Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Dowsett, Gary W

Titel

PRACTICING DESIRE: HOMOSEXUAL SEX IN THE ERA OF AIDS

Erscheinungsjahr

1996

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Sociological Abstracts

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Examines the development of a gay subculture in tandem with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic, drawing on interviews with 20 gay men living in Sydney, Australia. As in the US, rates of HIV infection among Australia's gay community have plummeted in recent years, indicating a massive change in sexual behavior. Abstract concepts such as gender roles & homosexual identity are rejected as explanations of this trend because they do not capture the context of actual men's lives or what is most interesting about their struggle to create subjectivity in the era of HIV. In this Australian gay community, there is evidence of a great variety of sexual activity, relations, & meanings; particular attention is placed on tensions between working-class men & the larger gay community & between HIV-infected men & those who remain uninfected. The relation between constructions of homosexual desire & identities shaped by the spectre of HIV is also discussed, as are distinctions between older men who have lived with the threat of HIV for many years & younger men yearning to create a homosexual identity. Most of the men interviewed have been close to the HIV epidemic, having lost friends & lovers, or experienced a close shave with unsafe sex. Many of them made conscious decisions regarding safe sex rule breakage, eg, performing oral sex because it is regarded as having little risk of HIV transmission. Health care educators are encouraged to move beyond a concern with abstract practice to develop focused educational strategies that confront the question of intimacy & sexual negotiation within relationships. The book contains 8 Chpts. 2 Tables, 306 References. D. M. Smith