Gay Men's Knowledge of HIV Transmission and ‘Safe’ Sex: A Question of Accuracy (original) (raw)

1990, Australian Journal of Social Issues

The study described in this paper is part of a project assessing the impact of the HIV epidemic on 535 men who have sex with men. These men were surveyed about their knowledge of HIV, their sexual practices, other issues concerning the transmission of HIV, and AIDS. This paper focuses on these men's beliefs about HIV transmission, their perceptions of the safety of a number of sexual and social practices, and the factors influencing these perceptions. The findings indicate, in general, that the men surveyed were moderately well informed about HIV transmission. Some twenty percent of the men were well-informed about both 'safe' and 'unsafe' sexual practices, a small number were ill-informed and the remainder, the majority, were wellinformed about some aspects and ill;i(lformed about others. The data suggest that information from the mainstream and gay press is not only differentially available but that information is processed and interpreted by the men in different ways. Variables which influence the manner in which information is interpreted are place of residence (locale), awareness of gay community posters and pamphlets, and the men's sexual practice; these are associated with cautiousness or rashness in the men's judgments of safety and risk. The Social Aspects of the Prevention of AIDS (SAPA) study is a programme of research designed to supply background information for education strategies in HIV IAIDS prevention. Its focus is on the sexual and social lives of gay and bisexual men, the information environment in which they live, their responses to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic, and the impact of strategies designed to change high-risk sexual behaviours. This paper deals with one aspects of that study: the beliefs that gay and bisexual men hold about HIV transmission, the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and safe sex, and the factors which are implicated in the formation of those beliefs and opinions. The data come from Study A in the SAPA programme, a survey of