For many people, AIDS is like the bomb, acid rain or international drug smuggling. All of them seem to have two things in common. First, they might wreck life as you know it, or so you read in the news. Second, they have nothing to do with you personally so there's no sense thinking about them.

The bomb? That's between those folks that run governments. Acid rain? That's between chemical companies and environmental scientists. Drug operations? That's between criminals and cops. AIDS? That's between doctors and—well, you know—those strange people with strange sexual habits. All those things are tragic. But they're not your concern.

That's an understandable way of thinking because it's easy. It even seems to make sense: Don't waste time on things you can't change. I've thought that way about all those issues many times. But not lately.

It's a mistaken way to think. And we all have to change it.

This Youth Update is about AIDS. In some places it will get very blunt. So I'm asking you right here at the beginning to put away two attitudes and reactions that many people have. Maybe you have them, maybe you don't. If you want them back at the end, that's your decision. But for now, please put them aside. One is: "Nothing to do with me." The other is: "Oh, that's disgusting" and the cheap jokes that go with it.

AIDS: Four Ways

You've already heard many things about AIDS. Some things you hear are true and many aren't. There are still some areas of uncertainty about AIDS. Even professionals in the field use phrases like "based on current evidence."

But it's not true that experts are mainly guessing whenever they talk about AIDS. They know many things for certain about it. Just in case you've been thinking "this is none of my business" and have tuned out, here are some rock-bottom basics.

When and where did AIDS get started? There are some theories, but we don't know. What matters is that it's here. It's been reported in over 100 countries. The World Health Organization estimates that the number of infected people around the globe could reach 100 million by the end of 1990. Just 10 years before, remember, the disease didn't even have an official name! The Surgeon General has stated that by 1992 nearly everyone in the country will know someone who has been affected by AIDS: It's an epidemic.

This epidemic touches sorne people directly with AIDS, while others develop what is known as AIDS Related Complex or ARC. This seems to be an earlier stage of the disease. It's still not known whether or not everyone who develops ARC will eventually develop AIDS. It's still not known whether a person can be infected but never develop either ARC or AIDS. Researchers have observed that if it is possible, it's a very small possibility.

You may have heard that AIDS is a difficult disease to catch and that the AIDS virus, officially known as HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is fragile and weak. That's true in the sense that outside the human body the HIV very quickly dies. That's the reason you cannot catch AIDS from any of the following sources: bathtubs, hot tubs, shower rooms, swimming pools, toilet seats, bars of soap, towels, wash cloths, telephone receivers, dinner plates, glasses, silverware or mosquito bites. Nor can you get AIDS by sitting next to people with AIDS, breathing the same air as them, touching or hugging them.

Exchange of body fluids—AIDS has made that phrase almost famous because it's the only way you can get AIDS. There are four ways this can happen for certain.

One, fortunately, has been eliminated: receiving a blood transfusion. Since 1985, all donated blood has been strictly tested for HIV. Any blood you get now is clean. And you can't get AIDS from giving blood.

A second way is, I hope, a billion miles away from the way you live your life: sharing an intravenous needle to shoot up drugs. If the needle has been used by someone carrying HIV (and that person probably doesn't know it, as we'll explain later), it's the most efficient way there is of getting AIDS.

A third is from mother to child at birth. If a mother has HIV, there seems to be about a 33-50 percent chance that it will be transmitted to her baby. This may occur while the baby is in the womb or during the birthing process when the baby is exposed to large amounts of blood.

Fourth, the one you're most concerned about: sexual contact, either oral, rectal or vaginal sexual contact. This is where we need to sort out many false ideas from true ones.

How Sex Spreads AIDS

Many people still consider AIDS a homosexual or gay disease. The majority of today's AIDS patients are homosexual or bisexual men and their female partners. Transmitting the AIDS virus sexually has absolutely nothing to do with being homosexual or bisexual. It's not that gay people have a body chemistry weakness which makes them more likely to give or get AIDS.

Here is how it happens, with both homosexual and heterosexual people.

For someone to be infected with HIV, the virus has to enter that person's bloodstream. Once that has happened, however, the virus soon becomes present in other body fluids besides blood. It spreads particularly to sexual body fluids: the semen of the male and the vaginal secretions of the female.

All it takes to transmit HIV is for any of these liquids—blood, semen, vaginal secretions—to find a tiny opening into the bloodstream of another person. And that is fairly easy. In particular, the rectum, the mucous membranes of the mouth, or the vagina may have tiny ruptures or breaks—not enough to cause a flow of blood, not enough for the person even to be aware of. These tears may allow the AIDS virus to enter the bloodstream.

Deep or "French" kissing may be a route of transmission for the AIDS virus if a partner has open lesions in the mouth where exposure to blood or infected semen may occur.

Time-Lapse Epidemic

Once infection has taken place, there can be a huge time-lapse before the infected person is aware that it happened. That's one of the reasons for the incredibly rapid spread of AIDS.

With many diseases caused by a virus, the infected person knows it quickly because the symptoms appear quickly. When a cold virus gets into your system, you develop a stuffy and runny nose and all that in a matter of hours. But the AIDS virus is not like the cold virus. For one thing, it never goes away. And it's not a matter of hours before you know you have it—it can be a matter of years before symptoms occur!

We used to think that blood tests for HIV would show almost immediately that a person was infected. Current research indicates that 98 percent of those infected will test reactive or positive within three months. It can be up to 10 years—maybe more—before they show any symptoms of the disease!

During that time, they look fine, feel fine, act fine...but they can transmit HIV to any sex partner they have. So without realizing it, the AIDS carrier can transmit HIV to any sex partner he or she has during that time. All of those sex partners then become carriers of the virus to anyone with whom they have sex.

That's why in this age of AIDS you hear the caution, "When you have sex with someone (anyone), you're also having sex with the other partners that person has had."

And yes, one instance of sexual intercourse is enough. Not long ago, The New York Times carried the story of a young, professional woman who had a single sexual encounter with a man who later died of AIDS—and who gave it to her.

AIDS is fatal. Along the way, many other diseases and conditions can set in. Certain types of pneumonia and skin cancer which are uncommon in general are very common among people with AIDS. They are called "opportunistic diseases" because they take advantage of the body's drastically weakened immune system. Death frequently comes as a result of one of these diseases.

A ray of hope comes from studies done with the drug AZT. No scientist expects it to be a cure; an actual cure seems to be as far away as ever. But some studies seem to indicate that if a person with HIV infection takes the drug AZT, it takes longer for the symptoms of ARC or AIDS to develop. AZT seems to slow the progression of the disease.

Some experts hope that AZT and/or related drugs may make AIDS a "chronic manageable" disease, at least for some people. The person will always have it and may even feel sick some of the time but will lead a long, quality life.

You Got an Attitude?

Some people seem to be almost glad about this epidemic: "AIDS'll teach those scummy bed hoppers and those twisted perverts a thing or two." Some people even link it up with God: "It's God's punishment for doing horrible things, plain and simple; people with AIDS deserve every bit of it." Or, "God is doing a divine power play to wake us up by sending AIDS. We'd better start listening."

"AIDS seems to bring out either the best or the worst in people," says Linda Seiter, Executive Director of the AIDS Volunteers of Cincinnati. "I've discovered some really wonderful and some really rotten attitudes about AIDS myself."

What's really low is such a vengeful view of God.

Using AIDS to try to scare young people into not having sex doesn't seem like a very moral argument either: "See? We know what we're talking about! Just look what can happen! Read those statistics—and if you still sleep around, you're dead!"

To put it mildly, I don't think that approach is what Christian morality is all about. But there's an undeniable kernel of truth in it. It's no longer just religious leaders and religion teachers who are saying, "Don't sleep around." We now have public health officials and people who aren't a bit religious saying, "If you want to be completely safe, abstinence is the only way. Abstain until you meet someone who has also abstained—and then share sex only with that person."

Others think in terms of "safe sex." This has put some Christian sex-educators in a bind. Do we or do we not discuss condoms and "safe sex" practices within these Christian walls? Holding an AIDS discussion without mentioning such things seems to be less than honest. But we also have to mention that they only make casual, sleep-around sex somewhat safer than without them—but definitely not safe altogether.

We need to think in larger terms than that. If the main things on our minds when we think of sex are fear of getting a disease and ways to protect ourselves from it, something has really gone wrong with our view of intimacy and love.

In a way, AIDS is no different than other consequences of casual, for-thrills-only sex. When people use people, someone gets hurt. And it's not always just the ones originally involved. The consequences often spread later to innocent others who weren't even around.

Let's take an obvious case—a girl who is abused by a man or date-raped by a boyfriend she fears. The emotional damage may lead her to drugs or other self-destructive escapes. She may find it difficult to express herself sexually when she is married. The children she has later may suffer if her capacity to love and to give has been damaged.

Another example: The teenager who is pressured by peers into sex-for-the-sake-of-reputation frequently ends up feeling used and cheated, and therefore a good candidate for self-destructive ways of trying to get revenge on life in general.

Those are all varieties of the same thing—spreading pain and destruction by means of selfish sex. Spreading AIDS is only one way (but a particularly lethal one) of doing that.

Christians are pledged not to set any kind of immediate or long-term damage in motion. That includes respecting our own and others' sexuality. We don't risk hurting either ourselves or others just to give our nerve endings a joy ride or to exercise power over others. And this respectful behavior isn't an extra, something you might consider if you want to be an especially saintly, heroic Christian. It's basic to being Christian.

But people don't always listen to the right voices; people make mistakes. Some of these mistakes cause AIDS.

When that happens, there are some things you shouldn't do: holding a PWA (Person With AIDS) in contempt, or judging him or her to be weak or evil. Sexuality is a very strong drive. And trust is a very common attitude. For every PWA, you can be sure there are many other people who made similar mistakes but who, so far, have avoided that particular consequence. Still others are actually the victims of others' mistakes.

Giving sympathy and understanding instead of judgment and condemnation is not the same as publicly saying, "Anything goes—there's no real right and wrong." It's simply leaving judgment up to God where it belongs and, in the meantime, acting as Jesus would toward someone who is suffering in a way you can't begin to imagine. People infected with the AIDS virus need compassion, not condemnation.

Concern Can Be Contagious

Finally, there's a part of the AIDS scene which I wish I had another whole page to describe—the part that, side by side with the suffering and the tragedy, has a powerful beauty and a positive impact. As Linda Seiter mentions, AIDS sometimes brings out the best in people. This is true both of PWA's and of people who minister to them.

Many PWA's have used the fact of their disease to change in positive ways. They learn to put important things, like God and their relationships with other people, first. They become positive inspirations to people who know them.

Communities of deeply caring people have sprung up around many PWA's, giving hours of time to help these people through the physical and emotional ravages of the disease, and finally to help them prepare for death.

You might expect most of these people to be others who are HIV-infected but who have not yet developed symptoms. You might expect most of them to be gay people helping gay PWA's. Not so. "We have volunteers from almost every kind of background there is," Linda Seiter says.

For example, there's Carol Schaljo—middle-aged mother of four. She works in a university office. She's active in her parish and in her local AIDS volunteer organization.

Among other things, she undertook the Buddy Program training, which prepares a person to be a special friend to a PWA. In the course of their relationship, the buddy may do anything from helping the PWA with shopping and household chores which he or she can no longer do, to holding his or her hand at death.

As often happens in such instances, the gifts go both ways. "I learned more about life from my PWA than from anyone else," Carol says quietly and firmly.

It takes a special person to be a PWA's Buddy. It may not be the kind of service you're called to. But unless things take a surprising turnaround, there really is a good chance that your life will be somehow touched by AIDS. When that happens, the first thing to remember is to think and act as Jesus would. In his lifetime, he was known as a loving healer. Today, he would surely have been a buddy and more to those whose lives are threatened by this illness.

AIDS may help all of us reprioritize our lives, to evaluate what is important and timeless and to let go of what is less important and passing.

Jim Auer, teacher and author, has written five other Youth Updates as well as books for teenagers published by Liguori Press. He has also written six Leader's Guides, which can assist groups in using Youth Update creatively.

This issue of Youth Update was previewed by Ben Dadosky, 17; Brian Herzog, 16; Tina Rottinghaus, 16; and Kris Wichmann, 14. All are students enrolled at St. Henry High School in Erlanger, Kentucky.