09-15-2019, 12:50 PM (Edited 09-15-2019, 12:51 PM by pondlife.)
Not sure he's got it right about folks perception of HIV today (or even in the recent past); that it was an inevitable death sentence, that he'd stigmatised. Yes, that (along with the cocktail of daily drugs) was certainly the case after it broke mainstream in the very early 80s and probably for at least the next 15 or so yrs to the turn of the millennium. From what I've gleaned successive generations (certainly compared to mine, who grew up with it in our faces) didn't seem phazed by it if sexual activity/habits, which seemed extremely loose & fancy-free by comparison, is anything to go by.
Anyway, I obviously didn't stand in his size 12s so perhaps he genuinely felt he'd have been shunned as a leper.