The spread of HIV/AIDS dwindled during the early to mid-1990s as people paid serious attention to the warnings and undertook safer sex practices. The reality was obvious that HIV/AIDS was not just a "gay disease". Then medical science progressed significantly with the development of "AIDS cocktail drugs", and people returned to their old ways. Alas, what was the big deal if the condition can be managed by medication?
That attitude in the Western world impacted the spread of HIV/AIDS in the developing world. The disease continued to spread rampantly throughout Africa - mainly because governments there were in denial and did not provide their people the education and tools for prevention. But as the West resumed its over-sexed ways, participation in sex tours reached and surpassed its previous high levels. The "swingers' clubs" (groups who spouse swap for intercourse purposes) gained substantial following in Europe and the US with the vigor of any thriving fad and with apparent disregard of the potential consequences.
The Internet too has contributed to this care free lifestyle. Pornographic sites are among the most visited sites on the Internet. This includes pay and non-pay services. There even are instances of women "selling" their virginity to the highest bidder. One such sale went for approximately USD15,000, and most of these sellers view the activity as a standard business transaction and have no regrets for it.
Meanwhile the scientists and bureaucrats gather in Bangkok to commiserate about the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS. They begged the West and the UN for more money; they pledged to expand and support research and treatment programs. But commiserate and clamor as they might, the only way to solve the problem is by individual action. Several years ago the pornography industry led by the Playboy and Spice cable channels undertook an advertising campaign based on the idea that "It is safer to watch it than to do it", but the proliferation of sex super stores would suggest that sex enthusiasts have gone from watching it to immulating what they watch.
The ambiguities of the fifteenth annual international AIDS conference run deeper still. The conference site of Bangkok is the center of the Asian sex tours industry which services approximately 100 million people and brings billions of dollars into the unofficial Thai economy each year. It often is claimed that without the sex tours industry, Thailand's economy would have been virtually beyond repair after the 1997 Asian financial crises. The sex tours industry leaves Bangkok with the highest percentage of people infected with HIV/AIDS in Asia and places it among the world's highest ranking infection sites. Some estimates indicate the affliction rate is 40%.
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