Cover Stories The Big Chill: Fear of Aids

By Martha Smilgis

She stared at him, dazed and transfixed, and he went over and kneeled beside her, and took her two feet close in his two hands Then he looked up at her with that awful appeal in his full, glowing eyes. She was utterly incapable of resisting it. From her breast flowed the answering, immense yearning over him; she must give him anything, anything.

He was a curious and very gentle lover, very gentle with the woman, trembling uncontrollably, and yet at the same time detached, aware, aware of every sound outside.

To her it meant nothing except that she gave herself to him.

-- Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

Constance Chatterley in love -- the quintessence of romantic adventure in which two people meet, lock eyes, feel an instant thrill of attraction and soon fall into passionate sex. Lady C.'s erotic enthusiasm caused D.H. Lawrence's novel to be banned as obscene not so long ago; the book was finally cleared in the U.S. in 1959. By then it could take its place on shelves crowded with explicit fiction that celebrated the new ideal of sexual behavior it had helped to inspire. Freedom, spontaneity, pleasure without guilt became the bywords of the liberated '60s and '70s, as many men and women evolved freewheeling rituals of courtship in singles bars, in casual affairs and in relationships in which the outcomes remained insouciantly negotiable.

Today, strangely enough, it is possible to imagine a future in which Lady Chatterley might again be banned for setting a harmful example, but this time in a grimly different sense. The specter of the deadly and incurable disease called AIDS -- acquired immunodeficiency syndrome -- has cast a shadow over the American sexual landscape. Since AIDS is chiefly transmitted through sex, it is forcing partners to a painful re-examination of their bedroom practices. The heedless abandon of Lawrencian lovers begins to seem dangerous and irresponsible, for oneself and for others. Instead of a transfixed gaze, lovers may feel they have to give each other a detailed grilling on present health and past liaisons.

At first AIDS seemed an affliction of drug addicts and especially of homosexuals, a "gay disease." No longer. The numbers as yet are small, but AIDS is a growing threat to the heterosexual population. Straight men and women in some cases do not believe it, in some cases do not want to believe it. But barring the development of a vaccine, swingers of all persuasions may sooner or later be faced with the reality of a new era of sexual caution and restraint.

There has been little time for comment or public debate about this particular impact of AIDS, but ominous news keeps emerging. Once figures have been fully reported, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta expects the number of deaths attributable to heterosexual transmission to have doubled in 1986. Right now, heterosexual infection -- among the sex partners of intravenous drug abusers, bisexuals or anyone who has the virus -- accounts for 3.8% of the 30,000 AIDS cases in the country, but that figure is expected to rise to 5.3% by 1991. Newly published studies on these male and female AIDS patients and their partners indicate that the disease is bidirectional, that is, passed on by both men and women.

More disturbing is the potential scope of the disease, based on the rate of transmission and the varying incubation period, which some health authorities think may last as long as ten years. More than 1 million Americans are thought to be infected with the virus, and more than 90% of them do not know it.

The fear of deadly plague seemed to die out after the control of polio in the early 1960s, but the word has been applied to AIDS. In Africa it is a heterosexual disease rapidly infecting the heart of the continent. Around the U.S., health officials are calling for enormous increases in AIDS testing for pregnant women and even for couples applying for marriage licenses. More than any measures, however, health officials at every level are pleading for what is very nearly a social revolution. Says U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Otis R. Bowen: "I can't emphasize too strongly the necessity of changing life-styles."

To America in the '80s that means rescinding the sexual revolution of the past quarter-century. Five years ago, concern about herpes caused a similar scare, one that seems trivial by comparison. Now "safe sex" are the watchwords. The mechanics of copulation have become public to a degree unthinkable only a year ago, with detailed discussions in the press and on television of bodily secretions and sexual protection like condoms.

In a shrewd Washington Post column, Novelist Erica Jong (Fear of Flying), formerly a high priestess of sexual abandon, put the dilemma succinctly: "It's hard enough to find attractive single men without having to quiz them on their history of bisexuality and drug use, demand blood-test results and thrust condoms into their hands. Wouldn't it be easier to give up sex altogether and join some religious order?" With a little emendation the same plaint can be made by men. "You think twice," observes a 28-year-old male / patron of Lucy's, a crowded singles bar on Manhattan's West Side. "If sex is too easy, I just won't take it."

Public bewilderment at the disease is taking many forms. Conservative leaders see it as a summons to chastity or monogamy. Many people, dealing with the absolute death sentence that AIDS imposes, consider it a vague sort of retribution, an Old Testament-style revenge. Says a Los Angeles entertainment writer: "Sexual disease has been around for thousands of years. It reappears when monogamy breaks down. AIDS pushes monogamy right back up there on the priority list." An Atlanta executive concludes, "We are paying for our sins of the '60s, when one-night stands and sex without commitment used to be chic." More than anything, the public wants guidelines, new rules for unprecedented circumstances. The definition of "high-risk sexual activity" is chilling: according to health experts, it includes fellatio and vaginal and anal sex without a condom, and cunnilingus without a shield. Anyone engaging in sex with a new partner or with a long-term partner whose sexual history is unknown is at risk. No wonder health departments and services have been deluged by phone calls. AID Atlanta, a hot line designed to help gays, finds that 85% of its callers are heterosexuals who fear they might have the disease. Moreover, 40% of calls to the AIDS hot line in Illinois are from worried women. "Most say, 'I had too much to drink, and I went home with this guy,' " says Director Mary Fleming. "I hear stark terror in heterosexual women, who are deciding to be celibate."

There is reason for women to be alarmed. Kris, 37, is an attractive divorcee from Pasadena, Calif., and the mother of a teenage daughter. In 1983 she embarked on a "sexually indiscriminate" period of her life during which she had about 15 sexual partners. "I never gave a thought to AIDS," recalls Kris. "I didn't even know there was a threat." After two frustrating years of incorrect diagnosis, the disease was finally identified, first as AIDS- related complex, then as AIDS. She does not know who gave her AIDS or whom she might have infected. "I am sure I have passed on the virus. I can't get in touch with him. If I could, I don't know whether to tell him and let him spend the rest of his life worrying, or not tell him and let him go and spread it further."

More than 1,870 women in the U.S. have AIDS. In New York City, which has the highest concentration of victims, 10% of those with the disease are female. ) Women who are sexually active must face some hard choices; playing out Erica Jong's little scenario is not easy. Says Judith Cohen, a University of California at San Francisco epidemiologist who for the past two years has been surveying some 500 women at high risk of catching the virus: "The sheer political and power issues involved in telling someone that you think using a condom would be a good idea are real difficult and complicated. They raise questions like, 'Are you telling me that you already have the virus?' or 'What else have you been doing that's socially unacceptable?' " For many women, especially single women in their 20s, going slowly is the only guideline. Karoline Harrington, 24, an editorial assistant in Manhattan, says couples now have a greater tendency to just "hang out. Foreplay is a big part of it. People want to please each other, but sleeping together is a big deal."

Young heterosexual men seem to be the most blase about the disease. "Men just can't get it through their skulls that they could have caught AIDS from a woman," says Michael Brown, an AIDS specialist in Long Beach, Calif. "Men have a strong denial going on," comments Mark Saginor, assistant clinical professor of medicine at UCLA. " 'Somebody else will get it, but not me.' Or, 'She's so nice. There is no way she can have it.' "

Some middle-class whites think AIDS only infects gays and poor minority- group members. "People believe that the higher the cover charge at a bar, the less likely they're going to run into AIDS," says Anna Gomez, 29, in South Miami's Parallel Bar. Says Playwright (Torch Song Trilogy) and Gay Activist Harvey Fierstein: "It's very hard for straight people to understand what the hell this is. The ugliness of the disease is that every stranger has it; everyone you like doesn't have it."

Active bisexuals are one route of viral transmission to the female population. In 1984 Free-Lance Writer Alexandra Wolf, 41, met a charming man in Hollywood. "We hit it off really well," she recalls, deciding at the time not to use any sexual precautions because "it's not a risk-free world, and I'm going to take the chance." After four encounters, he confessed he was a bisexual whose previous lover had died from an AIDS-related cancer. Ten months later, tests confirmed that Wolf had the live virus in her bloodstream.

"We see a lot of married men come in this bar," says Jason McCoy, 30, a bartender in an Atlanta gay bar. "They're part of the afternoon cocktail ; crowd. They come in, talk, fool around and then leave. I doubt many of their wives suspect anything at all." Dooley Worth, a leader of a Manhattan discussion group for women exposed to AIDS, says men do not like to admit their bisexuality: "If a relationship is really rotten," she advises the group, "change the assumption that there is another woman. It may be a man." Aurele Samuels, a researcher working with Dorothea Hays, a nursing professor at Adelphi University on a study of wives of bisexual men, believes that to most women "bisexuality is an unacceptable truth." Their soon-to-be published research indicates that 80% of wives of bisexual men in the sample were ignorant of their husbands' gay activity.

The problem of bisexuality is especially poignant in the world of the arts and entertainment, where sexual exoticism in general is more tolerated than in society as a whole. Virtually every arts institution has suffered its losses, and the community is on guard. "Anyone who's dating in the fashion community worries," says a lingerie model with the Ford agency. "You just don't know." Before engaging in sex with a man, she dates him five or six times, and, in an effort to protect herself, asks for a complete sexual history and finally insists that he use a condom. O.J. Elledge, a former National Ballet of Canada dancer who is now a counselor to AIDS victims, has seen a "dramatic change in approach to sexuality" among performers. "There is a lot less playing around. It's not the way it once was." But Ty Granaroli, 27, a heterosexual corps de ballet dancer at American Ballet Theatre observes, "Straights feel very secure. That's a mistake."

Despite the concern of some, the quiet majority of heterosexuals in America apparently do not feel threatened. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that AIDS has no effect on the way 92% of the population conducts their lives. This is especially true on the nation's college campuses, where sex tends to be impulsive. "You look for signs, blisters, physical manifestations," says Abby, 19, who has dated college men. "But if somebody doesn't look as if they have a disease, you don't use condoms." One of her friends, Lenna, a Berkeley freshman, complains about phone calls from her mother demanding "no oral or anal sex, and once you get it, you're dead." Students admit hearing about AIDS daily, but to most of them it is simply not a personal problem. Though herpes is still a campus concern, condoms are generally considered an inconvenience. A few students are apprehensive about the future, however. Paul, 21, a business major at UCLA, figures that in a few years he will have to quiz women about their sexual past. "It's really uncomfortable asking 'How many guys have you been with?' " he says. "It is none of my business." But for the time being, he is not asking. "I've been in situations where it's fun and you're at the point where you're so aroused, you're not going to want to stop. You're not thinking five years down the line, you're thinking now."

Even at colleges where a few students have died from AIDS, the operative line is, "I'm heterosexual; it won't happen to me." Dr. Richard Carlson, the director of health services at Columbia University in New York City, has countered youth's "immortal" feelings by installing condom dispensers in the health-services-building rest rooms and distributing a 31-page pamphlet on safe sex.

The unflinchingly direct language of the Columbia guidelines leaves no room for confusion. On the subject of condoms, for example: "During withdrawal, hold the rim of the condom firmly against the penis so that the condom cannot slip off and no semen can escape." On fellatio: "The risk here is for the partner performing fellatio. It is common to have small cuts and sores in the mouth; even brushing your teeth can cause abrasions. This creates a route of entry for the virus in semen." On assessing personal risk: "Are you a man who has had sex with other men that involved the exchange of body fluids at any time since 1977? A single contact may have been sufficient for infection to occur."

Students have so far largely ignored Carlson's efforts, leaving the booklets in piles by mail stations. Ironically, their younger brothers and sisters may be more enlightened. At Edison High School in New Jersey, some students use condoms as the status birth control of choice -- much the way teenagers in the '50s did. "Some youngsters are better able to deal with the realities than adults who came out of the '70s and who enjoyed freedom so long," says Gerri Abelson, coordinator of the AIDS curricula in New York City public schools.

Permissive behavior has not disappeared from campus life, but some attitudes are being reconsidered. Monica Feinberg, 22, a heterosexual Yale graduate, maintains that bisexual dating, which was not only accepted but chic among some students at certain Ivy League colleges, is no longer exciting and * fun. "It was mostly experimentation," she stresses. "The students do not consider themselves bisexual . . . They felt that sleeping around was no longer a novelty. They moved on to something else."

Many universities are sponsoring AIDS-education programs and classes. Two weeks ago, the University of California, Berkeley held a national symposium on "AIDS and the College Campus," attended by about 435 representatives from nearly 90 colleges, at which the reportedly first straight safe-sex educational film, Norma and Tony, was shown. It indicated that there is much progress to be made in this new field. For 30 minutes, Norma and Tony painstakingly covered themselves with spermicides, condoms and latex squares before engaging in intercourse. The film was so cautiously clinical that a group of viewers quickly lost interest in Norma and Tony, and even in sex for that matter, focusing instead on the number and variety of odd-textured and -shaped devices employed.

The slow work of education continues. An organizer of safe-sex programs at the Claremont Colleges in Southern California explains his teaching tactics: "You have to be sneaky. You tell them it is about sex, and when they're there you tell them it's mostly about AIDS. By then they're already sitting down." Claremont sponsored a "Sex and the Single Student" week during which 2,700 condoms were handed out.

Despite the fanfare, most educators think it will take more than education to change sexual mores. "We're a generation away from accepting condoms," says Mary Sherman, a public-health educator at Berkeley. Dr. Richard Keeling, chairman of the American College Health Association's task force on AIDS, admits that some people cannot be reached through education. "There is a despairing theory in health education that says until there is some horrible base-line number of people who have died, the disease doesn't become personal enough to the rest of the community for it to take fundamental changes in behavior seriously."

It may have to hit home. "Since they're just experiencing their sexual prime and want to act on it, young people push AIDS into their subconscious," says Greg Reynolds, 26, a practicing bisexual in Miami. "But as more people are getting sick and dying of AIDS, it starts hitting their friends. It is much more effective than reading about it in the media. You think, 'I knew him. I could be next.' "

The potential spread of AIDS can be grasped by observing the ways in which other sexually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea, chlamydia and genital herpes, move through the country. "There are a minimum of 6 million S.T.D.s recorded annually," says Dr. German Maisonet, medical director of the Los Angeles Minority AIDS Project. "Which means that about every five seconds an American is involved in a high-risk sexual practice minus a condom."

Condoms, if used properly, have been shown to help prevent the virus from being transmitted. But Dr. Marcus Conant of the California department of health task force on AIDS cautions against thinking of condoms as a panacea. "They are not a surefire way to avoid pregnancy," he points out, "and it is probably just as easy to catch AIDS ((from a carrier)) as to get pregnant."

Nonetheless, after ten years of declining sales, condoms are experiencing a boom in the U.S. Revenues have increased 10% in the past year. With the promise of profit comes an infusion of ingenuity. Japanese manufacturers offer a wide variety of styles, from condoms embossed with flowers to multiscented brands. For homosexuals there is a new, more durable brand in the works.

AIDS is a "condom marketer's dream," says John Silverman, president of Ansell Americas, the sellers of LifeStyles condoms, whose most startling magazine ad, directed at American women, features a young woman resolutely proclaiming, "I enjoy sex, but I'm not ready to die for it." Mentor, a new line, is marketed directly to women, who purchase nearly half the condoms sold. It comes in a tiny plastic cup designed for women's purses (the traditional flat packaging is for men's wallets).

What does all this leave to the imagination? What quarter remains for fantasy, for risque comedy or high melodrama? Do big-screen heroines engage in safe sex? Bisexuality was a popular metaphor in '70s entertainment, but it is hard to picture a film like Sunday, Bloody Sunday being made now. Its sexually ambivalent central character would clearly be a villain. Five years ago, Beyond Therapy, an amiable stage comedy about bisexuals, was well received in London, but audiences at screenings of the forthcoming movie version are uneasy with it. Even to blase sophisticates, bisexuality is becoming ethically questionable.

When Health Secretary Bowen called for a change in life-style, he was asking a great deal of human nature. Throughout history, even in straitlaced cultures or eras of inhibition, sex is always the genie that cannot be % contained in the bottle. Its heedless imperatives mostly seize the young: the least disciplined, least knowledgeable and least likely segment of society to take any thought for the morrow or have any intimations of their own mortality. And there are those in any society who are forever young, or venturesome, or lonely or simply careless. To pause on the downhill slope of passion, to call time out from rapture and contemplate that this single act could be fatal, is only marginally more imaginable than the pause that too seldom occurs to consider whether this single act will create an unwanted life.

Coping with the specter of AIDS is particularly difficult for the heirs of the American sexual revolution, probably smaller in numbers than advertised but nonetheless vehement in the assertion of a freer, more open set of mores for sexual conduct. Should AIDS spread in the most pessimistic proportions projected, there may finally sound a general alert, resulting in an increase in monogamy, in abstinence, in widespread acceptance of tough new rules of the game. But unless and until that point comes, the casualties may needlessly mount.

With reporting by Scott Brown/Los Angeles, Dave Morrow/Atlanta and Leslie Whitaker/New York