a documentary by Jean Carlomusto
61 minutes, color, USA, 2010
This film is available for rental at Public Screenings. Please
send your inquiry to info@outcast-films.com.
By focusing specifically on the need for honest comprehensive
sex education, this engaging documentary provides a sociocultural
perspective on the history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and its
ongoing impact on the most effected populations including the
gay, African-American and Latino communities. Incorporating
interviews and media footage from the earliest days of the AIDS
panic through the present, SEX IN AN EPIDEMIC
reminds us that, though the world has been living with the realities
of HIV/AIDS for nearly 30 years, ignorance and prejudice about
the disease must still be combated.
View the Trailer:
LONG SYNOPSIS:
SEX IN AN EPIDEMIC is a pioneering documentary about the history
of “safer sex” in the United States. Few concepts
have had as great an impact on sexuality over the past decade
as that of “safer sex.” Yet, as a concept,
it is important to remember two things: first, safer sex
had to be invented amidst a terrifying lack of information that
existed before the discovery of HIV. Secondly, safer sex as
a concept had to be sold by the persistent and creative persuasion
of community‑based groups all across the country. This ground-breaking
film places the history of safer sex education on a trajectory
with current HIV prevention \while exploring the personal, political
and structural challenges that have continually hampered the
best efforts of HIV educators and community groups to curb HIV
infection rates in the United States
SEX IN AN EPIDEMIC consists of 4 chronological
segments.
Rare Cancer - NYC 1981 It was
impossible to say with medical certainty what was causing a
“rare cancer” in gay men. and how to prevent it.
Publishing factually accurate sex recommendations was extraordinarily
difficult in the atmosphere of fear and blame that pervaded
the gay community. Yet Dr Joseph Sonnebend, and his patients,
Michael Callen and Richard Berkowitz, write HOW TO HAVE SEX
IN AN EPIDEMIC -- the first book on safe sex.
To Promote and Encourage In 1984/5
HIV is identified as the cause of AIDS and a reliable test for
the virus is developed. GMHC creates playful safer sex
workshops and erotic videos such as Chance of a Lifetime
to reach the community. Energized by the political message
of Act Up, 800,000 lesbians and gay men march on Washington
for equal rights on October 29, 1987. Two days later,
Senator Jessie Helms attacks GMHC’s Safer Sex Comix
on the senate floor. His rant leads to the Helms Amendment
prohibiting federal funding for any educational material condoning
sodomy or the “homosexual life style.”
Preaching AbstinenceDespite
scientific evidence from the CDC citing the ineffectiveness
of abstinence-only education and the recommendation of his own
Surgeon General, George W. Bush repeatedly increases funding
for these programs. Americans from all walks of life challenge
government funding and promotion of abstinence-until-marriage
based sex education.
Prevention Justice Despite growing numbers
of infections among African Americans, Latinos, and gay men,
funding for evidenced-based interventions effectively decreases.
In the face of government inaction, groups like Act Up Philadelphia
and CHAMP use AIDS activism to advocate for effective HIV prevention
programs that examine the structural inequalities driving up
HIV infection rates in populations most affected.
Each segment of SEX IN AN EPIDEMIC speaks openly and
honestly, with both courage and hope, about the challenges of
HIV prevention.
what
they're saying
"Sex
in an Epidemic performs the important work of remembering
a lineage of queer AIDS activist work that aims to de-stigmatize
sex and that continues to have relevance now even as it
must be transformed by work in a range of different communities,
including people of color, prisoners, and those outside
the U.S.” Ann Cvetkovich,
Professor, University of Texas, Austin
In "Sex in an Epidemic," Jean Carlomusto, a
doyenne of AIDS activist video, creates a haunting and
elegiac history of US safer sex (video) activism and education.
Taking up (and using clips from) the form of Carlomusto’s
earliest activist work for GMHC’s groundbreaking
cable access show, “Living With AIDS, ” Carlomusto
re-animates the lost AIDS activist community of the 1980s
and 1990s by editing their radical accounts and actions
into a vibrant testimony to one community's radical efforts
at life-saving education. "Sex in an Epidemic"
is a moving testament to the power of remembering, representing,
learning, and activism. Alexandra Juhasz, Professor of Media and Cultural
Studies, Pitzer College, or AIDS TV: Identity, Communtiy
and Alternative Video (Duke 1995).
Sex in an Epidemic makes a crucial contribution to our
knowledge about the emergence and subsequent explosion
of AIDS in the US and the many forms of activism it engendered.
This beautifully crafted documentary, as moving as it
is intelligent, is a must-have addition to our libraries
and classrooms. Jean Carlomusto’s important
film tracks a history of AIDS panic and AIDS activism
that is compelling and provocative, exactly the kind of
work my students are eager to engage. I immediately
plan to add it to the syllabus for my courses at USC.
There is a new generation of young people who are hungry
for this history in all its emotional and political complexity.
The film brilliantly incorporates archival media footage
and visual images from the earliest days of AIDS with
astute and inspiring commentary from several generations
of AIDS activists. I can’t wait to share
this documentary with my students! David Román, Professor, Department
of English and American Studies, USC
Author of Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay
Culture, & AIDS
“’Sex in an Epidemic’ explores the
social and cultural history of HIV/AIDS in the US and
its impact on the gay community, linking the emergence
of the disease in the early 1980s to contemporary sex
education approaches. Including interview footage
from frontline gay activists and news reports from the
early 80s through the late 2000s, this is a powerful and
urgent look into the political controversies surrounding
AIDS education. An early narrator explains that
he wants people now to know what it was like then –
the film succeeds admirably in that regard, reminding
us both of the panic surrounding AIDS in its early days
as well as our nation’s ongoing ambivalence about
sex education. Offering a compelling social justice
argument throughout, this film is perfect for classroom
use.” C. Lee Harrington, PhD, Professor of Sociology,
Affiliate, Women's Studies Program, Department of Sociology
& Gerontology, Miami University
“Sex in an Epidemic acts as an important primer
on the past three decades of the AIDS crisis and the activism
it has prompted. Made by Jean Carlomusto, long intimately
involved on the front lines of AIDS activism and documentation,
this video reminds viewers of the early uncertainty and
panic that surrounded the disease’s mysterious symptoms,
the invention of safer sex, and the controversies surrounding
sex education and policy reform. Especially for younger
viewers who were born after AIDS already existed, this
video offers essential lessons in a history that is too
often obscured. The film also alerts us to more recent
efforts to influence local policy change and demand national
and international strategies to continue battling the
epidemic.” Lucas Hilderbrand, Professor, University of
California-Irvine
