'He didn't believe it. He thought that Americans were basically puritanical and anti-sexual; and that it was all coming out in this sudden hysteria about this mysterious disease.' (345)
Sluga is echoed by English professor D.A. Miller:
'"Je n'y crois pas," Miller recalls the philosopher [that's Foucault] saying: "I don't believe it."' (349) ... Clinching to his point, Foucault leaned towards the professor. "Besides," he said, "To die for the love of boys: What could be more beautiful."' (350)
To today's strangely moralistic hedonists, Foucault's early reactions to (what was then called) GRIDS sounds outrageous. But I think that even if he was factually incorrect on the existence of AIDS the disease, he was still right about AIDS the moral panic. And if the last comment seems unbearably flippant, it is closer to the meaning of hedonism than anything else one could say.
Quotes from James Miller's The Passion of Michel Foucault, HarperCollins edition, London, 1994