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Melancholia and Moralism: Essays on AIDS and Queer
Douglas Crimp
MIT Press
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Looking back, after almost two decades of the AIDS epidemic, it's amazing how little of real worth has been written about AIDS or its politics during that time. Cindy Patton's Sex and Germs was a defining moment in the early eighties as was Simon Watney's Policing Desire. Larry Kramer's Reports from the Holocaust­ despite its idiosyncratic crankiness­ was important, as were a few others. But for the most part non-fiction about AIDS was a severe disappointment. (Novels such as Dale Peck's Martin and John, Sarah Schulman's People in Trouble, and Rabih Almandine's KoolAIDS, to name only a few, did much better, as did some films and videos.) That's why it's a joy to have Douglas Crimp's collection of 16 essays, Melancholia and Moralism: Essays on AIDS and Queer Politics, which bring together most of his insightful, pungent, and perceptive thoughts about the epidemic, as well as queer art and politics.

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These pieces­ most of which were originally given as speeches or published in journals between 1987 and 1995­ are a wonderful overview of radical thinking. Take the simple observation "that AIDS education campaigns suggest that knowledge about AIDS is readily available, easily acquired, and undisputed," that once you find out the facts, you'll be fine. This commonplace was readily accepted both in the gay community and outside. Yet, as Crimp points out: "Anyone who has sought to lean the 'facts,' however, knows just how hard it is to get them." And, of course, they are usually in the gay press which is hardly supported by any sections of the mainstream. Crimp's simple revelations of the obvious­ there are no "undisputed" AIDS facts­ hits at the heart of why it's been so difficult to have productive discussions about AIDS.

Crimp's tone is academic, but he's unafraid to take on controversial topics, as in his 1987 essay "How to Have Promiscuity in an Epidemic." Here he points out the deeply entrenched anti-sex attitudes lurking in Randy Shilts's best-seller And the Band Played On, and his promotion of the idea that Patient Zero­ a symbol of deadly gay male promiscuity and irresponsibility. Of course the straight media adored the idea that gay male sexuality was the root of endless death. Crimp is also just a little less harsh on Larry Kramer's play The Normal Heart, noting that the enthusiastic heterosexual public's response was emblematic of essential disdain for gay lives: "How is it that for four years the deaths of thousands of gay men could leave the dominant media entirely unmoved, but Larry Kramer's play could make them weep?" And he has observant, words about Andrew Sullivan's New York Times cover story "When Plagues End: Notes on the Twilight of an Epidemic," in which Crimp claims that "Sullivan's reliance on magical thinking to vanquish both homophobia and AIDS... is mere wish-fulfillment" based on Sullivan's own identification with dominant culture and conservative politics.

But as critical as he can be, Crimp also brings compassion to his analyses. His comparison, for instance, of Sullivan's AIDS status and Crimp's own recent HIV infection is moving and insightful. Crimp's essays, many written in the heat of acrimonious debates, are still as strong and forceful today as they were when­ as unbelievable as it may seem­ AIDS, life, and queer politics seemed simpler.

Author Profile:  Michael Bronski
	Michael Bronski is the author of Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility and The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom. He writes frequently on sex, books, movies, and culture, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
	Email:	mabronski@aol.com