In both “Angels in America Part two: Perestroika” and the essay by Bayer, we are given the complexity of coping with a disease that blurs the boundaries between personal freedom and state obligation, separation and community, and ultimately, the freedom to live and a dignified death. Compared to syphilis in the Piess introductory paragraphs, AIDS as a sexually transmitted disease inherently carries a host of symbols, stereotypes, and public health concerns. We are able to witness a deployment of sexuality to cope with these very symbols and stereotypes through social workers, doctors, researchers, lawyers, and political activists all trying to understand and in turn shaping what it means to be “infected” with AIDS. How one tackles the rapidly growing “problem” is a reflection of the power relations that proliferate within this controversial subject.
Bayer’s essay on the bathhouses in San Francisco focuses on the sensitive topic of personal freedom and state intervention. However, Bayer’s essay penetrates the surface level of the oversimplified “public health” vs. “gay liberation community,” and reveals to the reader the extremely complex and sometimes ambiguous intentions of those that want to create awareness for public health while preserving individual freedom and happiness. Bayer goes on to investigate a range of parties and individuals who all had different ways of seeing the situation, including Larry Littlejohn, a prominent gay figure who surprisingly fought for the closure of public bathhouses. Larry Littlejohn, as the essay states, believed that the educational programs ran by the city were ineffective. By using the evidence of the city’s previous failures of increasing the use of seat belts or decreasing drunk driving, Littlejohn wanted to transform the usual “passive educational” route of government intervention to one that draws “ a sharp distinction between public settings and the homes” (475) in order to impose regulations and rules of conduct that can possibly protect one’s personal health. Where the gay community, who saw the closure of the bathhouses as a violation to their right to engage in sex, saw Littlejohn’s actions as a “betrayal,” Littlejohn defended himself by saying: “I care more for my gay brothers. I care enough to speak out even if that should make me unpopular with some persons” (475).
On the other side, one would be just as shocked to find that public officials such as director of department of health Silverman represented those that did feel the closure of bathhouses was necessary. Silverman wanted to create a trust and understanding between the gay community with the state, and by backing an approach that stressed education, awareness and choice, Silverman was able to “win for him the admiration of most politically vocal elements in the gay community” (473). Bathhouse owners also joined in, and to support their case to preserve the running of bathhouses, included “declarations from epidemiologists, public health officials, physicians associated with the care of AIDS patients and the defense of gay rights, as well as a social historian” (481). The argument that the closing of bathhouses would not necessarily prevent or reduce the prevalence of aids, but instead harmfully act as a symbolic violation of personal freedom became an argument that clearly shows the deployment of sexuality and institutions it borrows justification from in order to legitimize itself. The complexity of the AIDS situation is reminiscent of the many facets of the deployment of sexuality suggested by Foucault, intermixing not only the much-discussed pyschiatrization of perverse pleasure, but the socialization of procreative behavior as well.
The ways in which characters cope with AIDS in Angels in America show not only the complexity of the response carried by the government or by the heterosexual community to “contain” or “cure” the problem, but the conflicts that arise within the homosexual community. From the deep hate between Roy Cohn and Belize, Louis, and the Gay community in general, the notions of the “one homosexual community,” is shattered immediately. Within the community, factors such as religion and faith, moral attitudes, and even job occupation or social standing all play a central role in determining how individuals accept the reality of AIDS, and the stereotypes the disease attaches to one’s personal identity and self-image. In the case of Roy, the prominent lawyer, AIDS serves as a brutal reminder that he, in the eyes of the public, is seen as a “homosexual.” Roy, in his monologue to the doctor, describes the way in which he has shaped his identity in order to account for this discrepancy, between his activity and his identity:
“On labels. “Gay”, “homosexual”, “lesbian”… Like all labels, they refer to one thing and one thing only: Where does a person so identified fit in the food chain? In the pecking order… To someone who doesn’t understand this, homosexual is what I am because I sleep with men, but this is wrong. A homosexual is someone…who know nobody, and who nobody knows. Now, Henry, does that sound like me? No. I have clout. Lots. I have sex with men; but, unlike nearly every other man of which this is true, I bring the guy I’m screwing to Washington, and President Reagan smiles at us and shakes his hand.
As Roy Cohn sees it, homosexual is not merely a categorization of sexual preference, but social standing. The AIDS epidemic, as shown in Bayer’s essay and Angels in America, forces the reflection and solidification of identities, and ironically also generates the proliferation of more diverse institutions to help assess and shape, and possibly confuse the very solidification of identity as well.
