What would happen if the Playboy Bunnies had AIDS?

For me, this week’s reading was really thought-provoking.  It started when I read Marlon Bailey’s “Performance as Intravention:  Ballroom Culture and the Politics of HIV/AIDS in Detroit.” 

First of all, I acknowledge that I’d never heard of Ballroom Culture in my life before reading this.  I didn’t know there were “houses” (headquarters) all over the U.S., let alone in Detroit.  The whole concept of having a house led by a “mother” or a “father” to provide the stability and support of a non-biological family to those rejected by their families and communities for not being “normal” and heterosexual, to me, is really something.  The mothers and fathers provide a pillar of guidance in the lives of their children and give them information about safe sexual practices that might not be absorbed as well coming from someone else.  The community hosts balls, which can draw people from all over the country, and distributes HIV/AIDS awareness information through competitions.  This is a great example of creating an HIV/AIDS prevention campaign with solutions found within the community and tailored to the target audience.  Most people don’t respond well to an overwhelming campaign of solemn facts and information thrown at them; it’s scary, confusing, and comes from a distant source (the government, health professionals, etc).  Like the ABC’s in Botswana, such a campaign is made up by someone outside the targeted community and consequently, the campaign doesn’t fit the needs of its community.  Make the distribution of knowledge into a game or a competition, with a prize and prestige attached for winning, and audiences are much more likely to be receptive of the message, especially when it’s being told to them by their people in a similar situation to theirs.

This, however, leads us to the whole question of how to determine who should be the targeted community for HIV/AIDS campaigns and what designating a group of people as a “community of risk” can entail.   As Bailey mentions in his article, in intervention campaigns, the term “communities of risk” is used to stereotype and stigmatize people who are already viewed outside the moral and economic boundaries of society.  Basically, he argues, non-heterosexual minorities, who are statistically more often than not poor, are lumped under the “at-risk” label because society already sees them as having done something wrong or not being desirable.  Therefore, something in their behavior or morals must have led to this epidemic of HIV/AIDS among people “like them.” Researchers can even unwittingly fall back on these stereotypes in their research, skewing their viewpoints and perpetuating the stereotypes with their published work.

One possible example I found of this happening in our reading this week was in Ojikutu and Harris’ article “Moving Toward a Unified Global HIV/AIDS Agenda:  Communities of Color in Crisis.” In the article, they state that “In most South American countries, MSM is the most commonly reported risk factor for HIV.”  Exactly what does this imply? Does it imply that men who have sex with men are more promiscuous than their heterosexual counterparts? Does it mean that men who have sex with men are less capable of understanding posters urging them to condomize than the rest of the general public?  It seems to, and it totally disregards factors like poverty, discrimination, homophobia, and unequal access to medical care that may lead to increased risk for contracting HIV/AIDS. 

You can see it in our very own society, and you don’t have to look past your TV screen.  My question is what would happen if Hugh Hefner came out and admitted that he was HIV positive?  The biggest playboy in the world, and his various “bunnies” over the years…he’s not exactly the model of faithful monogamy.  Does he have concurrent sexual relationships?  My guess would be probably.  Then you tell me, why would the rest of the world be so shocked at his “coming out” with a disease like HIV?  It’s because he doesn’t fit the model.  He’s white, rich, straight, and one of the biggest celebrities in Hollywood.  It’s easy enough to mentally assign AIDS to “some junky” or “some cross dresser” hanging out on an imaginary street corner, but what if it was Hugh?  Or a blonde-haired, bue-eyed, perfect-body Playboy bunny?  America looks at them and thinks...Sexy? Yes. AIDS........never in a million years.  America’s socks would be rocked by that revelation because we’d finally have to confront our stereotypes of who contracts HIV. 

“Black Sexuality, Social Construction, and Research Targeting the Down Low” argues that African American communities have for the most part excluded homosexuals because they don’t want its stigma and the accompanying stigma of HIV associated with it and giving the rest of society another reason to badmouth “black sexuality.” I argue, however, that across the board, we feel comfortable assigning HIV/AIDS to those on the outskirts of society because we’re terrified of the disease so we put it as far away from us as possible.  Normal people aren’t like “them” (minorities, non-heterosexuals, etc), so therefore, normal people don't contract their disease. 

Such thinking is wishful and ignorant, and the longer we think this way, the more society as a whole puts itself at risk and isolates its members who are most in need of support.