I’ve gone two years now without capturing a single shot of physical closeness. With masks and social distancing and self-isolation, people have grown suspicious of personal contact. So when I stood at a busy intersection just as two friends (who obviously hadn’t seen one another since the pandemic began) screamed hello and hugged one another, it seemed almost shocking. They rushed into one another’s arms and clung to one another.
I happened to be standing two steps to the left. At first, it felt awkward, like I was privy to the most intimate moment that had ever passed between two people since hugging was invented. Then I shook my head, like I might shake off a bad dream, and reminded myself that this is the sort of thing people used to do all the time. I reminded myself, too, that unabashed affection in a public space is fair game for street photography. By the time this last thought occurred to me, the moment had almost passed. I raised my camera and captured the tail end of a long embrace that had been two years in the making.
We are forgetful creatures and treat Covid-19 like it’s the first time we’ve ever experienced such a crisis. But it wasn’t long ago that we faced SARS, another novel coronavirus. And before that, there was HIV/AIDS, a global pandemic that remains with us to this day. A generation ago, I lost friends and family to AIDS-related complications. In the intervening years, we’ve forgotten how HIV/AIDS changed physical intimacy.
Before people understood how HIV was transmitted, people refused to touch others especially if they thought those others were gay. (Some were even afraid to sit on toilet seats for fear of contracting the “gay disease.”) When it comes to physical intimacy, the enduring (science-based) legacy of the HIV/AIDS pandemic is the use of condoms during sexual intimacy between non-exclusive partners. When infectious disease experts were able to dispel the misinformation and provide better information about transmission, people resumed their public displays of affection. Kissing on street corners, bear hugs, these things started up again, just as they will as Covid-19 plays out.
