HIV and Sexuality – Has India Missed the Bus? HIV remains exceptional in that it carries the seemingly immutable burden of being synonymous with immoral behaviour. Open and safe conversations on sexual rights and freedoms in the context of both disease and pleasure should have been the method of decoupling HIV from prevailing notions of morality. India’s HIV programme over the past 25 years chose not to do this. In September 1998 , to the utter horror of HIV activists, the Supreme Court of India pronounced the following in a judgement – “AIDS is the product of undisciplined sexual impulse.” It was hearing the case of Mr. “X” v. Hospital “Z”. The appellant Mr. “X” was a person living with HIV whose confidentiality had been breached by hospital “Z”. The appellant sought damages for breach of confidentiality, which had led to his marriage being cancelled, and ostracism by his community. This judgement, till it was revoked in 2003 after an outcry from activists and la...