Marseille 2007
| Abstract #647 - Refusing blame: understandings of responsibility in the narratives of gay men recently diagnosed with HIV | ||||
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Session: 52.2: Exploring discourses and practices of responsibility in the context of HIV (Workshop) on Tuesday @ 13.00-14.00 in CP Chaired by Jeanne Ellard Authors: Presenting Author: Ms Jeanne Ellard - University of New South Wales, Australia |
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| Additional Authors: Mr Dean Murphy, | ||||
| Aim: Objective To explore how gay men recently diagnosed with HIV understand responsibility in sexual encounters. | ||||
| Method / Issue: Method The data for this paper are drawn from interviews with Sydney gay men who have participated in the Risk Factors for HIV Infection study. This ongoing qualitative study, which began in 1993, documents the participants accounts of the event they believe led to their seroconversion. The interviews were transcribed, and then analysed by the author to identify patterns, inconsistencies and themes. The analysis was developed with reference to themes emerging from the interview narratives and in light of relevant literature on gay men, HIV, responsibility and sexual risk. | ||||
| Results / Comments: Results There was a notable absence of blame in these accounts, and this is consistent across time. In refusing a framework of blame and litigation, these men also rejected any characterisation of their own or others behaviour as irresponsible. These men talked about their own HIV infection either in terms of self-responsibility or mutual responsibility. In contrast, they spoke of an intention to protect future partners. In these narratives the language of protecting the other coexisted with a language of self-responsibility | ||||
| Discussion: Discussion The interview narratives illustrated a complex relationship between responsibility, sexual practice, disclosure and risk. The theme of responsibility appeared in multiple ways in the accounts. The presence of multiple discourses of responsibility in these accounts may explain why gay men in Australia have largely rejected both legal and social options to blame the men who may have infected them HIV. While these men refused to lay blame for their infection on others they tended, post-diagnosis, to see themselves as having a greater responsibility for preventing their future sexual partners from infection. This suggests that they may have implicitly always regarded HIV-positive men as having a greater responsibility to disclose serostatus and prevent transmission. Nonetheless the absence of discourses of blame indicates that while the visibility of HIV in the gay community has diminished, the majority of gay men still see themselves as an at risk group. | ||||
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