Tattoos, HIV, and oh my!

As most of you are aware (because I’ve been talking about it half of the semester) one of my classes thought it was a brilliant idea to tattoo people who are HIV positive. This idea came from one of my students in the Epstein essay discussion class. Very quickly, it was picked up by the majority of the class. The driving force behind this thought was that people will ALWAYS lie about their STD status so it is better to have a little plus sign tattooed on their bikini lines so people are aware that they are about to have sex with an HIV positive person.

I experienced a precious few seconds of brain fart. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I did manage to speak after a 10-15 second pause where I am pretty sure I resembled a goldfish. I spoke about the history of tattooing a specific section of society (Nazi shitheads) but to no avail. My students were quick to disavow any similarity of their idea to that one.

I faced another hurdle when we read Dan Savage and Urvashi Vaid. The topic of bullying and the same class said that the issues were grossly exaggerated because they had never seen any bullying in their schools.

I turned to the LGBTQA resource centre for help and I had someone come in and talk to my students about stereotypes and the dangers of relying on a single stereotype. She also discussed empathy vs sympathy and used this video. It’s a good video.

But, the big question: where do I separate my ideologies from my students’? We want them to express their opinions but am I not deliberately changing their opinion here? Is it okay? I mean, I know it is okay because they need to know the whole picture about their idea but is it okay from a pedagogical perspective? Am I making sense?