ABSTRACT
At the end of the 15th century, Europeans began to be aware that there were diseases whose principal character istic was that they are transmitted through sexual con tact. For a long time these diseases were known as "venereal,11 from Venus, the goddess of love. More re cently they have come to be termed "sexually transmitted diseases" (STDs). The homosexual aspect of STDs before the last few decades is largely unknown because of the double taboo surrounding the subject, but the AIDS crisis (XXIII.C) has thrown a glaring searchlight on the problem.
