Was it irresponsible from Freddie "not to know" he had AIDS

As many of you have heard or read on recent documentaries and books about Freddie and Queen, Freddie knew around the mid 80s that he could potentially be carrying the HIV virus after hearing that people he used to frequently hang out with were infected or were linked in some way to another to people with HIV.
However, despite all of this as Jim Beach mentioned recently, Freddie preferred "not to know", considering that an HIV diagnosis back in those days was pretty much a death sentence.
From what I read, Freddie didn't know he had AIDS until a lump was removed from his body in 1987 and he was officially diagnosed with the disease.

Was Freddie putting those close to him at risk by not diagnosing himself much earlier?

Pathetic .

It's the age-old fallacy of feeling like you can plop yourself into someone else's life and make a meaningful evaluation of their character. A lot of people like to fantasise about living under a fascist regime, for instance, and judge the people who actually do for not standing up and doing something about it - these same people have a hard time even standing up to their bosses, workmates, friends or lovers, and yet they're full of handy hints on how you should stand up to armed dictators and whatnot.

No different with the AIDS thing - we're all a lot smarter 25+ years later. Sex takes at least 2 people, by the by. Theoretically, his partners could've known just as much as he did about the risks. At any time they could look at an unprotected dick or an already-used needle and think 'hey, I could catch something from this'. Why does it matter if Freddie was irresponsible? He would've been having it off with people who were potentially just as 'irresponsible' as he was, so what's the fuckin' issue here?

And all of that taken into consideration - so what? He went into a coma and suffocated over 20 years ago; isn't that good enough for you people?

I can see the responses already, ie. 'I'm not saying he deserved to die!'. In that case, you really shouldn't be saying anything - judgement of his ethics, attitudes and conduct is all meaningless because you weren't there, you don't (strictly speaking) know what happened, you never met him, he's quite dead now, and all you can do is just make sure you don't take undue risks when it comes to diseases that are transmitted via bodily fluids.

Unless you were trolling with your question, in which case I'll take this whole post back and save it for the next numpty who wants to waste mental effort on a dead guy. I know people like to make the mistake of looking up to people as idols or influences, but it's really not worth it. Just listen to their music or watch their movies, because people suck and have finite lifespans, and will never hold up to the standards we like to set for them because they excelled in one particular field.

Obviously you didn't understand my question, so I suggest you read it again.

My question is not making Freddie look irresponsible for catching HIV/AIDS, but for not wanting to know that he might have had it at a time when he was highly at risk.
AIDS was discovered in 1981, but it wasn't until 1983 when media reports started to spread the seriousness of the disease. So Freddie had several years to consider the issue.

Freddie "not wanting to know" is a cause for concern that is indeed private, and he definitely he had a right to keep it out of the public eye. However, given that he shared a home with other people, and at the time had a steady sexual partner (Jim Hutton), perhaps it would have been better if he had known back then just so Jim Hutton, Joe Fannelli, Peter Freestone, and Mary Ausin knew of the precautions of living with someone with HIV/AIDS.

...and just for the record, I was not trolling in anyway.

This is ghoulish speculation

There's also a degree of immaturity to discussing someone else's private affairs

It's 100 % legit to ask these questions. Freddie very possibly was responsible for murdering untold numbers of people. People go to jail for willingly "not knowing". I am beyond dumbfounded that they said what they did in the documentary. Even if it were true for christsakes lie. Jesus.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, he was history's greatest monster.

Freddie has been accused of being lots of things. One thing he certainly was is irresponsible.

He paid the price.

Can we move on now?

Nobody has any minimal right to judge him. It's an exclusively private matter. Especially that we are talking about those days, full of prejudices and stigma.
We better mind our own business, because we all are monsters, more or less!!!

Lol. Well, that's just a lie. Of course there should be SOME judgement. Lol. You are judging me aren't you? Lol again. Not all of us are monsters. Listen I love Freddie Mercury. But what I and others have suggested might very well have some basis to it. You best ought to use protection. That is all to this.

Oh for petes sake! Leave it...just leave it. Put it down and walk away.

The point I'd like to make at this juncture is that such moral judgement or evaluation from you guys is pretty well worthless - might as well submit Freddie to a cross-examination from a babushka doll. It'd have the same weight, in my esteem.

Aside from that, give me five minutes with the full details of your lives and I could probably find examples of similar levels of irresponsibility - it's just that yours didn't wind up killing you dead.

And the key word here, really, is 'dead'. For people so caught up in moral considerations, you keep missing the big payoff - he paid for his awful fucking sins already! He pissed himself and asphyxiated. Can we move on now? These daft questions might not be beneath you, but it's beneath me to be on the same forum as them, so cut it out.

Was he Irresponsible?..yes he was. Making a comment like "I'm gonna fuck everybody" when he obviously knew about the disease at that point (1983)...He didn't give a fuck, but Karma caught up to him...does that make him a monster?...of course not, Jim and his other sexual partners knew the risk of having unprotected sex...Gay Men have the highest risk...especially in those days, Aids was considered a Gay disease...i don't idol worship any celebrities anymore...all these people are overrated and divas, but I still do appreciate their work...I'll always love the music. The real hero's in life are the working class people...We're the one's who keep this world running.....

[QUOTE] [b]Zebonka12 wrote:[/b]

The point I'd like to make at this juncture is that such moral judgement or evaluation from you guys is pretty well worthless - might as well submit Freddie to a cross-examination from a babushka doll. It'd have the same weight, in my esteem.

Aside from that, give me five minutes with the full details of your lives and I could probably find examples of similar levels of irresponsibility - it's just that yours didn't wind up killing you dead.

And the key word here, really, is 'dead'. For people so caught up in moral considerations, you keep missing the big payoff - he paid for his awful fucking sins already! He pissed himself and asphyxiated. Can we move on now? These daft questions might not be beneath you, but it's beneath me to be on the same forum as them, so cut it out.[/QUOTE] i don't wish that pain on anyone...no one deserves to die like that....we all made mistakes in life...that's all it takes is one night...sleeping with the wrong person, and your whole world is fucked...so I'm not Judging anyone, But it was Irresponsible. No getting around that. We all been irresponsible at one time or another....But having unprotected sex is a death sentence...

Yeah but seriously - why the fuck does it matter if he was irresponsible? At this point it'd make just as much sense for me to be asking if Genghis Khan was irresponsible. They're both as dead as the dinosaurs, so who cares? We can't drag either of them before the Hague for mass murder.

In Freddie's case though, it makes even less sense to be so critical. As I said before (and I think y'all ignored this point) it's not 'murder' in the case of Freddie infecting people with AIDS. If you are to take the assumption that people were all as informed about HIV in the mid-80's as we are today, then his partners were at least as culpable as he was. One can argue about the irresponsibility or ignorance as much as they like, but by definition it would've been a case of shared blame. Or joint-suicide. Whatever.