How Does a Moment Last Forever marks the first collaboration between Menken and Rice in over two decades; the last time they worked together had been in the "Beauty and the Beast" musical. Menken believes that the songs he and Rice had written for the musical would not have translated well to the screen due to the structural differences between the two formats. One of at least nine significant changes made to the film specifically for the remake, "How Does a Moment Last Forever" was conceived to explain Belle's backstory. Her quest to find out her mother's fate serves, in the plot, as a foundation for
How to Have Sex in an Epidemic strategy for reducing the risk of contracting the transmitting agent which causes AIDS. A similar AIDS education manual, entitled "Can We Talk?" was published by the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club in San Francisco at the beginning of 1983, although it is less often credited as being foundational for safe sex. Despite the negative press that "How to Have Sex" received for what many perceived as a criticism of promiscuity, many queer theorists have acknowledged the importance of the pamphlet and others like it to the evolution of the broader LGBT rights movement. The politics at the time were fraught,