AIDS and the Body Politic: Biomedicine and Sexual Difference

Why have women and gay men become the targets of AIDS education, while heterosexual men are exempt?AIDS and the Body Politicaddresses the relationship between medical discourse and the sexual politics of AIDS. Catherine Waldby's informative study draws on feminist theory, cultural studies, the philosophy of science and gay and lesbian studies to problematize the factual scientific discourse about AIDS and interpret it as a political discourse. Waldby argues that much AIDS discourse relies on an implicit and unconscious equation between sexual health and heterosexual masculinity. In this equation women, bisexuals and gay men are the targets of preventative programs, while heterosexual men remain unaddressed. Drawing upon examples of preventative policies from Australia, Britain and the USA, Waldby investigates the concept of public health and questions exactly whose interests are represented in a "healthy society".AIDS and the Body Politicdemonstrates the extent to which established ideas about the virus, the immune system, the HIV test and the epidemiology of the disease rely upon unexamined and conservative assumptions about sexual identity and sexual difference.

Catherine Waldby currently teaches in the Communications and Cultural Studies programme and the Women's Studies programme at Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia.