Watching the docudrama And The Band Played On is great way to learn about America's response to the AIDS crisis that took the lives of so many gay men during the 80s and 90s. Since big cities like New York and San Francisco had large populations of gay men, these were some of the places that suffered the highest death rates.

Speaking of San Francisco specifically, one of the measures their Public Health Department undertook was to shut down the bathhouses. The move generated controversy among gay rights activists and gay people in general because bathhouses represented something like a safe space. They were a place where people who either identified as gay or wanted to have gay sex could meet without much fear of shame or persecution.

As a Los Angeles Times article published in 1987 says, "The bathhouses were places to socialize, to exercise, and to engage in anonymous sex." Gay rights advocate Laurie McBride adds, "They were a symbol of gay liberation. Many of them were really, really gorgeous, not sleazy back rooms." For San Francisco's gay community, the order was interpreted as the government trying to control what they did with their bodies and who they could and couldn't have consensual sex with.

Though studies show that unprotected anal sex is significantly riskier than unprotected vaginal sex in regards to the transmission of HIV and other STIs, a substantial number of gay people thought that the Health Department was punishing them instead of protecting them.