It’s A Sin - The 1980s/90s HIV/AIDS crisis

JupiterKid · 13-02-2021 9:19pm #1

Anyone else watching the brilliant, haunting and so very poignant new TV drama It’s A Sin on Channel 4?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnR5DxP2e2g

As a gay man, out and proud, in a long-term relationship with my partner watching the show made me very angry and sad at times just how deeply ignorant, intolerant and homophobic wider society was at that time in the UK (and believe you me, it was far worse here in Ireland where the Catholic Church still had huge sway and power). I well remember the very ominous public health adverts on the TV as a child and young teenager about AIDS. Huge stigma and ignorance around the disease was the norm.

The show features a number of young gay men - Richie, Roscoe, Colin, Ash (and the wonderful Gill, “mother” to the group) finding themselves in London in late 1981 and looking for fun, freedom and adventure. Within a few short years and tragedy strikes and strikes hard as young man after young man gets sick and dies a lonely, isolated, agonizing death.

Russell T. Davies, who wrote It’s A Sin, said in a recent interview that his intention was to remind people that the AIDS crisis must never be forgotten and that there are important lessons to be learned. He also opined that younger gay men, many of whom are flippant and ambivalent towards safe sex, need to see the show too to show them how far we have come and to never be complacent.

I came out towards the end of my university undergrad days, in 1996/97. I had struggled with my sexuality for a few years up to that point but I personally did not know anyone who died of AIDS. My partner on the other hand, 11 years my senior, was on the then tiny Dublin gay scene in the late 1980s/early 90s and knew 5 or 6 guys who got ill and died. Usually their families wanted it hushed up, wouldn’t even acknowledge their son’s homosexuality and in two cases, the partner of the deceased was not welcome at the funeral. He has told me that the extent of the tragedy meant that there was really no time for proper grieving. Just horrifying.

Does anyone here have any poignant memories of that time? Did anyone lose a good friend or family member to AIDS? Anyone have an opinion on It’s A Sin and how it has portrayed LGBT life in the 1980s?

Looking back at the 1980s and early 90s from the early 2020s, it seems like a different planet. I also think that it is very fitting that it is being aired as we are in the midst of another global pandemic.

13-02-2021 9:46pm

Watched the full series with my partner on All4 on the day the first episode aired as they released the full series.
I was in London in the late 80s early 90s and it was a different planet. I don't know if people remember the safe sex ads in the 90s but they were everywhere and especially on late night TV in the UK.
I may have mentioned it a few years ago on here but there is a book from 1987 ago called "And the band played on" That will educate you as to the social history of HIV/AIDS to that point in time. I used that book for several projects I was doing in the early 90s.
That was a global pandemic that was ignored for far too long. I wonder how it would be handled today. I doubt it would ever get the equivalent treatment as Covid-19, though would like to think it would.

lottpaul · 14-02-2021 12:05pm

I came out a few years before AIDS/HIV began and I do very clearly remember reading about the disease that was killing young gay men in the US, wondering what it was and never dreaming that it would ever reach our shores. When it did it gave the numerous haters and bigots extra opportunities for attacking and condemning any discussion re LGBT rights, health care, "lifestyle" etc. People who had taken a few small steps out of the closet went right back in again, closed the door and returned to living a hidden and fearful life.
When the first people became ill there was such ignorance and fear in the general population and also among many in the medical profession. A handful of brave souls did an enormous amount of work with little or no public funding. The funding began - albeit a trickle - when it became clear that "normal" people could also contract HIV.

There were many heartbreaking stories from that time - people being told to collect their loved ones bodies in sealed body bags etc with all of their personal belongings destroyed. I knew of several deaths where there were effectively 2 funerals - one in Dublin with the friends of the guy who died and one somewhere else with the family, where neighbours could come and sympathise and express shock at his sudden death from cancer or something "respectable", and it would have been made clear that none of his Dublin friends would be welcome at the second one. I attended one of those where a man had died in New York and came back to be buried in a very remote rural area and only a handful knew that the young man weeping at the back of the church was his beloved partner, comforted by just one friend. He was so taken aback when a few of us came up to him to shake his hand and express our sympathy. Sadly he was also ill and died a few years later.
I lost a very close friend to AIDS. He was from a small rural town and lived for the odd weekend when he could go to Dublin and be his true self. He was HIV+ for a couple of years before passing away. He phoned me on a Thursday, was feeling a bit unwell he said but we chatted as normal, promising to talk again after the weekend. I read his death notice in the Sunday paper. Never got the chance to say goodbye or visit a grave. He was cremated and I have no idea where his ashes were buried/scattered. He was a kind, funny and gentle guy and I miss him still.
Another friend got it a few years later and is still alive and well - 30+ years later, thanks I have to say to the care he got in the UK from the NHS. He moved to London after his diagnosis determined to get the best care he could, and I'm so happy it worked for him.
Treatment came too late for so many and it's unbearably sad to think of it all. For that reason I tend to avoid programmes like "It's a Sin" but the reviews I have read are good so I do intend to get around to it, maybe just not yet.

Mad Peggy · 15-02-2021 6:10am

watched it, had a cry and lit a candle

Irish Praetorian · 17-02-2021 11:40pm

Mad Peggy wrote: »

watched it, had a cry and lit a candle

Yes, it was a series that really was teased as being an upbeat happy story, and of course anyone with even vaguely familiarity with the topic would know that it wasn't going to be a happy story, but that didn't make any of the developments any less shocking or heart wrenching.

NeuralNetwork · 24-02-2021 2:44am

It was a grim time and even though I’m not old enough to remember the worst of it as an adult, it cast a very long shadow well into the 2000s and continues to do so to some degree.

I’m hopeful that the new raft of biotechnologies that have delivered very novel approches to vaccine development for the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the sudden refocus on vaccines might lead towards some new approches to HIV.

The stigma attached to it certainly caused it to be seen as a disease of “the other” and hampered funding and even interest in research to come up with solutions, but I think we are looking at an era that might finally solve it.

We’ve a perfect confluence of a more open minded society with far fewer taboos and far less homophobia, especially at institutional levels and that’s coinciding with a golden age of biotechnology that’s beginning to totally transform how we approach some of these things. So fingers crossed that we might see the end of HIV being a realistic possibility.

Perhaps, despite the bumpy start to the 2020s, the post pandemic era could be brighter than we think if there are some serious breakthroughs made.

AllForIt · 04-03-2021 4:18am

It was alright. I'm not given to watching gay stuff myself. Unlike others who watch gay stuff all the time. But is was said it was brill so I watched it.

I was a bit surprised by the tone of it, I though it would be more serious. There were a lot of comical moments. A sort of levity to the whole thing which I found surprising for such a serious subject.

I can't put my finger on it, but the whole think looked like something that wasn't real. It was like it was made up.

And all the characters seemed very one dimensional. All of them.

I suppose this had something to do with the 'style' of the production. Something I can't explain because I'm no expert in drama.

I think what I'm getting at, is, it didn't seem to me to be particularly realistic. Especially with the interplay between all the gay 'friends', who were all friends and lovers at the same time. That all just seemed a bit off to me.

As a drama and acting it was ace though in that regard. Outstanding performances throughout. Particularly Keeley Hawes and Olly Alexander.

Tig98 · 16-03-2021 11:44am

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0K0fzVpxHOEcGXzxjOj8O1?si=_OQMhh3CSP-tTPDZoDQVYQ&utm_source=copy-link
I thought this podcast might be of interest to people, I found it really insightful. Its by an Irish podcaster who realised she didn't really know anything about HIV after watching its a sin, so she interviewed a sexual health doctor about this general topic.

Of most interest, and surprise, to me was when she said there is a greater risk of HIV transmission from a person of unknown status than someone who is positive and in treatment/taking the prescribed medication. It makes sense, especially considering "undetectable = untransmittable", but I had just never thought of it in that way.

Mad Peggy · 21-03-2021 5:37am

Tig98 wrote: »

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0K0fzVpxHOEcGXzxjOj8O1?si=_OQMhh3CSP-tTPDZoDQVYQ&utm_source=copy-link
I thought this podcast might be of interest to people, I found it really insightful. Its by an Irish podcaster who realised she didn't really know anything about HIV after watching its a sin, so she interviewed a sexual health doctor about this general topic.

Of most interest, and surprise, to me was when she said there is a greater risk of HIV transmission from a person of unknown status than someone who is positive and in treatment/taking the prescribed medication. It makes sense, especially considering "undetectable = untransmittable", but I had just never thought of it in that way.

I don't like that podcast. It wasn't like that at all!

It’s A Sin - The 1980s/90s HIV/AIDS crisis

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