ABSTRACT
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) intersects with and requires a critical rethinking of all culture: of language and representation, of science and medicine, of health and illness, of sex and death, of the public and private realms, AIDS is a central issue for gay men, of course, but also for lesbians. The environment of the ghetto and the atavistic premodern black body are the contextual rhetorics that treat them as virtual adults when it comes to AIDS education. The metaphorics of AIDS is nonexistent in AIDS educational discourse. The information provided by the Alberta alcohol and drug abuse centre AIDS primer seems to reconfirm Oilman's argument: "Disease is thus restricted to a specific set of images, thereby forming a visual boundary, a limit to the idea of disease. The response to AIDS is more than reactive, more than a fearful and therefore appropriate response to a very real danger.
