Things from the past are so oversensationalized nowadays. I was sexually active during that period and I'm here today. The 1980s it wasn't anywhere near as widespread as it was in the 1990s and 2000s, and I'm from the NYC area and have known people who acquired hiv and succumbed to it. The 1980s was more about finding out about the new burgeoning disease (that had been around for over fifty years already) that affected very few people, but there was a lot of awareness, thus people were mindful of it especially towards the end of the decade. The entire decade of the 1990s was frightening though, and likewise throughout the 2000s, terrifying, in fact.