2021/03/24 by Jaime García-Iglesias · 1 citation
Medicine · Social Sciences · Psychology · #HIV/AIDS Research and Interventions #Sex work and related issues #HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk #Discontinuation #Negotiation #Narrative #Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) #Psychology #Identity (music) #Intervention (counseling) #Social psychology #Medicine #Family medicine #Sociology #Psychiatry #Art
paper · doi:10.1177/13634593211005177
openalex publication_date 2021/03/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
This paper explores experiences of PrEP, a HIV-prevention intervention, among bugchasers, gay men who eroticize HIV. While PrEP has been hailed as a "game changer" in HIV-prevention, little attention has been paid to why and how some people may discontinue it in the face of HIV risk, such as bugchasers do. This paper relies on interview data with bugchasers themselves to discuss the process of discontinuation and its effects. The paper argues that, for these men, discontinuation is a fluid, complex, and sometimes contradictory process. It also describes how participants perceived themselves as being at different stages of discontinuation. The paper also analyzes how these men see PrEP as a barrier to intimacy, risk, and a tool to negotiate their desires and identity: through discontinuing PrEP, these men are able to reflect on and build their identities as bugchasers.