Two weeks ago a friend of mine had a fondue party. She provided dippers and hot oil, and the guests were invited to bring other fondues and dippers. It was a fun time.
A friend of mine dropped in about an hour before I had to leave, having the evening free. I called my friend, told her another friend was visiting and since it was a casual event, could I bring him? She said “Sure. The more the merrier.” We stopped for ingrediants for a sweet batter mix that was good for dipping fruit into before putting it in hot oil. The party was a wonderful time.
Well, the hostess just called me spitting. It seems I hadn’t told her my friend was gay, and she just found out. I’ve know this person for a few years and have never seen any sign of homophobia from her. Of course, I don’t go around announcing my friend’s sexuality or asking them how they feel about other people’s sexuality. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is my motto, along with “As long as they stay out of my boudoir, I really don’t give a fuck.”
My (ex) friend claims I should have told her, people were dipping into the same pots (fondue pots, that is), and I could have exposed all of the guest to HIV or AIDS. I asked her is she knew the status of her other guests. “Well, I know they’re not gay.” I fear my friend is no longer a friend.
I would have told her she needs to educate herself on how HIV is transmitted (saliva pretty much doesn’t do it), and that she can go fuck herself. Well, maybe held off on the latter until she came up with some lame-ass barely disguised homophobic justification.
Oh yeah, let her know that 25% of the population has herpes, which can often be transmitted via saliva. Then there’s HepA… she needs to get in touch with a good screening lab to check out all her friends, I guess.
I can’t believe she would do that! Besides, how does she know he was gay? Did he tell everyone or blow some guy in the bathroom or something? And what about bisexuals, do they automatically get AIDS too?:mad:
You did absolutely nothing wrong and your last act as a friend of this woman should be to give her a cootie shot and walk away.
I think laughing contemptuously into the phone as soon as you understood what she was saying would have been appropriate.
Lots of people are ignorant. Lots of others are prejudiced. That doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t still be friends or hang out together when the mood strikes. If I was in your shoes I’d be curious to know if it’s ignorance and hence potentially correctable, or prejudice which seems unshakably burned into the bones.
Then you can decide how important this is to you. I’m a liberal guy, but if I only hung out with people who had what I consider to be all the correct opinions, my planet-wide pool of potential friends would be about 20 total, none of whom I’d ever actually meet. So I compromise a bit. As do most of us. Litmus tests are for chemistry and posturing populist politicians, not friends.
Naturally this advice applies equally to the OP & to the party hostess.
What exactly is the moral dilemma here? And what on earth could you possibly point to as something you did “wrong”? Were you supposed to wrap your friend in a rainbow flag? Cover his dippers with dental dams?
Your former friend is shockingly ignorant, and apparently unrepentently bigoted. How would I handle it? By pointing and laughing and giddily telling her to go fuck herself, but I’m kind of a bitch like that.
No, I don’t think you did anything wrong at all. Your friend sounds like a real piece of work.
IF she had ever told you she didn’t tolerate homosexuals in her home then you’d have been wrong to bring your gay friend over (although I’d say wrong primarily for putting your gay friend in a potentially unpleasant situation), but you can’t be expected to guess what your friend’s prejudices are. As long as you didn’t mislead her about your friend then you did nothing remotely wrong.
You did absolutely nothing wrong, and have nothing to apologize for or reget.
Now if the friend who invited you to the party is a “good” friend, then I would take steps to educate her on two crucial points:
not all gay people have HIV/AIDS
how HIV/AIDS can be transmitted
A simple Google search will yield plenty of information for her.
Whether she is receptive to the information or chooses to cling to her ignorant believes is up to her. And may well determine whether you want to continue to be a friend with her (you are an enlightened doper, afterall).
But I would at least give her the chance to learn the facts and realize that you did nothing wrong/irresponsible, and that if anything, she owes you an apology for how she reacted.
My question is…why is there a dilemma? Maybe you should step back and do some soul searching to figure out why you even think this is something to ponder and worry over.
The hostess is over-reacting, of course, but that is just because she is uneducated about how likely HIV transmission in this setting is. That doesn’t make her evil or even necessarily stupid - just ignorant. A lot of people really don’t know that much about HIV, and if she like fondue parties I’m guessing she’s an older lady who grew up before HIV was such a big topic in schools and such.
I agree with the advice to try to give her some information on the topic and see if that helps matters. If not, well, you did what you could. It’s certainly not your fault that she has wrong ideas about HIV that made her angry.
Even IF your gay friend was HIV positive (which, I’ll grant, he’s got a higher chance of than most heterosexual men, but it’s certainly not a given), unless he was stabbing people with the little fondue forks and then jizzing into the open wounds, I can’t imagine what “risk” y’all were taking. HIV is a bitch, to be sure, but it’s also a very fragile virus outside the human body. It has to come from bodily fluids, it’s killed by stomach acid, it dies within minutes when exposed to air, and the temperature in an oil fondue is certainly enough to kill it.
Admittedly, I don’t think I’d share a (close to body temperature) *chocolate *fondue **fork **directly with a known HIV+ person, but I’d share the fondue itself, keeping my own fork to myself. If no one’s double-dipping, surely the bulk of a strawberry over the fork provides as much “protection” as a condom.
I agree with the posters upthread who say if you think this anger is borne of ignorance, you can try to educate her. If it’s a rationalization of her homophobia, there’s not much to do about it. Either way, I don’t think you did anything wrong.