Anonymous: Okay so I have seen Rent on broadway when I was 11, watched the movie numerous times, and watched the last performance just as many times. There is only one thing that got me confused. If Mimi has AIDS, Roger has AIDS, WHY DOESN'T BENNY HAVE AIDS?! Are we suppose to assume that Mimi and Benny's relationship didn't involve sex? hmmmm
Well if they used a condom, then there is a chance that Benny didn’t get HIV (You develop AIDS from HIV…so you can’t really get AIDS…jsyk) Also, Benny could have HIV and not know. In that time period, people were still unsure of the cause of HIV/AIDS and therefore didn’t know how to prevent it. It is totally possible that he had HIV and he hadn’t had any symptoms of it (yet). My best bet though, if you really want to know, is that Benny and Mimi used a condom (since he probably didn’t want to knock up the S&M dancer that he was cheating on his wife with) and he didn’t contract the virus.
