TV REVIEW : ‘New Light’: Beyond AIDS Awareness

Red ribbons, benefits, TV specials, billboards--surely we’re all AIDS-aware these days.

We may be. But “the gap between knowledge and action is the deadly gap,” as put in tonight’s worth-watching ABC special, “In a New Light: Sex Unplugged.” AIDS is now the leading killer of Americans ages 25 to 44.

The special, hosted by the inimitable Rosie Perez and Stephen Baldwin, is not as explicit as it might have been, but it is frank enough that it will probably alienate those to whom abstinence is the only recognizable option.

Abstinence does receive a hearing here, convincingly enough that some young people may decide to wait or pull back from sexual activity. But most of the hour, endorsed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, the National Education Assn. and many other responsible groups, speaks to the reality that a majority of young people are sexually active by the 12th grade.

Young people themselves do most of the talking, hitting home with their peers on an emotional level, relating their own experiences and choices--with abstinence, with HIV infection, with sex--to fill the “deadly gap.”

While the show is mostly about heterosexual youth, a poignant segment targets young homosexuals, among whom HIV and AIDS cases are rising. As vulnerable to sexual pressures and confusion as their heterosexual peers, but with the isolating social stigma that limits their options for help, many young gays fall victim to a “sense of inevitability” about the disease.

Parents often have difficulty talking to their children about something so fundamental as human development, but tune into this valuable hour together and it could be the first step toward real communication.

* “In a New Light: Sex Unplugged” airs at 8 tonight on ABC (Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42).