I don't think it started from people having sex with monkeys, seems more likely it somehow transmitted to someone involved in hunting or slaughtering monkeys or other creatures in Africa.
The hunter(s) then passed it on to prostitute(s) living along the so-called "AIDS highway" in Africa, the long transport road through the centre of the continent beside which lie many brothels frequented by many workers and travellers, who contracted it from prostitutes, then passed it on to their wives, girlfriends, flings, one night stands.
So it was never a gay disease, really. Just identified in the smaller homosexual community. It doesn't help anyone to try and label it as a gay disease.
We have reached the point, however, where people in developed countries really should not be getting HIV or other STDs in such great numbers. Those in Africa have somewhat of an excuse, where the education is patchy and there are many myths and rumours floating around about the nature of the disease. Most distasteful of them being that having sex with a virgin cures the illness.
The Catholic church doesn't appear to be helping a great deal, but then the church's perogative is the spiritual health of its flock, not the physical.
