Photo by Moritz Kindler on Unsplash

Michał Witkowski’s Lovetown offers a strikingly unflinching portrait of queer life in Poland at the cusp of monumental political and cultural change. What struck me most while reading was not only the vivid depictions of LGBTQ+ subcultures, but the repeated references to the AIDS crisis—a reminder that this epidemic was not confined to New York City or San Francisco, as many American narratives suggest, but was a global phenomenon that reached far into Eastern Europe.

One passage, in particular, encapsulates this tension:

“It was exotic; no one ever thought that we might get it, too. And no doubt everyone was completely convinced that if communism hadn’t ended it would never have happened. AIDS under communism? Some bloke with a red star-shaped blotch on his forehead queueing in one of our dismal shops? AIDS was all scarlet and crimson, and communism was grey through and through. And even if we had things like that under communism, no one would have spoken, let alone written, about it” (Lovetown, p. 194).

This reflection reveals how AIDS was imagined as both foreign and impossible under communism—as if disease itself belonged to the West, a space coded as decadent, colorful, and free. Communism, meanwhile, is described as drab and silent, a system where the state’s control over discourse could effectively erase something as socially disruptive as an epidemic. The suggestion that HIV/AIDS “arrived” only with the collapse of communism also points to how sexual repression under authoritarian systems shaped the queer experience: when the iron grip of communism loosened, queer life became more visible—and along with visibility came vulnerability.

From a feminist and queer theory perspective, this moment reveals the deep entanglement of sexuality, politics, and illness. The AIDS crisis cannot be understood merely as a medical epidemic; it was a crisis of gender and sexuality, exposing whose lives were valued, whose suffering was silenced, and how state systems either erased or exacerbated the vulnerability of marginalized communities. In Poland, silence under communism gave way to a post-communist freedom that was double-edged: liberation brought joy, community, and expression, but it also left queer people newly exposed to risk.

This framework echoes feminist theorist Judith Butler’s argument in Bodies That Matter—that the regulation of sexuality and gender is always about controlling which lives are rendered intelligible or grievable. Under communism, queer lives were barely acknowledged by the state; with its fall, they were acknowledged but only through the stigma of HIV/AIDS.

What fascinates me further is how Lovetown connects to cultural depictions of AIDS in the West. Reading Witkowski alongside Tick, Tick…BOOM! highlights surprising resonances across borders. Jonathan Larson’s New York circle of artists losing friends to HIV/AIDS mirrors the grief of Patricia and Lucretia’s queer community in Poland. Though the geopolitical contexts were radically different—capitalist New York versus post-communist Poland—the shared queer experiences of loss, silence, and survival underline the global scope of the crisis.

Even films like Cold War (2018), while not directly about HIV/AIDS, help frame this discussion. The film portrays the suffocating weight of life under socialism, a heaviness that resonates with Witkowski’s depictions of Poland under communism. When those restrictions lifted, people celebrated their liberation—but queer celebration was accompanied by new risks, including the spread of HIV.

Ultimately, Lovetown complicates the American-centric narrative of the AIDS crisis, reminding us that the epidemic was transnational and shaped differently by local political, social, and cultural conditions. For queer Poles, AIDS was not only a medical tragedy but also a symptom of political transition—from enforced silence to risky freedom.

By foregrounding the voices of queer characters living at this intersection, Witkowski helps us rethink the AIDS crisis as both global and deeply gendered: a story of whose bodies are surveilled, whose desires are suppressed, and whose deaths are mourned.