American Notes SAN FRANCISCO

Advertisements in San Francisco bus shelters seldom provoke double takes, but an eye-popping poster on display in 30 bus shelters is proving an exception. It depicts two naked young men partly wrapped in the U.S. flag. One of them has an arm about the other while his free hand holds a condom. The caption: LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

Funded by $10,000 from the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, the ad campaign comes on the heels of a new study showing that an alarming 40.7% of gay and bisexual men from 20 to 24 who were treated in sexual-disease clinics were infected with the AIDS virus. What disturbed researchers most: 36% of the young gays were having sex without a condom, 71% when having sex with a steady boyfriend. Says Lewis Lillian, general manager of Gannett Transit, which is donating half the space for the bus shelter campaign: "Those studies are terrifying."