The National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report from the HIV Incidence Surveillance System that identified several U.S. subpopulations as being at increased risk for contracting HIV. The report confirmed that black men who have sex with men, including those who also have sex with women, were among those at highest risk. Indiana University sexual health expert Brian Dodge has conducted research involving bisexually active men and he co-edited a special section of the journal “Archives of Sexual Behavior,” available now, that addresses this important issue.
â’The media and general public are obsessed with disclosure, but there is no evidence that disclosing leads to safer behaviors — or, indeed, that not disclosing leads to riskier sexual behaviors,â’ said Dodge, associate director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. â’And what benefit do men have for disclosing their bisexuality in a society where positive support and affirming resources for bisexual men are all but non-existent, and negative stereotypes prevail? This is another example of an ongoing debate between public health and public morality. Sexual risk behavior is a public health issue; disclosure of sexual behavior is, in large part, a personal and moral issue.â’
In a study published this month in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, Dodge and his research colleagues suggest that broader social awareness and acceptance of male bisexuality is a necessary component of HIV prevention efforts targeted at men who have sex with both men and women. This would be in addition to traditional individual-level behavior programs.
The study was based on interviews with 30 black men who have sex with both men and women in New York City. Researchers found that the men in the study feared the consequences of disclosing their bisexuality, especially to their female partners. In addition, some men feared that disclosing put them at risk for physical and emotional harm.
â’There are bisexually active black men who are contributing to the epidemic in the black community, but there are also heterosexual men and women, and homosexual men who are contributing,â’ said Malebranche. â’With little evidence to support that such a small population is causing all or the majority of infections among heterosexual black women is a fallacy at best.â’
Both researchers agree that larger social, economic and structural issues are playing a role in the epidemic.
â’Black men arenâ’t having unprotected sex more so than other racial/ethnic groups, so itâ’s more than individual behaviors that are driving this disparity alone,â’ says Malebranche.
Malebranche and Dodge both agree that while disclosure may be important in some respects, it is not an essential factor in curbing the spread of HIV.
â’We need more common messages about human behavior and motivations for condom use that don’t use moral judgments against homosexuality or bisexuality as the crux of the analysis,â’ said Malebranche. â’The science and literature backs us up on that.â’
The IU study was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Co-authors include Sandfort and William Jeffries IV from the Department of Sociology, University of Florida.
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