| Summary: | Based on interviews with cisgender gay men living in Mérida, Yucatán, I examine the relation of risk policies, scientific discourses, and their sexual practices. Scientific evidence showing that reducing viral load to undetectable levels can prevent hiv transmission has significantly changed the prevention landscape. Consequently, the risk associated with condomless sex is no longer assessed in the same way as before. While the power-knowledge regime surrounding hiv and aids relies on continuously updated scientific knowledge, current risk policies still adopt a prescriptive approach to prevention. Gay men living with hiv in Mérida face the stigma of belonging to “at-risk groups”, leading to judgments about their sexual practices based on a moral code that holds them responsible for their own health and that of their partners. Moreover, their behavior aims to be regulated by an ethopolitics that has made condom use a norm. To understand risk policies from the perspective of these men, I explore five processes related to their experience of sexuality: 1) coming to terms with their sexual orientation; 2) assimilating their hiv diagnosis; 3) acquiring knowledge about hiv and aids; 4) choosing whether or not to disclose their diagnosis and 5) deciding whether or not to use condoms in their sexual practices. I conclude that gay men in Mérida view their pursuit of pleasure as legitimate and have developed an ethical framework that redefines the categories of the prevailing moral code. Decisions about disclosing their diagnosis and the use of condoms are negotiable, and based on the ethical principle that individuals are all responsible for their own health and body.
|
|---|
