‘In losing your heart, don’t lose your head’: AIDS and the regulation of homosexuality in the Netherlands, 1983-1993

Abstract

In the Netherlands, the initial response to the onset of AIDS in 1983 started as a private initiative between the gay movement, health organizations and the blood banks. Through a compromise between these organizations, the gay movement started to inform the gay community on AIDS and urgently advised gay men to stop donating blood. In the course of the 1980s, the private initiative would – with the support of the Dutch government – grow out to a fully equipped government institution. Although there is a general consensus about the significance of the involvement of the gay movement in AIDS prevention in the Netherlands, the impact AIDS had on homosexual understandings in the Netherlands has not been researched. Therefore, central question to this thesis is: How had AIDS impacted understandings of homosexuality in the Netherlands between 1983-1993? To answer this question, AIDS prevention material that targeted gay men between 1983-1993 is examined. Using the Foucauldian concepts of governmentality and biopower, this thesis argues that, in the response to AIDS in the Netherlands, the body of homosexual citizens was governed through a regulation of homosexuality. This regulation should primarily be understood as a process of self-regulation on two levels. First, on the level of gay community, self-regulation occurred through the production and distribution of prevention material for gay men. Second, on the individual level in the brochures, self-regulation occurred through a technology of responsibilization, risk management, and health promotion. Ultimately, this thesis demonstrates how, as a consequence of AIDS, health becomes a key feature in the understanding of homosexuality in the Netherlands.