Did HIV fear contribute to you coming out later in life?

I was scared stiff of AIDS. And there is no doubt that had an influence on me. As I said in another thread today:

 

Yup. Absolutely. It served its intended purpose. Terrorism usually does.

 

I really don't think that HIV was engineered by terrorists. I'm pretty sure it's a natural virus.

Fear of HIV did not have much effect on me in this way, but that's because I am female.

 

Ianthe, another thing quite likely in your favor is you were young during the worst time of the AIDS crisis. By even the late 1980s, things had settled quite a bit. We knew more about HIV, and safer sex practices.

Just a few years before...well, things could be interesting. I don't remember too many specific details, but I do remember the fear.

 

I'm not sure being a young kid during the worst of the AIDS crisis makes you less likely to be afraid of it. The things you are taught to be afraid of at elementary school age stick with you. I remember AIDS being something people were panicky about when I was really too young to understand anything.

And I think we had a major focus on STDs, and AIDS in particular, every two or three years in school at least. It seems like it was every year, but probably not really. I went through public school before the Bush "abstinence only" initiatives, which I think would not even have been possible when I was in school--condoms were pushed hard, specifically because of HIV.

But it hasn't really been a major concern for lesbians. (Not in terms of getting it ourselves through sexual contact, anyway.) I'm less likely to get HIV as a lesbian than a straight woman is.

Anyway, I didn't say that I wasn't every afraid of HIV, just that it didn't contribute to me staying in the closet.

 

AIDS didn't have any effect. I wasn't out then any more than I am now. It sure effected my behavior though. Good thing I got the message in time and paid attention, I'm still here. Others weren't so fortunate.

 

It certainly had an effect on me. It made it easier to stay deep deep in the closet.

 

My belief may not be popular, but I will always think the US let it loose thinking it would wipe the gays out. Back in 1994 I experenced something at the health department that I knew was very wrong.
:eek: I will forever think they were infecting people with HIV in downtown Tampa health department back then. :eek: Anyone can catch it so that makes it something to fear, but as I have said in other threads some of the other VD's out there are much more scary to me. June

 

I was deep in the closet when HiV, Aids was developing .
It locked me in and I read up on the other STD's as well
Now I'm finally coming out to ( some) after getting therapy help,, to overcome all the obstacles that I had built up in front of the exit door
Yes, it did contribute to me coming out later in life and in combination with all the other STD's that are out there

 

This makes sense, the fear may or may not have been justified, but it provided good cover for remaining closeted, at least for me. Now, as to why I needed cover to remain closeted, that's another topic entirely!

 

Interesting thread.

I was fifteen when AIDS hit the headlines in the early 80’s. Aware that I was exclusively same-sex oriented but very deeply closeted, the main impact on me was to make it just a bit harder than it already seemed to come out as gay – to myself as much as to anyone else.

The label ‘gay’, already so loaded with negativity, now meant promiscuous casual sex, disease and death. In my age group’s oh so sophisticated vernacular AIDS translated as Anally Injected Death Sentence!

But, as the years rolled by, it did seem true that AIDS had, to a large extent, catalysed a change in social and political attitudes towards gay men. By my early twenties AIDS, paradoxically, had helped make it easier to for me to come out than it otherwise might have been.

 

Yep, it had an affect and the hysteria generally demonized homosexuality