Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!decwrl!labrea!husc6!bu-cs!bzs
From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: alt.flame
Subject: Re: What People Try To Justify
Message-ID: <19554@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 1 Feb 88 01:12:21 GMT
References: <1899@optilink.UUCP>
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 33
In-reply-to: cramer@optilink.UUCP's message of 28 Jan 88 23:08:26 GMT
Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.41.4 of Mon Mar 23 1987 on bu-cs (berkeley-unix)


Well, Clayton, you're not wrong, you're not quite right. Obviously one
problem is that you probably didn't define "promiscuous sex" well
enough and people took off thinking you meant anything that Jerry
Falwell might disapprove of (eg. any carnal knowledge out of wedlock.)

Ok, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you mean the
sort of guy who goes to a bath house to be butt-f*&@ed by 20 or more
strangers in a single evening and then gets a disease. It's all really
besides the point.

The real problem I have with your notes is that you express this
desparate need to find culprits, to lay blame, to demand some sort of
justice be meted out (I assume, otherwise, why look for culprits at
all?)

It's just not a useful way of looking at things. We've got this
disease, some people acquired it by engaging in activities that were
not too smart (eg. booting heroin.)  Others got it purely innocently,
such as the hemophiliacs. Many probably got it by means that lie well
into grey areas (eg. a tryst, a love affair, a fling with an infected
person may not have known of their infection) for which only the
fringes of our society would demand punishment or moral vengeance.

But you can eliminate all the unwise from the affected population and
the problem remains and is serious. We still need a cure and
prevention.

I don't see where your witch hunt leads other than perhaps making
a few people feel morally righteous which seems like just a cheap
thrill in the face of a serious public health problem.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University