Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 13:23:16 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Time Traveling Docs - any short stories come to mind?
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 09:17 AM 4/12/05 -0700, Drew Bittner wrote:
>It's probably a pretty commonplace medical theme in
>sf.
>But how would the Middle Ages cope with AIDS? How
>would that distort our society (as the Black Death

This isn't really a theoretical question.  Just check actual history, but
concentrate on Syphilis rather than AIDS.  A disease you get from sex that
drives you slowly mad and then kills you?  Sounds close enough.

What was the response?  Strong taboos against pre-marital sex and
infidelity?  Stoning people for adultery?  Strong marriage customs?
Religion becomes the enforcer and maintainer of these customs and therefore
grows in power?  Casual sex seen as "deviant" and "decadent", despite the
biology of the species being in favor of it?  Social tension results from
this conflict of desire and fear with all sorts of unhealthy outcomes?

Yes, there are some other biological reasons for the restrictions on sexual
activity too (mostly being certain whose kids were whose and that mates
would stick around to raise them), but a threat of death by disease is a
good stimulus to actually abide by and insist on keeping the taboos.  If
you ask me, the "free love" of the 60s was as much a result of penicillin
as it was The Pill.

-- Mike B.
--
We're lost, but we're making good time.