Karen McMillan

Somewhere over the rainbow: Love, trust and monogamy in gay relationships.

Anthony Giddens argues that late modernity is characterized by a democratization of intimate relationships and that gay men and lesbian women appear to be an expression of that movement. This paper is based on interviews with 20 New Zealand men – representing 11 gay couples – who discussed issues of monogamy, trust and sexual behaviour negotiations in their relationships. Overall, they had conventional notions of relationships, romantic love and monogamy that prompted decisions to discard condoms for anal sex as proof of their love for each other. They simultaneously believed that monogamy was not sustainable. Generally, the relationships were marked by ‘infidelity’ anxieties and a reluctance to disclose sexual encounters outside the relationship and to discuss or negotiate their possibility. These experiences serve as reminders to not assume that gay relationships are necessarily as democratic and open as Giddens suggests – pertinent when regarding the development of programmes aimed at reducing HIV transmission within relationships.

Injury associated with methamphetamine use: A review of the literature

This paper reviews the literature exploring issues around methamphetamine and injury. There was a paucity of peer reviewed quantitative research and a lack of large scale epidemiological studies. Further sources described cases and others described injury risk as part of an overall review of methamphetamine misuse. Thus, a number of limitations and potential biases exist within the literature. The main areas where associations were noted or extrapolated with methamphetamine use and injury were around driving and violence. Other associations with injury related to methamphetamine manufacture. There was also circumstantial evidence for third party injury (that is injury to those not specifically involved in drug use or drug manufacture); however, the available data are inadequate to confirm these associations/risks.

The impact of socio-cultural context on young people's condom use: evidence from two Pacific Island countries

Young people are a key group for HIV prevention in the Pacific region where levels of STIs are high and condom use is low. During 2008, 62 in-depth interviews were conducted with people aged between 18 and 25 years in Tonga and Vanuatu. The research was aimed at understanding factors impacting on young peoples’ condom use in two Pacific Island nations. The data show a marked disjuncture between attitudes and practice with regard to condoms. This paper discusses factors underpinning that inconsistency and directs attention to the effect of social and cultural influences on young peoples condom use. The authors conclude that individual-level approaches to improving rates of condom use will be inadequate unless they are informed by an understanding of the role of identity, culture and tradition in young peoples’ decisions around condom use. The findings also underline the need for country-specific approaches to condom promotion efforts in the Pacific.

Cancer and Aboriginal people in Australia: A review of the literature

This paper provides a thematic review of the literature on cancer in Aboriginal people in Australia, focusing on experiences in diagnosis, treatment and care as well as addressing sociocultural factors to guide the public health response to poorer treatment outcomes. A search of both medical and social scientific databases for journal articles published between 1995 and 2006 show that cancer incidence and possibly survival and mortality data are likely to be underestimated in Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people are more likely to die from cancer than non-Aboriginal Australians. There are significant differences between the cancer experiences of those living in the city and in rural or remote areas. There is also a relative absence of literature on cancer in Aboriginal men, who are likely to have particular needs during diagnosis, treatment and care. In drawing conclusions from these data, it can be seen that Aboriginal people with cancer have poorer outcomes than non-Aboriginal Australians, and there is a need for further research in the patterns of care and predictors of outcomes in Aboriginal men and women with cancer. Particular attention should be given to the different needs and experiences of Aboriginal people in urban or rural/remote areas. These findings indicate an urgent need to allocate additional resources to the treatment and care of Aboriginal people with cancer, in addition to screening interventions. There is also a continuing need to acknowledge cultural differences in the health beliefs of Aboriginal people and to work in partnership with Aboriginal community controlled health organisations.

Methamphetamine and injury: A survey of individuals attending a 1‐day music festival in New Zealand—piloting a new methodology

There are increasing concerns regarding the risks of injury associated with methamphetamine use. The aim of this study was to explore whether it would be feasible to collect data at a one‐day music festival, to investigate whether the sample included methamphetamine users, and whether they represented a sample that might yield information on methamphetamine use and injury. An anonymous, self‐completion questionnaire was administered to individuals waiting to enter a 1‐day music festival in Auckland, New Zealand in 2005. Of the 401 individuals approached, 188 successfully completed the questionnaire. Forty‐two respondents reported using methamphetamine in the last 12 months. Whilst reports of injury in the previous 12 months were not high, information was obtained on a range of injuries occurring in the context of personal drug use or clandestine manufacture. The research methodology successfully recruited participants and collected information that, if replicated in a larger study, could quantify the relationships between drug‐related behaviour and injury. This preliminary study suggests important public health implications of methamphetamine use.

Usage of the Terms Prostitution, Sex Work, Transactional Sex, and Survival Sex: Their Utility in HIV Prevention Research

This article considers the terms prostitution, sex work, transactional sex, and survival sex, the logic of their deployment and utility to research concerned with people who are paid for sex, and HIV. The various names for paid sex in HIV research are invested in strategically differentiated positionings of people who receive payment and emphasize varying degrees of choice. The terminologies that seek to distinguish a range of economically motivated paid sex practices from sex work are characterized by an emphasis on the local and the particular, efforts to evade the stigma attached to the labels sex worker and prostitute, and an analytic prioritizing of culture. This works to bestow cultural legitimacy on some locally specific forms of paid sex and positions those practices as artifacts of culture rather than economy. This article contends that, in HIV research in particular, it is necessary to be cognizant of ways the deployment of alternative paid sex categories relocates and reinscribes stigma elsewhere. While local identity categories may be appropriate for program implementation, a global category is necessary for planning and funding purposes and offers a purview beyond that of isolated local phenomena. We argue that “sex work” is the most useful global term for use in research into economically motivated paid sex and HIV, primarily because it positions paid sex as a matter of labor, not culture or morality.

“Under the Same Quilt”: The Paradoxes of Sex Between Men in the Cultural Revolution

ABSTRACT This article describes the paradoxes experienced by homosexual men during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Interviews with 31 elderly Chinese gay men were carried out in four cities in China in 2011. Although homosexual men were terribly persecuted, chaotic situations and dislocations of youth from their families provided young homosexual men with a remarkable degree of personal freedom and the opportunity to explore same-sex relations. Analysis of this seemingly contradictory conflation of persecution and freedom will allow us to explore the conditions and effects of the coming of age of homosexual men in a unique epoch in Chinese history.

‘I loved him all my life’: love, duty and homosexuality in post-liberation China

Abstract This article is born out of an oral history study of 31 elderly homosexual men in four cities in China. It shows the ways in which major events of Chinese history since the birth of the People’s Republic in 1949 intervene in personal lives and, in turn, how personal lives are drawn into larger historical events. One of the major themes running through these life narratives is that of love and duty. The interrelationship, as well as the tensions, between duty and love is a central part of the experiences of elderly Chinese homosexual men; their lives have been beset by hardships and duty, as well as by the joys of love, and these have an impact on their health and wellbeing. The experience of one individual, Mr Peng, illustrates the important yet shifting ways in which love and duty have been twinned throughout key life events. His narrative indicates an intricate interweaving of love for family, love for Deng, his male partner of 20 years, and love for his wife, as well as duty to family and to a patron. The inseparable couplet of love and duty served as the source of hardship and pain, but also of protection and great joy.