“The Homosexual” as a Metaphor in Early AIDS Discourses
“The Homosexual” as a Metaphor in Early AIDS Discourses

Summary/Abstract: In this article I do not wish to deal with AIDS itself as a metaphor (Sontag 1978,1989; Patton 1990, 64-65) but rather I attempt to highlight how early AIDS discourse implicitly applied the historical, medico-legal image of “the homosexual”as a metaphor of the PWA (Person living With AIDS)1. I argue that as a result of this (indeed harmful) metaphorical discourse, on the one hand, the politically active gay identity was relegated to the level of the passive homosexual, and, on the other,that this metaphorical discourse had harmful consequences with regard to how gay people at the time perceived and felt themselves within the sphere of the social.At first, I interrogate the historical implications of homosexuality and gayness with a specific emphasis on the issue of metaphorical thinking in HIV/AIDS discourses,and then I attempt to highlight how (discursively) obscuring the differences between them resulted in gay shame as an important stage before giving conservative answers to the AIDS crisis (as it was identified by Crimp as a problem [2002]).

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