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?

@x2boys

I,m 47 so I remember the tomb stone ,don't die of ignorance adverts very well I don't think the Government at the time handled it particularly well ,with the benefit of hindsight I wonder what they could have done rather than terrifying everyone?

That advert scarred me. Wish I'd been more adventurous growing up, but that was always in the back of my mind. It definitely impacted my views about sex.

I can't stop thinking about this programme now we've finished it. So moving.
I too remember the tombstone campaign (late 40's) and the message of not having any unprotected sex, gay or straight.

1. They could have liaised better with the communities and grassroots organisations prioritising outreach and phoneline services, rather than expecting THT to pick up the slack (iirc their number was put on govt leaflets without proper consultation; leaving demand outweighing supply on volunteer-manned helplines).
2. They could have followed the Australian model when it came to setting up needle exchanges - many more, much earlier. Thatcher didn't want to 'promote'/encourage/enable drug addicts.

Thatcher and Reagan were complicit in seeing gay men, sex workers and heroin addicts as expendable - the DDOI campaign came nearly six years after the first case in the UK.

1. The actual info should have been clearer in some of the guidance - rather than arguing over using vocabulary like sheath over condom and trying to avoid terminology like anal sex, they should have stuck to the language from those who knew what they were talking about. The adverts and leaflets although heralded as having cut STDs in general came far too late and actually caused more ignorance/misunderstanding according to some surveys (see Garfield's End of Innocence).
2. Condom ads watersheds could have been lifted.

I am sure others more knowledgeable in the field would have more suggestions. In terms of the ad campaign - it did its job in that all people of a certain age remember it (as do the Australians the Grim Reaper ad) but it caused stigma and demonisation that has been hard to come back from and that stigma has prevented and still prevents people getting tested. So that's the double-edged sword.
Transparency/Stats analysis is difficult - even now, UNAIDS has more estimates of prevalence rates in Holland than in the UK. It is also hard to find stats per demographic per country of deaths in the first wave (whether that is to do with cause of deaths on certificates not being recorded as AIDS-related or just no official monitoring by demgraphic, am not sure) - if you don't have proper stats for interventions by area and are fearful of an exponential national pandemic, you do the broad brush approach.
Norman Fowler (heath sec 81-87) was proud of the DDOI campaign and given Thatcher's opposition to it, maybe he had good cause to be because she didn't want to know. All her family-values driven politics did was to hinder open discussion, perpetuate a guilt-shame cycle and cover up real abuses being carried out by politicians at the time, which she knew about; as well as her protecting James Anderton from an inquiry into his blatantly homophobic commentary. As you might be able to tell, not a fan.

health minister (and obv family-values in '' '')

It was beautiful, breath-taking, funny, heartbreaking and the very best of what TV drama should be. Loved it from start to finish and also have had it on my mind a lot since finishing it. I cry at VERY little drama, but this got to me.

I moved to London in 1994 (I was 24) - so just 3 years after this finishes. I worked in TV and later other media and most of the men I knew and who were my closer circle of friends were gay and completely on the scene. Every week it was either G.A.Y or Heaven for them! I'm lesbian. But this has left me wondering when things began to change, because I really don't recall HIV/AIDS being that visible or talked about. I'm left wondering if it was just my ignorance or if things had changed by then?

www.avert.org/professionals/hiv-around-world/western-central-europe-north-america/uk
2017 stats for anyone interested in that kind of thing I am a nerd, yes

I can't answer that one pebble as I don't know London at all but 94 would only have been 2 years after Freddie died. I was studying in Manchester in the early 90s when many were drinking/clubbing in Canal Street pre QAF (Mantos/Metz/Paradise) and living their lives. Around 93 I remember attending a candlelight vigil/gay men's choir concert with a gorgeous Brazilian bloke who'd lost his partner; so it was still on the radar. I didn't think HAART came in as standard til 97.
You had the film Philadelphia released Feb 94 which brought HIV back to the public's attention. Condoms and lube were being given out in Manchester, I remember that. I was teaching by the Autumn alongside a very inspiring and progressive PSHRE teacher. She sold red ribbons iirc. She also had a box where pupils could put in any questions (and they did!) and she did assemblies with glasses, toothbrushes etc saying you couldn't get AIDS from them; then she got teens to group together to show how sleeping one person who'd slept with another increased risk exponentially. So we were certainly giving out info to teens around that time (I did the box in my lessons, the kids didn't hold back). Am surprised I didn't get parental complaints actually, maybe she fielded them for me.
Maybe your gay friends had already lost people pebble so it was triggering? Maybe they already knew they needed to stay safe so it didn't ever need bringing up? Maybe you were all too busy dancing and getting wasted?
I was in another LTR at that time (he had been a virgin and I was a blood donor and went on the pill) so we never discussed it beyond that. Looking back, it was a case of taking things on trust as far as LTRs went and I got lucky, given that one partner had both lied and cheated on me - but the govt campaigning had certainly put the kibosh on me experimenting/having ONS. No free love/Summer of love for generation X (unless everyone was still doing it but me). Even my father said he felt sorry for us not having the sexual freedom previous generations had had. Simon Garfield made that point: that many gay men didn't want to give up their own hard-won freedoms. The age of consent was 21 ffs - it was only lowered to 18 in 1994 (and not the same as straights i.e 16 until 2001) That was what struck me about Ritchie - yes he was irresponsible but he was also human and authentic and unapologetic - ''That's what people will forget – that it was so much fun.''

I binged watched the last 3 yesterday. Once we saw episode 3 I couldn’t not carry on. Then I couldn’t sleep for ages thinking about it.
I know someone who is HIV+ and he said on FB that it was ‘his story’, he’s early 40s, but not sure when he contracted it (he’s a friend of a friend). Must’ve been a bit later than the It’s a Sin era as they would be early 50s now.

4. Condom ads watersheds could have been lifted.

My daughter was 7 at the time and read the leaflet that came through the door anyway. She asked what a condom was so I explained in general terms. She said 'but wouldn't that stop you having a baby ?' I told her that people also use them for that reason and she asked 'but why would you do it if you didn't want a baby?'.

I think it might have been a mixture of those things Homeschool .

I think I was aware of HIV/AIDS in the wider/societal context, I remember Philadelphia really well (think I still have the soundtrack on CD somewhere!) and I wore a red ribbon... perhaps it was that it was there all around me but 'running in the background'.

I really don't recall anything in my in my 'inner' circle though, which like I say, surprises me given my 'world' at the time. It didn't touch me at all personally, which with hindsight seems more like a lucky escape now. The only HIV+ person I've known is female and caught it much later through heterosexual sex. My lovely boys are in their early 50s now and still going strong, thank God!

The Admiral Duncan pub bombing in '99 was another thing though - I remember texting friends after that to check they weren't in Soho! But that's a different thread altogether.

I binged this yesterday. Very sad. I was born in the 90s so can't really appreciate how this would have been at the time. However, I actually think if the outbreak happened today there would be even more fear than there was then, due to the availability of easy information online via news and social media etc.

@Wishwecouldturnbacktime you are right that information would have spread quicker but we know a lot of information on social media is inaccurate too so the potential for more fear and discrimination would be there as you said.

Or more denial and othering maye?

Watched the second episode on Friday and I can well believe Ritchie, Roscoe etc being so dismissive of AIDS and the fact that they weren't going to catch it.

Disgusting that Colin was sacked from his job because he probably didn't 'play ball' with his boss and his boss also saw the magazines etc. It's a shame that Colin couldn't experience New York nightlife either.

Poor Gloria too, dying of AIDS and then the family trying to erase every trace of him by burning his photos etc.

I'm guessing as a traditional Catholic Scottish family though they'd be even more against homosexuality than non Catholics.

@Wishwecouldturnbacktime

I binged this yesterday. Very sad. I was born in the 90s so can't really appreciate how this would have been at the time. However, I actually think if the outbreak happened today there would be even more fear than there was then, due to the availability of easy information online via news and social media etc.

Surprisingly enough - I was a teenager in the 80's and left school in 1988, there was a lot of media coverage about AIDS, HIV etc. There were a lot of TV, cinema and radio ads, leaflets, articles in magazines and newspapers and TV programmes etc.

To me - it seemed to be down to unprotected sex (so use a condom) but also drug use, and I'm sure transmission was told to us that it was mostly drug users (heroin etc, sharing needles) and gay sex.

In my eyes this put me off drugs - not that I'd really be into them anyway, my younger brother smoked weed and did party drugs when he was 17/18 but none or few of us would be into heroin.

When I was approx 15/16 we had the Grange Hill Zammo storyline and 'Just Say No' tagline which actually did scare a few of us into not using drugs.

There was a lot of information ,but by the time the time the information became readily available ,sadly young men like Colin and Ritchie had already contracted HIV ,I know you can't compare it to COViD but in the first couple of episodes they were very much in denial ,HIV and AIDS was something happening in New York as far as they were concerned it was nothing to do with them ,a bit like some attitudes at the very beginning of the COViD pandemic , obviously the COViD pandemic escalated far more quickly .

@SimonJT

This was a very good night, but more importantly a short but important (and slightly drunk) message.

This was very good.

I watched episodes 1-3 last night and oh my word. Colin.

I was in bits last night. I had a gay flat mate something like 15 years ago and my god, the stories he used to tell me about his nights out in London. Bars in the deepest darkest corners of Vauxhall. I can’t imagine what life would’ve been like for him if he’d been born a few years earlier

I was a child in the 80’s but I do remember the tombstone campaign in the very late 80’s maybe very early 1990’s. But I very much associated it sex, because like a previous poster, for me, the drugs message came via Zammo in Grange Hill and the just say no campaign

I went to Manchester Uni in the mid nineties and I remember the likes of Manto/Metz/ and Paradise - had some amazing nights out. They were the days

But as a parent, one thing that hits me is how the parents reacted to their children. My heart broke for Gloria. How could they literally want to erase everything???

Will finish watching 4 and 5 tonight

Brilliant and heartbreaking

@MabelMoo23
If you were in bits at the end of episode three, steel yourself! Eps four & five aren't much better. Stock up on tissues!

Interesting interview with Olly

www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/olly-alexander-its-a-sin-interview-2021

I was living in London in 1990 to 1992 and as my best friend was gay, I spent lots of time with him in gay nightclubs like Heaven. Like Pebble above, i don't recall HIV and Aids being an issue (obviously knew about it), or worrying about my friend and telling him to practice safe sex. I'm puzzled about this looking back as to why I don't recall being conscious of it. Alas our friendship didn't survive the years so can't ask my friend about it.

I've only read a few pages of the thread so this might have been discussed already but I was quite conflicted by Richie's disclosure that he had continued to have sex with men after his diagnosis, akin to murder potentially. I can understand how this happened but it changed my feelings towards him considerably.

@Forcedoutoflurking

I've only read a few pages of the thread so this might have been discussed already but I was quite conflicted by Richie's disclosure that he had continued to have sex with men after his diagnosis, akin to murder potentially. I can understand how this happened but it changed my feelings towards him considerably.

I may have got this in the wrong order but I thought he didn't get a positive test result until the day he joined the demo. He told his friends he was positive in the police van. Before that he didn't know for sure. He was reckless certainly but not murderous.

Yes he didn't know for sure and he was taking vitamins and antibiotics etc ,he was reckless but then so were the men who chose to have sex with him without protection.

In his final scene with his friends in his hospital bed he told them he'd done this I thought?