University of Michigan Law School University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository Articles Faculty Scholarship 1994 Gay Men, AIDS, and the Code of the Condom David L. Chambers University of Michigan Law School,
[email protected] Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/articles/91 Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/articles Part of the Health Law and Policy Commons, Law and Society Commons, and the Sexuality and the Law Commons Recommended Citation Chambers, David L. "Gay Men, AIDS, and the Code of the Condom." Harv. C. R. -C. L. L. Rev. 29, no. 2 (1994): 353-85. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. GAY MEN, AIDS, AND THE CODE OF THE CONDOM David L. Chambers* It's not who you are but what you do. Twelve years into the epidemic of AIDS, there is no vaccine and no cure. For sexually active people, and for gay men in particular, the answer to the epidemic, our "magic bullet.' is the condom, a thin layer of latex to shield us from infection and death.' AIDS organizations run largely by gay men announce a message that sex is fine, and that anal sex is fine-so long as a condom is used. These organizations imbue the directive about condoms with the force of a moral code.