Sontag wasn't drawn to write about AIDS because she was (sometimes) homosexual, but because she had been thinking about disease, including her own, and the ways it is talked about…
Philip G. Alcabes is Professor of Public Health at Hunter College, CUNY and author of Dread: How Fear and Fantasy have Fueled Epidemics. His research and commentary on AIDS and related public health problems has appeared in numerous medical and public health journals. He has published essays and reviews in The American Scholar, The Chronicle Review, Consequence, and other publications. He is working on a book on the intersection of consciousness, healing, and psychiatric diagnosis.