Quote:
Originally Posted by The Yen Man
That AIDS thing is such a stretch. .
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I think any other interpretation is a stretch, and the only other logical one I can see is "positive for drugs", which doesn't make it too much better. And as others have said, that goes down this whole road of "drugs make you go gay", which doesn't play well either.
He slipped up and made a joke in bad taste, any way you slice it, in my opinion.
I'm not a "cancel culture" guy, but this "hahaha, you're positive!?!" stuff with a gay/HIV context was extremely common back in the late 80s and early 90s, it is no stretch at all for me or many of his audience members to make that connection.
I don't think the guy should be crucified, but it is plain as day to me what was going on between a few guys roughly my age (and older) who grew up in the same part of the world.
At any rate, it's kicking up a pretty good conversation here, and I think this conversation would have been a lot different on a hockey forum even 15 years ago.
I played beer league in SF for many years, and would often have my nails painted from a gig the night before in the locker room. It was mostly all good natured ribbing from my teammates, but "homophobic" would be a kind way to describe a lot of the banter it would stir up.
Progress is good, it's just tough for guys like Ron (and all of us) sometimes.