25 years of
advocacy

August 20, 1981 New Viral Cancer Stirs Gay Fears Cover line: A "Gay" Cancer? Foresight: "The bright light at the end of the dark Kaposi's [sarcoma] tunnel is that if the disease is in fact sexually transmitted, a vaccine could theoretically be developed against it, as is currently happening with hepatitis. 'In the long run, this may be the biggest thing ever in cancer research,' says [NYU's] Dr. [Alvin] Friedman-Kien." Hindsight: "Researchers seem to agree that butyl nitrite, the principal ingredient in most over-the-counter poppers, may be a culprit."

February 17, 1983 Coping With a Crisis: AIDS and the Issues It Raises The first time the word AIDS appeared on the cover. Foresight: "These illnesses are not 'gay' illnesses," said Steve Peskind, head of Project Shanti's AIDS Program in San Francisco. "The media, both gay and straight, have been very irresponsible in representing it as a gay plague or an exclusively gay disease." Hindsight: "There's absolutely no proof that what has hit gay men and Haitians and drug addicts...is the same disease. No proof at all. It's a scandal," said pioneering New York AIDS activist and physician Joseph Sonnabend.

November 26, 1985 Etiquette for an Epidemic: What to Say and Who to Tell When Someone Has AIDS Foresight: "If a friend tells you that he has AIDS, keep the information to yourself, unless he specifically asks you to pass it on. Let him be the judge of who has a 'right to know.' Shocked by the news himself, at first, he may have blurted it to you. Don't make him regret it," wrote advice columnist Robert Boucheron.

April 1, 1986 The Call for Quarantine

July 8, 1986 Sex in the Age of AIDS

July 7, 1987 Special Report: Your HIV Status, Should You Take the Test? Foresight: "The Advocate presents a careful review of three questions faced by most gay men today: whether to take the HIV antibody test; what the future holds for those who test positive; how those who test negative can stay that way." Hindsight: "A San Francisco gay man remarked that he felt a ceiling had descended over him when he received his antibody positive result. 'I can no longer presume that I have a future beyond many months, or a few years.' "

July 31, 1990 The Politics of Death: A New Coalition for the War Zones of the '90s

January 15, 1991 Cities in Crisis: As the AIDS Toll Soars, America's Urban Centers Crumble

July 30, 1992 In the Dark About AIDS Foresight: Jonathan Mann, chairman of the Eighth International Conference on AIDS, hoped to create "a new blueprint for a worldwide effort aimed at transforming attitudes, policies, and behavior related to AIDS."

June 15, 1993 The Life and Times of Randy Shilts Profiling the legendary AIDS journalist.

May 31, 1994 AIDS Education: Why It's Not Working Foresight: "I remember my mom, who has always been really cool about my being gay saying, 'How could you have been so stupid?' I was asking myself the same question."

September 6, 1994 Portrait of a Centerfold: The Bare Facts About HIV-positive Lesbian Playboy Playmate Rebekka Armstrong

May 16, 1995 The Real Patient Zero? Why Scientists Don't Care Whether a Man Died of AIDS-Related Causes in 1959

April 13, 1999 Barebacking: Are We Turning Our Backs on Reality? Hindsight: "Those in AIDS prevention can get sidetracked into a fury over barebacking even though they know that most men aren't barebackers making a conscious choice but get blindsided by desire into doing something in the moment," said Sex Panic! activist Jim Eigo--an observation that this issue's sex-party investigation undermines.

April 12, 2005 The New Sex Police