Believe me, I am not the typical person to trash anyone on Fox News (I am not their #1 fan, get annoyed with them from time-to-time, but still, I watch them quite a bit). But I was pretty offended by the veiled smirking from John Gibson today when reporting the current horrible AIDS scare among the porn industry. He almost chuckled, and the guy who reported more about it had a light-hearted smile as well.
I don’t get this. I am not a fan of porn (at all), and I am appalled to learn that so many of them are so foolhardy as to do unprotected sex (yes, living under a rock, that’s me). But I feel nothing but sadness and dismay to learn that so many people are scared shitless right now, worried that they have AIDS. It comes with the territory if you are going to have so many partners and be unprotected, but still. It never occured to me that anyone would smirk about it.
I could understand an irritated, frustrated or angry response (after all, these people were very foolish to have so much unprotected sex). I could even expect from the more self-righteous a “See what will happen when you are so evillllll?” I could expect that. But to find it funny? No, I don’t see what is so funny.
Well, the LA Times had it as a cover story yesterday (on their site, anyway) and I heard about it from KTLA (LA’s WB) so I think it’s a story being covered in many places.
No, but there’s a little thing called “decorum” and I think most people agree that it’s not ok to laugh at people who have cancer or AIDS, even if their own actions put them at risk for these conditions.
No, but they don’t need to have people smirking at their misfortune, even if their own foolishness brought it on. It’s not nice to kick someone when they’re down (with a potentially fatal disease).
So the porn industry is just now getting concerned about AIDS? What rock have they been fucking under for the last twenty-five years? I can almost see someone being amused, though; if you remove the element of personal tragedy for the infected, it is kind of funny (in a sick sort of way) that the people who ought to have been the first ones to worry about AIDS are apparently the last. It’s pretty assholish to remove the element of personal tragedy, though.
Big fat nit to pick - the performers tested positive for HIV. They don’t have AIDS. In populations where people have good medical resources and access to the modern “cocktail” meds, having HIV develop into AIDS has become fairly uncommon.
And, as Miller cited, the adult entertainment industry is surprisingly diligent about testing. Unfortunately, they’ve been living and perpetuating the myth that the only hazard to unprotected hetero sex is babies.
