An argument is made that, so far from being a disease which is unstoppable in its epidemic consequences, AIDS has produced an epidemic, which owes its present virulence to sociological configurations of rather recent existence. Instead of a vigorous attack on the transmission chain of the epidemic, the emphasis of public health policy has been on finding a vaccine and/or a cure of the disease which produces the epidemic. By means of a simple model, it is argued that by simply closing businesses catering to high contact rate anal sex, e.g. sexually oriented bathhouses, the American public health establishment might have avoided most of the tragic consequences of the present epidemic.