ABSTRACT

When I’m in heterosexual company I find that if the topic of the epidemic comes up in conversation, most people always say the same thing. They tell me how ‘wonderfully’ gay men have responded to AIDS, how ‘marvellously’ the ‘gay community’ has united. They don’t want to know anything whatsoever about the epidemic, but they do like the idea that there is a plucky little community out there on the brutal heath of Tory England, ‘bravely’ holding its own.