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Taking one to tango: how restricting responsibility for safer sex to individuals hinders talking about safer sex
Gus Cairns, 2014-01-28 09:00:00
A discussion paper based on a Canadian project that invited HIV-negative and HIV-positive gay men to discuss anti-HIV stigma and sexual risk-taking concludes that ideas of “individual responsibility” and “looking after one’s health” are flawed as models of how to deal with the risk of HIV in the gay community.
They argue that the idea that “everyone is responsible for their own health” tends to create a situation in which responsibility is either passed to the other person in a sexual encounter, especially between partners of different HIV status, or is interpreted as a rigid exclusion of certain people or behaviours from the sexual repertoire.
These strategies may keep gay men physically free from HIV and STIs but can also paradoxically increase risk and entrench stigma within the gay community.
The authors – and some of the respondents in the discussion project – urge the revival of a more community-centred, mutual and dialogue-based approach to HIV risk that does not leave gay men to deal, or fail to deal, with HIV alone and which involves honest and respectful dialogue about sexual risk and HIV, both between couples and within the community.
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