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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.
No. It was a regular panic, which has happened dozens of times before or after. Exhibit one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reefer_Madness This kind of ham-fisted propaganda exists about every topic the government ever wanted to propagandize, and in every language which any government speaks. And, as you witnessed on yourself, it worked - that's why they keep doing it.
I don't even think they thought of the gay angle - in fact, when AIDS was considered the "gay disease", the approach to it was quite dismissive, and the panic came later, when it turned out it's not, actually, exclusive to gays. Still, male gay penetrative sex has much more probability for AIDS transmission than hetero sex, and gay sexual mores are more promiscuous than among straights, which means for the doctor makes sense to take this factor into account, and evaluate the likelihood of the disease in that light.
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