(no subject)

[geminigirl]

I was radiosurfing earlier today on the way to work, and caught Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire" and realized that despite being in the same verse, and thus in close proximity chronologically, my own childhood memory of Bernie Goets seems in my head to be much earlier than my memories of AIDS. Although they did both happen around the same time.

Comments

[9thmoon.livejournal.com]

Funny. I heard this song the other day and it made me think about how little had really changed.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

When did you first become aware of AIDS as a big deal?

[geminigirl]

I'm surprised you've never heard the French Kissing story-I've certainly known you long enough that I thought you had.


I actually have pretty clear memories of it in the early-mid 80s...I remember seeing and hearing stories about it on the news, and in the magazines and newpapers. I remember Rock Hudson dying. I didn't really know who he was, other than a movie star, but I loved the music from Grease, and he's actually mentioned in it.

Around 1984, or 1985...when I was nine or ten or so...I was in the doctor's office. Mom had dropped me there to wait for an appointment, while she went off and did something else. And I sat and read a magazine...Time or Newsweek or something. There was an article about AIDS in it. It was far enough into things, that condoms were already being recommended. And I read this article, and I'd become aware enough of how condoms worked-that you put them on a penis. (I didn't know about erections and such at the time, but that's okay...I had the basic idea.) And the article also suggested using condoms for oral sex. My poor nine or ten year old brain was overwhelmed by this. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how in the world to get a condom on your tongue. I thought oral sex meant french kissing.

But I would say, somewhere around the mid-80s. It's really been a huge part of most of my life.