Record Nr.

UNINA9910786604203321

Autore

Odets Walt

Titolo

In the shadow of the epidemic : being HIV-negative in the age of AIDS / / Walt Odets

Pubbl/distr/stampa


Durham : , : Duke University Press, , 1995

ISBN

0-8223-1638-2

0-8223-7923-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (329 p.)

Collana

Series Q

Disciplina

155.9/16/08664

Soggetti

Gay men - Mental health

AIDS (Disease) - Psychological aspects

AIDS phobia

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages [281]-300) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- A Word about the Writer and the Reader -- 1 Why We Need a Book about Being HIV-Negative -- 2 The Psychological Epidemic -- 3 Survivor Guilt and Related Family Matters -- 4 Life in the Shadow: Loss and Mourning -- 5 Being Outsiders: The "HIV-Negative" Identity -- 6 Being Alone -- 7 Being Together: The Relations of Positives and Negatives -- 8 Being Sexual: The Politics and Humanity of Gay Sex in the Epidemic -- 9 Being Here: Other Kinds of Survival -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

For gay men who are HIV-negative in a community devastated by AIDS, survival may be a matter of grief, guilt, anxiety, and isolation. In the Shadow of the Epidemic is a passionate and intimate look at the emotional and psychological impact of AIDS on the lives of the survivors of the epidemic, those who must face on a regular basis the death of friends and, in some cases, the decimation of their communities. Drawing upon his own experience as a clinical psychologist and a decade-long involvement with AIDS/HIV issues, Walt Odets explores the largely unrecognized matters of denial, depression, and identity that mark the experience of uninfected gay men.Odets calls attention to the dire need to address issues that are affecting HIV-negative individuals—from concerns about sexuality and relations with

those who are HIV-positive to universal questions about the nature and meaning of survival in the midst of disease. He argues that such action, while explicitly not directing attention away from the needs of those with AIDS, is essential to the human and biological well-being of gay communities. In the immensely powerful firsthand words of gay men living in a semiprivate holocaust, the need for a broader, compassionate approach to all of the AIDS epidemic’s victims becomes clear. In the Shadow of the Epidemic is a pathbreaking first step toward meeting that need.