Word: splits
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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When Havel resigned the mostly ceremonial office last week, the ground beneath him was shifting. Czechoslovakia may soon split in two -- the Slovaks in the eastern half of the country breaking off to form an independent state, the Bohemians and Moravians in the Czech lands to the west organizing a faster-moving, more entrepreneurial state that might soon integrate with the European Community. In some ways a breakup would be logical. The Slovaks and those in the Czech lands were pieces of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire knit together in 1918, but they have deep differences of background, outlook...
Almost every other dichotomy within the community -- young vs. old, rich vs. poor, radical vs. mainstream, even male vs. female -- has been profoundly influenced by the split between those who are infected and those who are not. Probably the most conspicuous split is generational, says author Neil Miller, whose In Search of Gay America profiles rural and small-town gays and whose new book, Out in the World, depicts gays in a dozen other countries. AIDS divides older gays, the generation most at risk because it was active during the years before people knew about safe sex, from the teens...
Some of the generational split is ideological. The younger gays are more apt to be publicly outspoken about their sexuality and militant about social issues. They provide the bulk of the manpower for ACT-UP and Queer Nation, the two largest militant groups, and they are the gays most likely to endorse such extreme tactics as "outing" -- exposing the secret homosexuality of people who are judged to have hurt the movement or, sometimes, simply to have failed to do enough to help it. Older gay men are more apt to be somewhat closeted, to emphasize working within the system rather...
Economically, AIDS exacerbates the general split in the U.S. between those who have health care and other job benefits and those who do not. For the former group, the chief concern is getting government approval for innovative high-tech treatments that may prolong their lives. For those lacking benefits, the problem is to get care and shelter of any kind. With AIDS treatment often costing well into six figures and patients frequently surviving years while unable to work, those who lack benefits -- or who are manipulated out of them / by employers or insurers -- may find themselves reduced to public charity...
Perhaps the least visible division, if the most profound in its implications, is the split between those who scrupulously practice safe sex and those who make some compromise. Solid statistics are impossible to get. But anecdotally, the second group seems to be growing dangerously. While a few years ago the rate of new infection among gay men seemed to be slowing down, or even declining, studies in San Francisco and elsewhere have raised questions about that. Therapist Abbott briskly describes what many gay men report: "There is an awful lot of safe-sex recidivism. People who know what they...