It's a Sin, 9 pm Channel 4, 22nd Jan CONTAINS SPOILERS **titled edited by MNHQ**

[notawittyname1954]

I keep seeing trailers for this. Anyone else looking forward to it?

I loved Jill and I did have the feeling that she was in love with Richie. Maybe wrong though!

@drigon she certainly loved him.

What you suggest, drigon, is exactly what the show needed to take the trouble to clarify - by providing her with a separate life of her own. Otherwise they're saying that every woman who is close friends with gay men is a sad hanger on - whereas the men are all having a fantastic time together.

Agree, @PursuingProxemicExactitude!

The female characters were problematic in some respects. Jill not being rounded out as a character with her own life. Not enough acknowledgment of Richie’s family dynamic and the fact that his domineering father also had an obvious impact on the very miserable sister and ground down mother. I thought the whole ‘blame’ scene between Jill and Ritchie’s mum would have been better aimed at his dad.

I loved this series - really loved it - so the above didn’t spoil it for me. But I would have liked to see a bit more nuance and depth around the women.

I absolutely loved this and haven’t been able to stop thinking about for the last few days...

I was born in 1980 in Edinburgh so grew up with the campaign and watching the news, interviews etc and seeing people with AIDS who to a sheltered little kid were absolutely terrifying.

For some reason when I think back I associated HIV and AIDS with drug use rather than unprotected sex but that might have been down to it being an easier explanation from my parents.

Our primary school featured on an episode of the Lowdown (mid 80’s) with pupils discussing the epidemic as well as local residents...

Looking back now it seems a bit odd and would love to try and locate a recording of it to find out what purpose it had.

I didn’t think Gills character was particularly well cast, believable or for a main part she had much about her. It almost felt like everything was too current, the mixed raced, supportive, campaigning family, the edgy dress sense and then a sharp contrast to her traditional personality always cooking and cleaning, maternal figures to the boys. She just didn’t quite fit for me.

I felt like Jill was a bit cold towards Ritchies Mum. A bit distant.

Interesting, Adviceneededalways ...

But I can vouch for both the casting and the characterisation (except the missing parts!) of Jill as a 1980's socio-political campaigner. I knew a few people just like her back then - though the causes were slightly different.

And ... as far as I remember the eighties was all 'edgy dress sense'! Students were just as inclined to combine vintage and high street as they are now - the whole point being to distance oneself from whatever traditional role you felt you wanted to escape. Even though you couldn't.

When was it filmed? I must say the rubber gloves / body scrubbing / masks did hold a gruesome, topical fascination.

@PursuingProxemicExactitude I guess I felt like maybe they had gone a bit OTT with some of the styling and it often felt more current vintage vibe and lost a bit of the essence of the true 80’s but tbh I’m not really sure what I’m basing that on as I was 5 in 1985!!! 😂

Does it still happen? I don't think DS was asked if he had had a HIV test when I set up his life insurance.

@VienneseWhirligig the form would have had some form of health screening, usually asking if your son has any pre existing conditions. This would include anything diagnosed at a clinic/GP/hospital etc.

In the past seeking out to be tested for HIV was stigmatised, particularly by insurance companies/mortgage underwriters etc. Nowadays it's seen as responsible to get tested along with other STIs but there is still a certain reticence to do so by many, often older, people.

Unfortunately people living with HIV have found it more difficult to get life cover over the past year due to the pandemic, with insurance companies generally battening down the hatches to those with certain health conditions. Even before the cover was quite a bit higher that that for people who are HIV neg. Science and knowledge hasn't quite caught up in that part of the insurance industry unlike the travel insurance where it doesn't cost any more once on effective treatment with an undetectable viral load and decent CD4 count.

@SimonJT although income protection insurance is mostly impossible to get it we can be covered in some circumstances like some group polices
www.aidsmap.com/about-hiv/income-protection-insurance-people-hiv

I liked this and was a teenager in the 80s and funnily enough also went clubbing once or twice in the 80s at 16 in West London. But not to gay clubs!

Back in those days, I must admit we were all petrified of AIDS/HIV and had had all the Just Say No and dying adverts on TV, so most of us were scared of drugs and sex without condoms. The vast majority of us also didn't really know many gay people either, I mean you saw people like Boy George etc on TV but that was as far as it went.

DB used to go clubbing in late 80s/early 90s in Heaven but that was because they had nights when you could have mixed nights (DB isn't gay). Later I used to go to Trade at Turnmills with gay friends which was a laugh - to be honest I didn't recall much about it, we were all mad.

Ah thats good about the changes to income protection insurance @HIVpos thank you.

I have attached two pictures, apologise for it being the scum, but shows how gay people (particularly men) are treated. The sex scenes in Bridgerton were more explicit, especially the tissue scene, yet you see these sorts of headline. The sex lives of gay people are still seen as either dirty if its gay men or public property if its gay women.

THREAD.

twitter.com/CockerJon/status/1353506613144014848?s=20

Bloody hell @SimonJT the homophobia there is so blatant

Twitter is just a shitpit. The utter dregs

A film that was released in 1980 starring Amanda Redman. I had no idea it existed until Talking Pictures TV showed it late one night last year and i only caught the last hour while channel hopping.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard%27s_Things

Oh is he? Never heard of him till now. I was saddened at how many ppl hes lost.

@MercyBooth

Oh is he? Never heard of him till now. I was saddened at how many ppl hes lost.

What has happened to him is awful, as cold as this sounds his experience won’t be unusual.

We have a few guys on our rugby team who had similar experiences, one of them does have HIV and he still feels guilt that he survived and his partner didn’t. He must be one of very few who is still around who contracted HIV back then.

thetab.com/uk/2021/01/25/32-million-died-in-the-aids-pandemic-but-our-remembrance-is-pitiful-191708

We have a few guys on our rugby team who had similar experiences, one of them does have HIV and he still feels guilt that he survived and his partner didn’t. He must be one of very few who is still around who contracted HIV back then

Im sorry to hear this. But am glad your friend is still with us.

This series has had such a profound effect on me. I literally cannot stop thinking about it. So beautiful and sad. Those poor people who had to live it 😔

Same, Lottie.

Exemplary acting but all the more profound because it was happening in real life, over and over.

I feel like the sex scenes were just pretty standard drink hook up scenes you'd see in loads of things about straight couples. I think because I don't see it through a homophobic lens then it is just hook up sex, threesomes, fun, quite quick because it was all a bit of a blur. If you see it from a homophobic lens though then it's graphic and OTT but if you were heterophobic all tv would seem graphic and OTT too. Massive double standards. I think it was well done, actually

I meant to post this earlier, its the Aids memorial twitter (they also have an instagram).

mobile.twitter.com/theaidsmemorial