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Sexological Review 1993, Vol. 1, No. 1
EDITORIAL
AlOS, HERALDING A NEW CODE OF SEXUAL CONDUCT
In his novel The Plague, Albert Camus wrote "There have been as
many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take
people equally by surprise." This is true of AIDS which, for over a
decade now, has become one of the most serious health problems
modern societies must face. It has become a pandemic that is forcing
us to rethink the way we look at sexuality.
The liberation of sexual mores witnessed by industrialized countries
since the 1960s has come to an abrupt stop. In fact, society has even
reevaluated this position because of the increasingly obvious dangers
associated with the risks of HIV transmission.
Erotic expression, which is associated with freedom and pleasure,
and which is not the only way the virus can be transmitted, now has
the potential of becoming a lethal weapon. The notion of prevention
based on biomedical knowledge and responsibility is competing with
antiquated notions of sin, guilt and chastisement.
Are we then witnessing the emergence of a new sexual code
imposed by the threat of AIDS and considering putting new limits on
eroticism, basing ourselves on ethics of responsibility? A survey in
Montreal has not come to the conclusion that an anti-sexual wave has
swept the city with regard to premarital sex, extramarital sex or
homosexuality with the advent of AIDS (Dupras et al., 1989). There is,
however, a heightened awareness of the new lethal potential of
sexuality and of the need to take precautions. In reality, though, not
everyone puts these theories into practice.
At the same time as this biomedical research is being conducted, a
number of questions of a sexological nature are being dealt with
concerning the sexual risk configurations and the underlying
sociopsychological factors, be the y of ethnocultural dimensions
(Maticka-Tyndale and Lévy, 1992) or connected to lifestyles where
sensation seeking, alcohol and drug use all come into play (Lévy et al.,
1993). This complex field where values, perceptions and behaviors
have become entangled needs a theoretical and experimental "sifting"
which requires the work and understanding of sexology researchers
and other professionals as well as health-care providers.
We have chosen to discuss the AIDS problem in the first issue of
the Sexological Review because of the need to better understand this