David McInnes

Gay men's casual sex encounters: Discussing HIV and using condoms

Some gay men disclose their HIV serostatus to enable them to decide to discard condoms in at least some casual encounters. In this paper we consider under what circumstances this occurs. We draw on data from the Sydney Men and Sexual Health cohort study, including both structured and semi-structured interviews. We find that casual sexual encounters among gay men are complex events, involving a broad range of types of partner and circumstance. A significant minority of men disclose their HIV serostatus; 36.3% of those who discussed their serostatus with casual partners engaged in unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) with those partners, while only 9.9% of those who did not discuss their serostatus engaged in UAI with those partners. We also find that disclosure of HIV serostatus, discussion and use of condoms during casual encounters are affected by the particular circumstances of those encounters, including the degree of familiarity between casual partners.

Gay men who engage in group sex are at increased risk of HIV infection and onward transmission.

Among 746 participants in the Three or More Study (TOMS) of gay men who engaged in group sex in the previous 6 months, 22.4% reported unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) with any partners they did not know to be the same HIV serostatus as themselves. Not knowing oneself to be HIV-negative, not having a clear intention to use condoms, and more frequent group sex were independently associated with UAI. This study shows that gay men who engage in group sex represent an important priority for targeted HIV prevention activities and research.

The discourse of gay men's group sex: the importance of masculinity

Group sex has consistently been identified as one of a group of risk behaviours among gay men associated with HIV seroconversion. This paper presents a detailed description of how gender, and specifically masculinity, operates as an aspect of the discourse of gay mens group sex. The findings presented in this paper are one part of a multi-aspected discourse analysis through which we are aiming to develop an account of the discourse of gay mens group sex as it was produced in a series of qualitative interviews conducted with gay men who participate in group sex. The interviews were conducted as part of the Three or More Study (TOMS), a larger project that involved a substantial quantitative component. The overarching intent of the discourse analysis is to provide as comprehensive a mapping as possible of this discursive terrain to facilitate the targeted development of HIV and sexual health educational initiatives. The discourse of gay mens group sex reproduces some key formations of masculinity within discourses of gender, which present specific challenges for HIV prevention education. These challenges are outlined at the conclusion of this paper.

Testing for HIV and sexually transmissible infections within a mainly online sample of gay men who engage in group sex.

Introduction: Group sex among gay men has been associated with other HIV risk behaviours. Gay men who engage in group sex may be at increased risk of infection with HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STI). Methods: The Three or More Study (TOMS) of group sex among gay men utilised an anonymous, self-completed survey about participants’ most recent occasion of group sex with other men and in-depth interviews with a small number of these survey participants. The 436 men who reported having engaged in group sex within the previous month were included in these analyses. Results: Among 436 men who engaged in group sex within the previous month, 32.5% reported unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) with non-regular, mostly HIV non-seroconcordant partners at this recent group sex encounter (GSE) and the majority reported other sex practices that are risk factors for STI other than HIV. Over one-third reported having been tested for HIV or other STI since their last GSE; those who had engaged in UAI at the GSE were more likely to have been tested (p = 0.008). Men who had a doctor with whom they were able to discuss their group sex activities had received a broader range of STI tests (p = 0.003). Conclusion: Sex practices that risk the transmission of STI were common within this high-risk sample, whereas awareness of risk and the need for testing was high but not universal. Frank discussion with doctors of patients’ group sex behaviour also enhanced decisions about adequate testing. Gay men in group sex networks are an appropriate priority for sexual health screening.

Quiet Please! There's a Lady on the Stage--Boys, Gender and Sexuality Non-conformity and Class

In this paper we do two things. Initially, we explore the experience of gender and sexuality non-conformity for boys in school. Here, the designation sissy boy is interpreted through shame dynamics produced in part by the linguistic violence of designation. From this we consider the development of what we call epistemophilic resolutions--the falling in love with knowing that realigns the sissy boy within the schools discursive terrain. As a tentative and unstable resolution to gender and sexuality non-conformity, the epistemophilic resolution operates as a masquerade (after Riviere, 1986). Interpreting this resolution as masquerade allows us, in the second section of this paper, to speculate about the political potential inherent in the anxiety that underpins the operation of epistemophilia as a resolution to the shame of sexuality and gender non-conformity. This offers, in our interpretation, a resistance to (fore) closure and thus a disruption to discursive reproduction.

Speaking Violence: Homophobia and the Production of Injurious Speech in Schooling Cultures

In this chapter, we explore the ways in which homophobic violence is understood and recognised both in society more broadly and particularly within schooling cultures. We also examine the discourses through which same-sex attraction is constructed, and the impact of these discourses in addressing the ongoing problem of homophobic violence in schools. While physical forms of violence are most salient and most visible — that is most visibly injurious — forms of linguistic violence (direct or indirect name calling and verbal abuse) and emotional and psychological violence also have severe detrimental effects (Davies, 2008; Hillier et al., 1998, 2005; Mason, 2002; Mason & Tomsen, 1997; McInnes, 2008; McInnes & Davies, 2008; Rasmussen, 2006; Robinson & Ferfolja, 2008). All too frequently within school environments, this kind of violence either goes unrecognised (or in some cases is ignored) by educators or is shut down with little room for the perpetrators of such harassment and violence to reflect on their own subject position within relations of power. In our earlier work that examined homophobic and gendered violence within schooling cultures (Davies, 2008; McInnes, 2008; McInnes & Davies, 2008) we outlined an approach to educational ethics that resists the reproduction of normative ideas of the coherent subject.

Responsibility, risk and negotiation in the discourse of gay men's group sex

Responsibility for the practise of (un)safe sex, for taking or not taking risks in relation to HIV transmission and for the negotiation of (safe) sex have been concerns in HIV-prevention research for a long time. This paper presents the findings of a discourse analysis of interview texts collected as part of the Three or More Study. We examine what, in the discourse examined, constrains and enables ‘response-ability’ – the capacity to respond to others and ones self in light of the complex contingencies that operate to enliven sexual contexts. We identify three key aspects of these sexual contexts that impact on response-ability: that there is an absence of ‘explicit’ (verbally communicated) negotiation and the presence of action-perception links, which are understood as forms of negotiation; that some sexual contexts appear to involve the passivity of participants to the sexual event, interaction or to other men, but that there is agency in and as part of this passivity; and that there exists a social obligation to being individually responsible for sexual decision making, including the taking of risks.

Exploring the Relationship Between Lexical Behavior and Concept Formation in Design Conversations

Designers bring individual knowledge and perspectives to the team. The hypothesis tested in this research is that semantic and grammatical structures (the language through which concepts are expressed) enable designers to bridge relations among ideas stored in each designer’s mind and from this to generate design concepts. This paper describes a linguistic and a computational method to examine the grammatical and semantic structure of design conversations and the linguistic processes by which individuals bridge their knowledge to the group’s ongoing knowledge accumulation. To test the hypothesis, we conducted a linguistic (systemic functional linguistics) and computational linguistic (lexical chain analysis) analysis of a design team conversation The computational analysis revealed hypernym relations as the primary lexico-syntactic pattern by which designers offer, interrelate and develop concepts. The linguistic analysis highlighted the grammatical linguistic features that actively contribute to the generation of design content by teams. These analyses point to the prospect of a functional correspondence between language use and a team’s ability to construct knowledge for design. This interrelation has implications both for computational systems that assess design teams and design teamwork education.Copyright

Time, relations and learning in gay men's experiences of adventurous sex

In 1998 social researchers reported that membership of a “culture of sexual adventurism and experimentation” was a predictor of HIV sero‐conversion among homosexually active men living in Sydney. In this paper, we explore how these researchers have understood sexual adventurism as referring to a set of sexual practices, to a subcultural network, and to a particular sexual context. We then present an analysis of the way participants in our study recounted experiences of adventurous sex, focusing on sexual occasions that feature men playing with piss. Ten men, recruited on the basis of self–identification as being into ‘adventurous sex’, were interviewed on two occasions. The first interview invited men to recount experiences of adventurous sex in detail. In the second interview we asked men to provide accounts of their sexual histories or trajectories, and to speculate about their sexual futures. The interviews, which averaged one hour in length, were recorded on audio–tape and subsequently transcribed. The 10 participants were recruited from a list of participants from the Sydney Gay Community Periodic Surveys who had indicated their willingness to participate in further research. The men ranged from 33 to 57 years old. All had had sex with casual male partners in the previous six months. Two had regular male partners. Four of them were HIV–positive, four were HIV–negative and two were serostatus unknown. In contrast with an approach to research that seeks to define clusters of sexual activity across surveys of gay mens sexual practices, our study analysed narratives of sexual occasions recounted by gay men in interviews. This approach produces an interactive and iterative perspective on sexual experience, which we develop in this paper by drawing on the affect theory of Sylvan Tomkins and by attending to aspects of momentum, time and relations as recounted in gay mens experiences of adventurous sex. Through our analysis of interview data, we develop an account of adventurous sex that focuses on how men learn in interaction with others during sexual occasions and over time. We find that approaches to sex research and health education that seek predictability in what men do sexually and rely on men to delimit the scope of their sexual repertoire are incompatible with the attitudes with which men in our study approached and recounted experiences of adventurous sex.

Knowledge distribution and power relations in HIV-related education and prevention for gay men: an application of Bernstein to Australian community-based pedagogical devices

This paper seeks to make a theoretical and analytic intervention into the field of HIV-related education and prevention by applying the pedagogy framework of Basil Bernstein to a series of pedagogical devices developed and used in community-based programmes targeting gay men in Australia. The paper begins by outlining why it is such an intervention might be necessary at this stage in the Australian response to the epidemic, suggesting that extant pedagogies and the devices that enact them rework a set of power/knowledge dynamics that need to be rethought to afford a reinvigoration of the community sectors work in this area. The framework for the description of pedagogy as knowledge production and distribution, and as a set of power relations enacted through these processes, is then introduced through application to a key set of pedagogic devices that have been used extensively in the Australian community sectors work in HIV-related education and prevention. The paper concludes by outlining what has been revealed through this analysis: that forms of knowledge production and distribution enacted by these pedagogic devices problematically reinstantiate power relations that address gay men, the key targets of such pedagogy, in ways that may be ineffective for the transmission of knowledge that can impact on HIV transmission.