I was hanging out with my Gen Y friends and my Gen X husband last night and I found out the most interesting thing about this cohort - they never really went through a phase where they were convinced they had AIDS.
In the 80s, when I was a teenager, we were told over and over that if we had sex, we would die from AIDS. So in the 90s, as a 20-something gal, that was always looming.
So it was me and the Gen Ys on the deck at the pub and my husband was in the restroom and they were talking about getting tested for VD and I said, "Oh yeah, I always thought I had AIDS until I finally had an AIDS test when I was pregnant with my first daughter."
They all looked at me like I was a slut. So I qualified that I hadn't been with that many people, but everyone thinks they have AIDS when they're younger.
Apparently, this isn't the case for Gen Y.
But it is for Gen X. In fact, when my husband returned to the table I said, "Did you ever think you had AIDS, like in the 90s?"
"Of course," he said.
So I'm sharing this clip from one of my favorite Gen X movies about our formative cohort experience. Did any of you go through this?
5 comments:
That's really interesting! I have to admit that "thinking I had AIDS" was not something that dominated my thoughts - but having to get tested for it when I was pregnant got me thinking. I didn't realize that so many other people had that kind of paranoia about AIDS.
I remember getting my AIDS test when I was in college. It was, as the clip from Reality Bites says, a right of passage.
Yes! I was convinced and too scared to take the test. I didn't have a lot of partners - but it was so drilled into our heads that SEX=AIDS that it just seemed inevitable!
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Yes! This is so right on. I remember well into the '90s, AIDS was the catchphrase for any questionable hookup. Whenever your friends didn't approve of what you were doing, they would always eventually bring up, "...and don't forget there is this thing called AIDS." I guess you just had to have grown up during the time when it was discovered to have that fear looming . My college had a seminar on AIDS that once you took it, you get a card for free HIV testing as many times as you want. So, I used to get tested regularly but not because I was promiscuous or anything. Everyone seems to have calmed down about it now, though.
I love your blog! (Just found it today.)
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