The Way We Live Now

The history of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s in the US is central to the story. First identified as a rare lung infection in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report in June 1981, the virus that would become known as AIDS was marked by unusual infections, high fevers, and compromised immune systems. By August, the CDC began reporting on the demographics of confirmed cases of the same infection, stating that 94% of cases in which the patient’s sexuality was known—which is not the same as the total number of reported cases—occurred in people who identified as gay or bisexual men. While cases of infections in infants and transfusion patients were noted as early as 1981, gay and bisexual men were identified as the principal demographic at risk of AIDS. This led to the erroneous classification of AIDS as a “gay cancer” and to moralizing related to the disease (“A Timeline of HIV and AIDS.").

As Ellen says in the story, “everyone is at risk, everyone who has a sexual life, because sexuality is a chain that links each of us to many others, unknown others, and now the great chain of being has become a chain of death as well” (Paragraph 8). Contracting HIV/AIDS is not indicative of one’s sexuality; rather, it reflects cultural attitudes toward safe sex. Historically, prophylactics like condoms were primarily considered a method of birth control, not a means for reducing the risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Prior to the AIDS epidemic, sexual partners who were not at risk of pregnancy, such as two men, were more likely to engage in unprotected sex and were thus disproportionately impacted by the spread of the virus.

When the protagonist’s friends congratulate themselves for not shunning him—saying, “no one’s afraid to hug him or kiss him lightly on the mouth” (Paragraph 8)—they outwardly assert their dedication to their friend despite his diagnosis (though perhaps in way that is more performative than genuine), and demonstrate that they understand how the disease is actually transmitted, unlike many others at the time. In the 1980s, people with AIDS were often shunned for fear they would spread the disease through casual contact. For example, an Indiana teenager named Ryan White was banned from his school after protesters angrily demanded his expulsion when he contracted AIDS via a blood transfusion.

Global figures like First Lady Barbara Bush and Princess Diana also attracted international media attention in the late 1980s and early 1990s for actions that were seen as groundbreaking: kissing a baby with AIDS and shaking hands—without wearing a glove—with an adult who had the disease. The characters’ actions are a deliberate rejection of these stigmatizing attitudes. However, they also echo the era’s attitudes when they distinguish between gay and straight friends in their reflections on the epidemic. When Jan breezily reflects that “[the protagonist] getting it has quite demystified the disease […] I don’t feel afraid, spooked, as I did before he became ill,” Quentin retorts, “It’s not the same for you […] it’s not the same for you as it is for me or Lewis or Frank or Paolo or Max” (Paragraph 8). Quentin singles out the gay members of the group, who perceive themselves as being at increased risk of infection. In this, the story faithfully represents the demographic divide in sexuality-based attitudes toward AIDS.

Although both men and women of all sexual orientations are at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, the stigma against gay and bisexual men as potential carriers persists to the present day. For example, men who have sex with men continue to face unique barriers against blood donation. While its lifetime ban against blood donation by gay or bisexual men is no longer an official policy, as of 2023, the American Red Cross still requires men who have sex with men to abstain from all sexual activity for three months to be eligible for donation.