[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
#4440: AIDS and Haiti: Dorce replies to Scott
From:LAKAT47@aol.com
In a message dated 06/27/2000 8:10:46 AM Pacific Daylight Time, Alan Scott
<chiefalan@yahoo.com writes:
<< I would have thought that in the year 2000 we were
beyond thinking of AIDS as a gay disease. Given the
toll that this disease has taken on all people--gay,
straight, black or white, as well as Haitian--it is
not something to attribute to one group of
individuals. Whether or not Haiti had gay tourism
under the Duvalier regime is immaterial--this is a
disease that affects all--regardless of race or sexual
orientation. >>
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
While this is true, the way Haiti's AIDS problem started and swept into the
heterosexual population was with gay men on holiday. I saw it myself when I
visited a gay men's hotel in Bizoton with a journalist doing a story. Haiti
was prime for this kind of exploitation; young heterosexual boys and men who
didn't have any means to make a living, being bought by gay men (foreigners,
not Haitians) going there for exactly that purpose. Then they go back to
their wives and girlfriends to spread the virus. Haitians don't have
intravenous drug habits for obvious reasons so that is not a vehicle for
spreading AIDS. It was a fact of the time that these "sexual vacation
packages" existed for gay men who wished to sun and you-know-what. I know
this is a sensitive subject and not popular to speak of, but sociologically
and economically, it ruined Haiti. It might have spelled the end of Duvalier
but also tourism, the life blood of Haiti. AIDS is not shameful in itself,
but it certainly isn't noble either. Take the blame when it applies.
Kathy Dorce