Combatting AIDS

THE UNDERGRADUATE Council is waging a campaign to install condom dispensers in the Freshman Union and the houses. The issues involved, though, have proven themselves impenetrable to the Council. Even the Council's chairman, Evan J. Mandery '89, could not control a discussion on the subject two weeks ago, which became so fractious that the proposal had to be tabled until an upcomming meeting.

The Council's confusion is characteristic of most people's response to the AIDS threat and plans to deal with it. That's why the proposal to install condom machines in residence halls led to a discussion in which Council members shouted one another down in a rush to spew forth random information about AIDS victims, premarital sex and religious teachings.

Yes, the questions of propriety that AIDS inevitably raises should be addressed. But regardless of the appropriateness of the sexual practices that account for much of the disease's spread, people are going to engage in them. And the disease will progress. So it ultimately remains necessary for Dr. Ruth's "sexual showercaps" to be promoted on TV, in the press and perhaps even by the Undergraduate Council. Despite the opinions of some Council members, condom dispensers in nooks and cranies around the houses are likely to offend only the timid and the hyper-moralistic. And the price of accomodating either group when AIDS is at issue is just too high.