An idealistic lifestyle has a wide variety of definitions, but for many, that involves being perpetually surrounded by models in minimal clothing. Hugh Hefner is the ‘perfect’ ladies man— an individual flocked by women living in an extravagant home. While some believe Hefner’s lifestyle is the pure manifestation of heaven, others see his unprecedented behavior as absolutely sickening. In Ross Douthat’s, “Speaking Ill of Hugh Hefner” he is thoroughly described as a repulsive human-being. Douthat uses persuasive prose in order to create an accurate image of the “grotesque” life Hefner chose to lead.…
On the other hand, the Court’s decision reminds people who have intercourse with the opposite sex that HIV isn’t only prevalent in homosexual relations. Many have the idea that HIV and Aids are nonexistent in opposite sex relationships, which could affect the way in which they approach protection and consent. Again, this case did indeed have a huge social significance and impact on the Canadian…
In Aida Benton’s book HIV Exceptionalism she gives a story two different individuals who have decided to take different positions in regards to their HIV status, and how this can impact their lives. For example, Alfred was very vocal about the fact that he was positive with HIV, and that he was doing the best he could to live in an optimistic manner. He also mentioned that he could not understand why someone would not want to be open about their struggles with HIV. Nafiatsu, on the other hand, does not want to expose her status with HIV. This is despite immense pressure that she has felt in her community to come out with her status, and she is even denied a job at her organization, because she is not open.…
Crimp continued to finish by stating that the private sector became “responsible for more than 70 percent of pharmaceutical research in this country" (Crimp 3). Apparently Crimp saw the profit from HIV/AIDS patients as a win-win scenario, because he justified his stance in “Pro Pharma” with affirmation that “they’re entrepreneurs trying to make money by saving lives. By and in large, they succeed in both. Every morning I wake up and feel fine, and I’m glad they do” (Crimp 3). Sullivan defended the entrepreneurs, and probably did not address ethics or morality as Crimp did when Crimp partially analysed Sullivan with Foucauldian thought.…
He has AIDS. A minority. He is a gay Hispanic male living with aids in Los Angeles, but while he accepts this identity as his true identity, most people wish to alter who he is. The questions posed “‘What will you father say?’ ‘What will your brothers say?’…
Case Study: Liberace Liberace was a world-renowned pianist. Even in the early 20’s, when Liberace (full name Wladziu Valentino Liberace) was a child, he showed great aptitude for the piano, beginning his formal musical schooling at the Wisconsin College of Music when he was merely seven years old. His skill at the piano earned him several positions in orchestras when he was only a teenager. He became no less successful as he grew up— in fact, the Guinness Book of World Records lists Liberace as the highest paid pianist of all time.…
In her speech Glaser talks about how Americans need to change the government in order to make America safe and give the people who need help a place of hope. To begin Glaser states that “Along the way I learned how unfair America can be today, not just for people who have HIV but for many, many people” (2). She Uses pathos to start her argument that the the government is selfish and greedy. Glaser brings to attention that other Americans are being affected by our government. She builds up a foundation to build her points on the subject of government by connecting other Americans to people who are infected with HIV and AIDS.…
In a NY Times article, “Is Fat Stigma Making Us Miserable?”, Emilie Lucchesi talks about the causes of psychological health problems arising not necessarily from the physical characteristic but from the overbearing stigmatization of being overweight in our society. Contrary to popular belief, there exists almost no direct relationship between how much a person weighs and their psychological health welfare; the problem lies, instead, within how people are being treated. She explains that it’s rather “the teasing, judgment and unsolicited advice directed at overweight people that can cause the greatest psychological harm.” The article goes on to introduce Courtney Bailey, a media scholar in popular culture, as she explains that the fat stigma…
Disclosing one's HIV status is still widely perceived as socially dangerous. Similarly, other great risk people living with HIV face are the improper disclosure of their status, which can result in denial of employment, violence, and many other collateral consequences. Furthermore, could you imagine being sick? So deadly sick, going to the doctor to…
This showed how social media affected life back then, as it does today. Although I understand how celebrities are always in the public eye, it irritated me to see that people only started to take notice of AIDS once a celebrity got it. Rock Hudson’s death made AIDS a big deal, but prior millions had already died from the virus, but their deaths did not matter to the government, as they tried to ignore the illness. I believe that it is unjust to disregard someone based on their socioeconomic status or lifestyle choices. It is very disappointing to see that many of these people got turned down by society because they are not considered “important” enough to get adequate…
The Age of Aids documentary contained many powerful scenes that expose the severity of aids and the political backlash that came with the issue of this new disease. One scene that particularly stuck out to me was a speech by Jerry Falwell who said “I believe when one breaks the laws of nature and the laws or moral decency and i do believe that homosexuality is moral perversion. when we go against nature and god of course is the creator of nature we therefore pay the prices for that.” Bumper stickers that read “ AIDS: it’s killing all the right people” were on cars indicating that government officials and citizens of USA believed that homosexuals deserved to die. The lack of acceptance towards the gay community delayed the scientific research going towards curing AIDS and HIV as the majority of the population believed it was a gay and IV drug-using related disease and had no sympathy to help cure the disease for those who “went against nature.”…
Including subjective language in addition to the medical objective jargon during patient encounters will help reduce the strict biomedical stance on the illness. In addition to this, modified attitudes toward AIDS patients can lead to improved health services to them. This can be solved by including education during training for healthcare professionals on the health implications of the stigma and how they can address them in a professional setting. It may be beneficial to create scenarios during healthcare training that depict interaction with an HIV/AIDS patient. As stated previously, another solution would be the incorporation of cross-disciplinary perspectives to foster a shared understanding of the broader policies needed to see the end…
As a young woman, who has family members who are directly affected by Aids, I choose to focus my rhetorical analysis on a speech given by Mary Fisher, a political activist who contracted the virus from someone who she loved and trusted, her second husband. Mary Fisher gave her speech “A Whisper of Aids” at the Republican national convention in 1992 located in Houston Texas; only a year after finding out that she was HIV positive. Mrs. Fisher being an active member in the Republican Party she wanted to raise awareness of the severity of the Aids epidemic in American. She also wanted her party members to understand that this is a disease that can effect anyone at any given moment, regardless of age, race, gender, or political party. Mary Fisher…
In fact, these differences in upbringing may account for the characters’ unique perception of the disease. There is no specific type of person who contracts AIDS, and not all AIDS victims are reckless and unthinking. While certainly some patients, such as Mimi, may be immature and irresponsible during coping, others, such as Angel or Collins, are victims of circumstance. With wisdom and maturity, they understand and respect the immensity of the disease and make effort to better themselves and educate others. Larson uses this diversity to counter the belief that AIDS is a “gay disease” or only affects a…
In 1993, academy award winning actors Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington starred in the movie, Philadelphia, the first major motion picture to address the issue of HIV/AIDS (Howard, 2015). One intent of this movie was to highlight homophobia, the irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals ("Homophobia", 2016), in addition to highlighting the Nation's baseless fear of those infected with HIV/AIDS. These fears were fueled by a lack of education regarding the disease and resulted in intense discrimination against those with the disease. Hanks refers to the influence of this type of fear in his 2011 Yale Commencement address, "Fear twists facts into fictions that become indistinguishable from ignorance"…