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The ‘loss of community’ and other problems for sexual citizenship in recent HIV prevention
Author(s) -
Davis Mark
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
sociology of health and illness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1467-9566
pISSN - 0141-9889
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2007.01050.x
Subject(s) - psychology , altruism (biology) , human sexuality , social psychology , salience (neuroscience) , action (physics) , ambivalence , sexual identity , gender studies , sociology , developmental psychology , physics , quantum mechanics , cognitive psychology
Increases in reported unsafe sex among gay men have been explained as resistance to HIV prevention, or most recently, with the idea that a hyper‐individualisation of sexual action contributes to the loss of sexual community. This turning in HIV prevention has come to focus on the sexual action of gay men with HIV through the frames of: sexual transgression, sometimes called ‘barebacking’; and altruism. Adopting the perspective of sexual citizenship in connection with qualitative interviews, this paper considers how gay men with HIV account for their sexual practice in light of the dual discourse of transgression/altruism. The paper will argue that gay men with HIV are deeply aware of what transgression/altruism implies for their identities and sexual relations, indicating the continued salience of community for sexual practice. Further, in the circumstances of blaming in relation to the moral labour of safer sex, gay men with HIV are trying to work out a co‐operative practice for HIV prevention based on self‐care, a moderated altruism and the voluntary action of sexual partners.