Wednesday, July 29, 2009

AIDS is scary shit.

My brother is working for a nonprofit that is trying to get the state of MA to really focus on prevention of AIDS rather than on treatment of the disease. For a lot of reasons it makes sense. BUT, in order to do that there is a messaging challenge in that AIDS is fucking scary shit. It's basically the worst thing that could happen to you, right?? It certainly feels like it. .... i mean, just LOOK at the book (below) that my brother is reading on the subject. It was funny, and slightly embarrassing, being on the beach and seeing his book on our blanket... you can almost feel a force field emanating from it...it says "KEEP THE FUCK AWAY FROM THE PEOPLE ON THIS BLANKET." It's horrible. So, how do you engage the public in discussion of such a scary topic? It would be difficult... we've made it even too scary to get tested. In fact, it's so scary that we need consent to even get tested... but why is it different than other social diseases like TB?? Doctors just TEST you for TB. What's the diff?