normal aim and object, as expressed in heterosexual reproduction, toward fantasies and practices involving substitute objects." (Terry, pg. 58). Crimp describing the object as a loved one being lost through AIDS and Terry describing the object as reproduction through heterosexual reproduction. Two very different topics but both related through the libido. I found Douglas Crimp's text somewhat confusing in that he quoted Freud throughout the text and I am not sure if he was using Freud to strengthen his argument against mourning or for militancy.
Studies from around the world suggests the rates for new cases of HIV among gay men continue to rise among all age groups, has the gay community become silent in the 21st century in the face of AIDS?
Why do think the author equates activism with militancy?
Crimp's essay confused me too, Gari.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I agree that he was arguing for more activism and less mourning. Rather, I think he was concerned that militant anti-AIDS activism, although important, was stunting the New York gay community's ability to mourn its dead.
I got the opposite impression -- that mourning was distracting from the need to take political action. The "exclusive devotion to mourning" leaves no room to call for societal changes to prevent further death (i.e. more awareness and medical attention for AIDS). People are willing to mourn but not to rally or protest. In addition, LGTB people were subjected to the "violence of silence and omission" during mourning; if a funeral was to be publicly acceptable, then there could be no mention of the deceased's homosexuality or their same sex partners.
DeleteThis discussion has a very different tone today, a few decades after the AIDS crisis hit its peak. It's always been fascinating to me that we now discuss AIDS as a problem that has already been solved. I was not alive for the peak of the crisis but anyone even ten years older than I felt the pain of this mourning and the need for action. Today we can prevent AIDS deaths in ways we could not before, but there are still large swaths of the population that are struggling and coping with AIDS. People here and abroad who don't have the right access to health care or information or preventative measures can still be faced with this question of mourning, and are still faced with questions of activism.
ReplyDeleteThis whole discussion is particularly interesting to me in regard to the discussion of PrEP medications--an acronym for pre-exposure prophylaxis. PrEP is a medication people can take that will, with about 99% success, prevent the user from contracting HIV. Some people hail PrEP as the answer to any concerns about AIDS, while others caution that the drug could lead to a lack of sexual safety as people disregard the need for condoms. New York Magazine did an interesting article where they interviewed a group of gay men in New York on the issue:http://nymag.com/news/features/truvada-hiv-2014-7/
To answer your first question in extension, I was recently having a discussion with a gay male friend about HIV/AIDS as it related to his experience with gay male sexual culture today, and he felt that because AIDS, in the 21st Century, is no longer considered a death sentence, the partners he was with were much less concerned about condoms or safe sex in general, something he had a serious problem with. (Only his personal experience, obviously, and only within the gay male community- which is not to say that AIDS is a disease that only affects the gay male community, because it obviously isnt)
ReplyDeletePart of me feels as if the decline in activism surrounding AIDS has to do with these medical advances that have made living a longer life with AIDS (or avoiding contracting it at all) a possibility, which is a good thing, right? But at the same time, this certainly doesnt mean that AIDS should be written off as "cured", and I don't think it means that anyone, gay males or otherwise, should be slacking on safe sex practices.
I had a similar conversation with a male friend of mine who is gay. He said many gay men he knows are not very safe when it comes to condoms, etc. because HIV/AIDS is now considered an anyone-who-has-sex problem, not just a gay men problem. However, HIV still majorly affects the (male) gay community and my friend thinks more resources should be spent in specific sexual education for gay youth (and I agree!).
DeleteWhich I find interesting because I find this to be true, yet my gay male friends are still afraid of it or make jokes about it (such as fear of contracting it), it is certainly part of the consciousness but there does seem to be less active safety around it. And I think because it is less the center of gay discourse, there is perhaps less concern. I mean, even most modern safe sex discourse for me growing up centered around pregnancy, then kind of STIs but STIs was something *they* got (I wonder how much other people's sex ed or lack there of was similar). AIDS activism is not in the media like it previously was, though as Moira above noted it is extremely prevalent in the world today and this is not necessarily excusable.
DeleteI agree with the aforementioned points that AIDS is viewed as a thing of the past and contemporary LGBTQ politics largely overlook healthcare access. This may be largely related to what is discussed in the other blog post regarding same-sex marriage taking precedence in queer movements because it most effects privileged gay men. I (embarrassingly) personally did not know the extent of the AIDS crisis and how it has shaped modern gay politics until I watched "The Normal Heart" on HBO this summer. If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it, even if I do have some critiques of it. My unfamiliarity with this formative event may be due to my ignorance on gay history (which is why I am in the class), but I believe more so that AIDs does not have the same impact on younger LBGTQ people as it does to older queer people. Also would like to point out the reference to Lee Edelman in the paper (baddest queer theorist and English professor extraordinaire at our very own Tufts University!).
ReplyDeleteI also agree that AIDS and HIV is viewed as either a problem of the past, or simply an issue doesn't affect most people. Personally, I don't remember getting any formal education on AIDS and never even received basic information on what it is, or how one can contract it. Maybe that's because I went to Catholic School, but still, I think many people write AIDS off as a disease that only "sexual deviants" contract when in reality it's still a devastating problem that can affect anyone, especially those who aren't educated on safe practices that can help prevent contracting HIV.
ReplyDeleteI think Terry has important words that are very relevant to the fights going on in Ferguson and with other deep-seated social justice issues today. It's incredibly easy as someone who is upset about the current situation in social justice to spend lots of time mourning and feeling strongly about the pain people are experiencing, but this type of internalization of the issue is only the first step. Mourning is very personal, and very rooted in the past. Using that pain to move on and actively (assertively) work for change is something that requires both strength and lots of energy. But without this shift, big changes will be very unlikely to occur. Terry urges the oppressed to use their energy to push hard for systemic change to prevent further tragedy, all while knowing how much was sacrificed just to get to this point.
ReplyDelete