Editing Human sexuality (section)

==Sociocultural aspects==
[[File:Leffler - WomensLib1970 WashingtonDC.jpg|thumb|right|450 px|A [[Second-wave feminism|Women's Liberation]] march in the U.S. Washington, DC, August 1970. March was from Farrugut Square to Lafayette Park.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003673992/ |title=Women's liberation march from Farrugut Square to Layfette (Lafayette Park) |publisher=Loc.gov |access-date=8 November 2016}}</ref>{{full citation needed|date=February 2016}}]]
[[File:Demonstration, with Gay Liberation Front Banner, c1972 (7374381322).jpg|thumb|right|200 px|A [[Gay Liberation]] march in London, UK, ca. 1972. A Gay Liberation Front banner is visible. Location is believed to be Trafalgar Square.<ref>[http://archives.lse.ac.uk/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=IMAGELIBRARY/1370]</ref>{{full citation needed|date=February 2016}}]]

Human sexuality can be understood as part of the social life of humans, which is governed by implied rules of behavior and the status quo. This narrows the view to groups within a society.<ref name="Rathus, Spencer A. 2007"/>{{page needed|date=February 2016}} The socio-cultural context of society, including the effects of politics and the mass media, influences and forms social norms. Throughout history, social norms have been changing and continue to change as a result of movements such as the sexual revolution and the rise of [[feminism]].<ref name=Escoffier2003>{{cite book |editor=Escoffier, Jeffrey |title=Sexual Revolution |publisher=Running Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-1-56025-525-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781560255253 }}</ref><ref name="Friedan">{{cite news|title=Betty Friedan, Who Ignited Cause in 'Feminine Mystique,' Dies at 85 |url=http://www-nc.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/national/05friedan.html |work=The New York Times |date=5 February 2006 |access-date=12 October 2009}}{{subscription}}</ref>

=== Sex education ===
The age and manner in which children are informed of issues of sexuality is a matter of sex education. The school systems in almost all developed countries have some form of sex education, but the nature of the issues covered varies widely. In some countries, such as Australia and much of Europe, age-appropriate sex education often begins in pre-school, whereas other countries leave sex education to the pre-teenage and teenage years.<ref>{{cite news|title=Think Sex |publisher=TheAge.com.au |access-date=11 October 2009|url=https://www.theage.com.au/news/education-news/think-sex/2006/05/28/1148754861223.html}}</ref> Sex education covers a range of topics, including the physical, mental, and social aspects of sexual behavior. Geographic location also plays a role in society's opinion of the appropriate age for children to learn about sexuality. According to ''TIME'' magazine and CNN,{{full citation needed|date=February 2016}} 74% of teenagers in the United States reported that their major sources of sexual information were their peers and the media, compared to 10% who named their parents or a sex education course.<ref name="ReferenceA" />{{page needed|date=February 2016}}

In the United States, most sex education programs encourage [[Abstinence-only sex education|abstinence]], the choice to restrain oneself from sexual activity. In contrast, [[comprehensive sex education]] aims to encourage students to take charge of their own sexuality and know how to have safe, healthy, and pleasurable sex if and when they choose to do so.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/report_downloads/demystifying-data-handouts_0.pdf|title=A Definition of Comprehensive Sexuality Education|last=Panchaud|first=Christine|date=2016|website=Guttmacher Institute}}</ref>

Proponents for an abstinence-only education believe that teaching a comprehensive curriculum would encourage teenagers to have sex, while proponents for comprehensive sex education argue that many teenagers will have sex regardless and should be equipped with knowledge of how to have sex responsibly. According to data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, many teens who intend to be abstinent fail to do so, and when these teenagers do have sex, many do not use safe sex practices such as contraceptives.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bearman|first=Peter|date=2001|title=Promising the Future: Virginity Pledges and First Intercourse|journal=American Journal of Sociology|volume=106|issue=4|pages=859–912|doi=10.1086/320295|s2cid=142684938|url=https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8ZG73VN/download}}</ref>

===Sexuality in history===
{{Main|History of human sexuality}}
{{one source | section|date=February 2016}}
<!--These images are not discussed in the text, so their relevance to the content us unclear.
[[File:Wien NHM Venus von Willendorf.jpg|thumb|upright|The prehistoric [[Venus of Willendorf]].]]
[[File:Min.jpg|upright|thumb|[[Min (god)|Min]]: the ancient Egyptian god of fertility.]]
-->

Sexuality has been an important, vital part of human existence throughout history.<ref name="ReferenceC">{{cite book | author = Stearns, Peter N. | year =  2009| title = Sexuality in World History | isbn = 978-0-415-77777-3 }}{{full citation needed|date=February 2016}}</ref>{{page needed|date=February 2016}} All civilizations have managed sexuality through sexual standards, representations, and behavior.<ref name="ReferenceC"/>{{page needed|date=February 2016}}

Before the rise of agriculture, groups of hunter-gatherers and nomadic groups inhabited the world. These groups had less restrictive sexual standards that emphasized sexual pleasure and enjoyment, but with definite rules and constraints. Some underlying continuities or key regulatory standards contended with the tension between recognition of pleasure, interest, and the need to procreate for the sake of social order and economic survival. Hunter-gatherers also placed high value on certain types of sexual symbolism.

A common tension in hunter-gatherer societies is expressed in their art, which emphasized male sexuality and prowess, but also blurred gender lines in sexual matters. One example of these male-dominated portrayals is the [[Egyptian creation myth]], in which the sun god [[Atum]] masturbates in the water, creating the [[Nile River]]. In [[Sumerian religion|Sumerian]] myth, the gods' semen filled the [[Tigris]].<ref name="ReferenceC"/>{{page needed|date=February 2016}}

Once agricultural societies emerged, the sexual framework shifted in ways that persisted for many millennia in much of Asia, Africa, Europe, and parts of the Americas. One common characteristic new to these societies was the collective supervision of sexual behavior due to urbanization and the growth of population and population density. Children would commonly witness parents having sex because many families shared the same sleeping quarters. Due to land ownership, determination of children's paternity became important, and society and family life became patriarchal.{{Citation needed|date=May 2020}} These changes in sexual ideology were used to control female sexuality and to differentiate standards by gender. With these ideologies, sexual possessiveness and increases in jealousy emerged. 

While retaining the precedents of earlier civilizations, each classical civilization established a somewhat distinctive approach to gender, artistic expression of sexual beauty, and to behaviors such as homosexuality. Some of these distinctions are portrayed in sex manuals, which were also common among civilizations in China, Greece, Rome, Persia, and India; each has its own sexual history.<ref name="ReferenceC"/>{{page needed|date=February 2016}}

Before the [[High Middle Ages]], homosexual acts appear to have been ignored or tolerated by the Christian church.<ref name="psychology.ucdavis.edu">{{cite web|url=http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_mental_health.html |title=Homosexuality and Mental Health |publisher=Psychology.ucdavis.edu |access-date=30 June 2013}}</ref> During the 12th century, hostility toward homosexuality began to spread throughout religious and secular institutions. By the end of the 19th century, it was viewed as a pathology.<ref name="psychology.ucdavis.edu"/>

During the beginning of the [[industrial revolution]] of the 18th and 19th centuries, many changes in sexual standards occurred. New artificial birth control devices such as the [[condom]] and [[diaphragm (contraceptive)|diaphragm]] were introduced. Doctors started claiming a new role in sexual matters, urging that their advice was crucial to sexual morality and health. New pornographic industries grew and Japan adopted its first laws against homosexuality. In Western societies, the definition of homosexuality was constantly changing; Western influence on other cultures became more prevalent. New contacts created serious issues around sexuality and sexual traditions. There were also major shifts in sexual behavior. During this period, puberty began occurring at younger ages, so a new focus on adolescence as a time of sexual confusion and danger emerged. There was a new focus on the purpose of marriage; it was increasing regarded as being for love rather than only for economics and reproduction.<ref name="ReferenceC"/>{{page needed|date=February 2016}}

[[Havelock Ellis]] and Sigmund Freud adopted more accepting stances toward homosexuality; Ellis said homosexuality was inborn and therefore not immoral, not a disease, and that many homosexuals made significant contributions to society.<ref name="psychology.ucdavis.edu"/> Freud wrote that all human beings as capable of becoming either heterosexual or homosexual; neither orientation was assumed to be innate.<ref name="King, B. 2009">{{cite book | author = King, Bruce M. | year = 2009 | title = Human Sexuality Today | edition = 6th | location = Upper Saddle River, NJ| publisher = Pearson Education }}{{full citation needed|date=February 2016}}</ref>{{page needed|date=February 2016}} According to Freud, a person's orientation depended on the resolution of the Oedipus complex. He said male homosexuality resulted when a young boy had an authoritarian, rejecting mother and turned to his father for love and affection, and later to men in general. He said female homosexuality developed when a girl loved her mother and identified with her father, and became fixated at that stage.<ref name="King, B. 2009"/>{{page needed|date=February 2016}}

[[Alfred Kinsey]] initiated the modern era of sex research. He collected data from questionnaires given to his students at [[Indiana University]], but then switched to personal interviews about sexual behaviors. Kinsey and his colleagues sampled 5,300 men and 5,940 women. He found that most people masturbated, that many engaged in [[oral sex]], that women are capable of having multiple orgasms, and that many men had had some type of homosexual experience in their lifetimes. <ref name="ReferenceA"/>{{page needed|date=February 2016}}

Before [[William Masters]], a physician, and [[Virginia E. Johnson|Virginia Johnson]], a [[behavioral scientist]], the study of anatomy and physiological studies of sex was still limited to experiments with laboratory animals. Masters and Johnson started to directly observe and record the physical responses in humans that are engaged in sexual activity under laboratory settings. They observed 10,000 episodes of sexual acts between 312 men and 382 women. This led to methods of treating clinical problems and abnormalities. Masters and Johnson opened the first sex therapy clinic in 1965. In 1970, they described their therapeutic techniques in their book, ''[[Human Sexual Inadequacy]]''.{{full citation needed|date=February 2016}}<ref name="ReferenceA"/>{{page needed|date=February 2016}}

In the first edition of The [[Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders]], the [[American Psychological Association|American Psychiatric Association]] classified homosexuality as a mental illness, and more specifically, a "sociopathic personality disturbance".<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Drescher|first=Jack|date=4 December 2015|title=Out of DSM: Depathologizing Homosexuality|journal=Behavioral Sciences|volume=5|issue=4|pages=565–575|doi=10.3390/bs5040565|issn=2076-328X|pmc=4695779|pmid=26690228}}</ref> This definition remained the professional understanding of homosexuality until 1973 when the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from their list of diagnoses for mental disorders.<ref name=":1" /> Through her research of heterosexual and homosexual men, [[Evelyn Hooker]] revealed that there was no correlation between homosexuality and psychological maladjustment,<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/02/myth-buster|title=The myth buster|work=apa.org|access-date=30 October 2019}}</ref> and her findings played a pivotal role in shifting the scientific community away from the perspective that homosexuality was something that needed to be treated or cured.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

=== Sexuality, colonialism, and race ===
European conquerors/colonists found sexuality out of their norm about 1516 when [[Vasco Núñez de Balboa]], a Spanish explorer, discovered indigenous people in Central America with different sexual practices. Balboa found some indigenous men {{clarify|text=dressed up as women,|reason=It is unclear whether this means dressed in what the indigenes considered female attire or means dressed in what Balboa considered female attire.|date=April 2020}} resulting in him feeding forty of these men to his dogs for having different sexual practices. In North America and the United States, Europeans have used claims of sexual immorality to justify discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Dictionary of American History|last=Turner|first=William B.|publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons|year=2003|location=New York, NY|pages=328–333}}</ref>{{full citation needed|date=January 2020}}

Scholars also study the ways in which [[colonialism]] has affected sexuality today and argue that due to [[racism]] and [[slavery in the United States|slavery]] it has been dramatically changed from the way it had previously been understood.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3KBFhDytERkC|title=Women of Color and Feminism|last1=Rojas|first1=Maythee|date=2009|publisher=Seal Press|isbn=978-1-58005-272-6|edition=1st|ref=https://books.google.com/books?id=3KBFhDytERkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false}}</ref>

In her book, ''Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Gender, Race, and Morality in Colonial Asia'', Laura Stoler investigates how the Dutch used sexual control and gender-specific sexual sanctions to distinguish between the rulers from the ruled and enforce colonial domination onto the people of Indonesia.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Gender, Race, and Morality in Colonial Asia|last=Stoler|first=Ann|publisher=University of California Press|year=2002}}</ref>

In America, there are 155 native tribes that are recorded to have embraced [[two-spirit]] people within their tribes, but the total number of tribes could be greater than what is documented.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America|last=Roscoe|first=Will|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=1998}}</ref>  Two-spirit people were and still are members of communities who do not fall under Western gender categories of male and female, but rather under a "third gender" category.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Wilson|first=Trista|date=2011|journal=American Indian Law Review|volume=36|issue=1|pages=161–188|issn=0094-002X|jstor=41495705|title=Changed Embraces, Changes Embraced? Renouncing the Heterosexist Majority in Favor of a Return to Traditional Two-Spirit Culture}}</ref> This system of gender contradicts both the gender binary and the assertion that sex and gender are the same.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Becoming Two-Spirit: Gay Identity and Social Acceptance in Indian Country|last=Gilley|first=Brian|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|year=2006}}</ref> Instead of conforming to traditional roles of men and women, two-spirit fill a special niche in their communities.

For example, two-spirited people are commonly revered for possessing special wisdom and spiritual powers.<ref name=":0" /> Two-spirited people also can take part in marriages, either monogamous and polygamous ones.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Living the Spirit: a Gay American Indian Anthology|last=Roscoe|first=Will|publisher=St. Martins Press|year=1988}}</ref> Historically, European colonizers perceived relationships involving two-spirited people as homosexuality, and therefore believed in the moral inferiority of native people.<ref name=":0" /> In reaction, colonizers began to impose their own religious and social norms on indigenous communities, diminishing the role of two-spirit people in native cultures.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jacobi|first=Jeffrey|date=2006|title=Two Spirits, Two Eras, Same Sex: For a Traditionalist Perspective on Native American Tribal Same-Sex Marriage Policy|journal=University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform}}</ref> Within reservations, the Religious Crime Code of the 1880s explicitly aimed to "aggressively attack Native sexual and marriage practices".<ref name=":0" /> The goal of colonizers was for native peoples to assimilate into Euro-American ideals of family, sexuality, gender expression, and more.<ref name=":0" />

The link between constructed sexual meanings and racial ideologies has been studied. According to Joane Nagel, sexual meanings are constructed to maintain racial-ethnic-national boundaries by the denigration of "others" and regulation of sexual behavior within the group. She writes, "both adherence to and deviation from such approved behaviors, define and reinforce racial, ethnic, and nationalist regimes".<ref name=Nagel>{{cite journal |author=Nagel, Joane |date=August 2000 |title=Ethnicity and Sexuality |journal=Annual Review of Sociology |volume=26 |pages=107–133 |doi=10.1146/annurev.soc.26.1.107|s2cid=145064276 |url=https://semanticscholar.org/paper/ddb5a444cf727ad2f8209449dc14839ad38d025a }}</ref><ref name=Nagel2>{{cite journal|author=Nagel, Joane |year=2001 |title=Racial, Ethnic, and National Boundaries: Sexual Intersections and Symbolic Interactions |journal=Symbolic Interaction |volume=24 | issue = 2  |pages=123–139 |doi=10.1525/si.2001.24.2.123}}</ref> In the United States people of color face the effects of colonialism in different ways with stereotypes such as the Mammy, and Jezebel for Black women; [[Stereotypes of East Asians in the United States|lotus blossom, and dragon lady]] for Asian women; and the "spicy" Latina.<ref name="Mammy Jezebel and Sistahs on Racism.org">{{cite web|last1=Yarbrough|first1=Marilyn|last2=Bennet|first2=Crystal|title=Mammy Jezebel and Sistahs|url=http://racism.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1277:aawomen01a&catid=72&Itemid=215|website=Race, Racism and the Law!|publisher=racism.org|access-date=30 November 2015|ref=http://racism.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1277:aawomen01a&catid=72&Itemid=215}}</ref> These stereotypes contrast with standards of sexual conservatism, creating a dichotomy that dehumanizes and demonizes the stereotyped groups. An example of a stereotype that lies at the intersection of racism, classism, and misogyny is the archetype of the “[[welfare queen]].” Cathy Cohen describes how the "welfare queen" stereotype demonizes poor black single mothers for deviating from conventions surrounding family structure.<ref>{{Citation|chapter=Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens|date=2005|pages=21–51|publisher=Duke University Press|doi=10.1215/9780822387220-003|isbn=9780822336297|title=Black Queer Studies|s2cid=48259239|chapter-url=https://semanticscholar.org/paper/dfe95a5259e4f128f476dc444f07ae6e5369753b|last1=Cohen|first1=Cathy J.}}</ref>

===Reproductive and sexual rights===
{{Further|Reproductive health|Reproductive rights}}
[[Reproductive and sexual rights]] encompass the concept of applying [[human rights]] to issues related to reproduction and sexuality.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/gender_rights/sexual_health/en/ |title=WHO &#124; Gender and human rights |publisher=Who.int |date=31 January 2002 |access-date=5 August 2014}}</ref> This concept is a modern one, and remains controversial since it deals, directly and indirectly, with issues such as [[contraception]], [[LGBT rights]], [[abortion]], [[sex education]], freedom to choose a partner, freedom to decide whether to be sexually active or not, right to bodily integrity, freedom to decide whether or not, and when, to have children.<ref>
{{cite journal |last=Stark |first=Barbara |year=2011 |title=The Women's Convention, Reproductive Rights, and the Reproduction of Gender |journal=Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy  |volume=18 |issue=261 |pages=261–304  |publisher=Duke University School of Law |access-date=3 November 2014 |url=http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1189&context=djglp}}</ref><ref>
{{cite journal |author1=Sandfort, Theo G.M. |author2=Ehrhardt, Anke A. |date=June 2004 |title=Sexual Health: A Useful Public Health Paradigm or a Moral Imperative? |journal=Archives of Sexual Behavior |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=181–187 |publisher=Springer Science and Business Media B.V. |pmid=15129037 |access-date=3 November 2014 |url=http://mph.ufl.edu/files/2012/01/session4jan22Sandfort2004.pdf |doi=10.1023/b:aseb.0000026618.16408.e0 |s2cid=36553310 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140531124301/http://mph.ufl.edu/files/2012/01/session4jan22Sandfort2004.pdf |archive-date=31 May 2014  }}</ref> These are all global issues that exist in all cultures to some extent, but manifest differently depending on the specific contexts.

According to the Swedish government, "sexual rights include the right of all people to decide over their own bodies and sexuality" and "reproductive rights comprise the right of individuals to decide on the number of children they have and the intervals at which they are born."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.regeringen.se/content/1/c6/06/14/89/712f7e0c.pdf|title=Sweden's international policy on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights|publisher=Sweden Ministry of Foreign Affairs|year=2006|access-date=3 November 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140531105838/http://www.regeringen.se/content/1/c6/06/14/89/712f7e0c.pdf|archive-date=31 May 2014}}</ref> Such rights are not accepted in all cultures, with practices such criminalization of consensual sexual activities (such as those related to homosexual acts and sexual acts outside marriage), acceptance of [[forced marriage]] and [[child marriage]], failure to criminalize all non-consensual sexual encounters (such as [[marital rape]]), [[female genital mutilation]], or restricted availability of contraception, being common around the world.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/news/sexual-and-reproductive-rights-under-threat-worldwide-2014-03-06 |title=Sexual and reproductive rights under threat worldwide &#124; Amnesty International |publisher=Amnesty.org |access-date=5 August 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/women-s-rights/women-s-health-sexual-and-reproductive-rights/my-body-my-rights |title=My Body, My Rights! |publisher=Amnesty International |year=2013 |access-date=3 November 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407051912/http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/women-s-rights/women-s-health-sexual-and-reproductive-rights/my-body-my-rights |archive-date=7 April 2014 }}</ref>

=== Stigma of contraceptives in the U.S. ===
In 1915, Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/goldman/MeetEmmaGoldman/birthcontrolpioneer.html|title=Birth Control Pioneer|website=lib.berkeley.edu|access-date=25 July 2019}}</ref> leaders of the birth control movement, began to spread information regarding contraception in opposition to the laws, such as the Comstock Law,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/comstock-law-1873|title=The Comstock Law (1873) {{!}} The Embryo Project Encyclopedia|website=embryo.asu.edu|access-date=25 July 2019}}</ref> that demonized it. One of their main purposes was to assert that the birth control movement was about empowering women with personal reproductive and economic freedom for those who could not afford to parent a child or simply did not want one. Goldman and Sanger saw it necessary to educate people as contraceptives were quickly being stigmatized as a population control tactic due to being a policy limiting births, disregarding that this limitation did not target ecological, political, or large economic conditions.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gordon|first=L.|date=1974|title=The politics of population: birth control and the eugenics movement|journal=Radical America|volume=8|issue=4|pages=61–98|issn=0033-7617|pmid=11615086}}</ref> This stigma targeted lower-class women who had the most need of access to contraception.

Birth control finally began to lose stigma in 1936 when the ruling of U.S. v. One Package<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/united-states-v-one-package-japanese-pessaries-1936|title=United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries (1936) {{!}} The Embryo Project Encyclopedia|website=embryo.asu.edu|access-date=25 July 2019}}</ref> declared that prescribing contraception to save a person's life or well-being was no longer illegal under the Comstock Law. Although opinions varied on when birth control should be available to women, by 1938, there were 347 birth control clinics in the United States but advertising their services remained illegal.

The stigma continued to lose credibility as First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt publicly showed her support for birth control through the four terms her husband served (1933–1945). However, it was not until 1966 that the Federal Government began to fund family planning and subsidized birth control services for lower-class women and families at the order of President Lyndon B. Johnson. This funding continued after 1970 under the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4847a1.htm|title=Achievements in Public Health, 1900–1999: Family Planning|website=cdc.gov|access-date=25 July 2019}}</ref> Today, all Health Insurance Marketplace plans are required to cover all forms of contraception, including sterilization procedures, as a result of The Affordable Care Act signed by President Barack Obama in 2010.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/affordable-care-act/|title=Affordable Care Act (ACA) – HealthCare.gov Glossary|website=HealthCare.gov|access-date=25 July 2019}}</ref>

=== Stigma and activism during the AIDS epidemic ===
In 1981, doctors diagnosed the first reported cases of [[HIV/AIDS|AIDS]] in America. The disease disproportionately affected and continues to affect gay and bisexual men, especially black and Latino men.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.kff.org/hivaids/fact-sheet/the-hivaids-epidemic-in-the-united-states-the-basics/ |title=The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in the United States: The Basics |website=The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation |access-date=30 October 2019}}</ref> The Reagan administration is criticized for its apathy towards the AIDS epidemic, and audio recordings reveal that Ronald Reagan's press secretary Larry Speakes viewed the epidemic as a joke, mocking AIDS by calling it the "gay plague".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.vox.com/2015/12/1/9828348/ronald-reagan-hiv-aids|title=The Reagan administration's unbelievable response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic|last=Lopez|first=German|date=1 December 2015|website=Vox|access-date=30 October 2019}}</ref> The epidemic also carried stigma coming from religious influences. For example, Cardinal Krol voiced that AIDS was "an act of vengeance against the sin of homosexuality", which clarifies the specific meaning behind the pope's mention of "the moral source of AIDS."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=POIRIER|first=RICHARD|date=1988|title=AIDS and Traditions of Homophobia|journal=Social Research|volume=55|issue=3|pages=461–475|issn=0037-783X|jstor=40970515}}</ref>

[[HIV/AIDS activism|Activism]] during the AIDS crisis focused on promoting safe sex practices to raise awareness that the disease could be prevented. The "Safe Sex is Hot Sex" campaign, for example, aimed to promote the use of condoms.<ref name="Geiling">{{Cite web|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-confusing-and-at-times-counterproductive-1980s-response-to-the-aids-epidemic-180948611/|title=The Confusing and At-Times Counterproductive 1980s Response to the AIDS Epidemic|last=Geiling|first=Natasha|website=Smithsonian|access-date=30 October 2019}}</ref> Campaigns by the U.S. government, however, diverged from advocacy of safe sex. In 1987, Congress even denied federal funding from awareness campaigns that "[promoted] or [encouraged], directly or indirectly, homosexual activities".<ref name="Geiling"/> Instead, campaigns by the government primarily relied on scare tactics in order to instill fear in men who had sex with other men.<ref name="Geiling"/>

In addition to prevention campaigns, activists also sought to counteract narratives that led to the "social death" for people living with AIDS.<ref name="Wright 1788–1798">{{Cite journal|last=Wright|first=Joe|date=15 August 2013|title=Only Your Calamity: The Beginnings of Activism by and for People With AIDS|journal=American Journal of Public Health|volume=103|issue=10|pages=1788–1798|doi=10.2105/AJPH.2013.301381|issn=0090-0036|pmc=3780739|pmid=23948013}}</ref> [[Gay men]] from San Francisco and New York City created the Denver Principles, a foundational document that demanded the rights, agency, and dignity of people living with AIDS.<ref name="Wright 1788–1798"/>

In his article "Emergence of Gay Identity and Gay Social Movements in Developing Countries", Matthew Roberts discusses how international AIDS prevention campaigns created opportunities for gay men to interact with other openly gay men from other countries.<ref name="Roberts 243–264">{{Cite journal|last=Roberts|first=Matthew W.|date=April 1995|title=Emergence of Gay Identity and Gay Social Movements in Developing Countries: The AIDS Crisis as Catalyst|journal=Alternatives: Global, Local, Political|volume=20|issue=2|pages=243–264|doi=10.1177/030437549502000205|s2cid=140772471|issn=0304-3754}}</ref> These interactions allowed western gay "culture" to be introduced to gay men in countries where homosexuality wasn't an important identifier. Thus, group organizers self-identified as gay more and more, creating the basis for further development of gay consciousness in different countries.<ref name="Roberts 243–264"/>