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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   3493 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 11, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Weird question. When I was in 4th grade, in the early 90s, we did a multi-day segment on AIDS, where they just went and scared the shit out of us.

So in my 20s any time I did something remotely risky, I'd freak out and go to the doctor. And they'd always ask if I was gay. And when I said no they seemed like they stopped taking seriously the possibility that I contracted it.

And looking back on it it finally just hit me. Was the whole program I went through in 4th grade a massive psyop aimed to stop gays from being stigmatized?

If so I feel honestly betrayed. It feels extremely wrong to use children in that way, even if the end seems like a good one.

Don’t think so.

Magic Johnson announced his diagnosis in 1991. So did Freddie Mercury, dying the following day . AIDS deaths peaked in ‘95. New cases peaked a bit earlier. You were living through the culmination of a decade of health panic.

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