Simon Watney

Simon Watney (born 1949) is a writer, historian and AIDS activist.

In 1995 he was included in the Independent's list of 40 influential gay men. The citation said:
 * "A Vanity Fair profile called him "an odd mixture of tweedy and hip". His Policing Desire: Pornography, Aids and the Media, published in 1987, was the first sociological study of the disease. He has written regular columns for Artforum, Gay Times, pieces for the psychoanalytic media mag Screen. He co-founded the in-your-face activist outfit OutRage! Involved in gay and socialist politics since the early Seventies, Watney has influenced not only an entire generation of gay thinkers and street fighters; many love him, some loathe him. No one writing seriously about Aids or gay (or British) life in any context can afford to ignore him: he stimulates debate. Watney: 'I am a very old-fashioned English liberal.'"