Amid current debates over preexposure prophylaxis against HIV and Zika virus transmission, lessons for sexual health include the importance of messaging, the difficulty of behavioral change, and the vitality of community-driven strategies to mitigate risk.įor all that has been written about HIV/AIDS and sexuality, the roots of safe sex in the 1970s, particularly in community physicians’ and psychologists’ response to hepatitis B virus (HBV) and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), remain buried. Although the dichotomy between the gay community and the medical establishment helped define the early history of HIV/AIDS, the creative work of these socially “amphibious” activists played an equally important part.
Through such organizations as the National Coalition of Gay Sexually Transmitted Disease Services, Bay Area Physicians for Human Rights, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, these practitioners developed materials that would define sexual health education for the next four decades, as well as such concepts as “bodily fluids” and the “safe sex hanky.” To do so, they used their dual membership in the community and the health professions. In the 1970s, groups of gay and gay-allied health professionals began to formulate guidelines for safer sexual activity, several years before HIV/AIDS.
