Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Most research about HIV among gay youth focuses on HIV risk behaviors. Many of the studies of gay youth are also driven by a deficit model of development. Scholars have argued that such deficit models may be contributing to their stigmatization while ignoring their resiliency (Savin-Williams, 2001). This paper focuses attention on a subset of the sexual stories told by young gay men interviewed as part of the “Sexual Stores” project. The “Sexual Stories” project was a qualitative inquiry into the lives of forty (twenty white and twenty Latino) young gay men between the ages of 18 and 24. Participants in this study were drawn using a snowball sampling procedure within each ethnic group. The interviewer employed a semi-structured interview method of data collection. The particular focus of this manuscript is to analyze how the interviews collected allow for examinations of safe sex accounts told by the young gay men. The authors illustrate, in qualitative detail, the young gay men’s experiences of sex education at school and the stories they tell about crafting their sexual lives. The text also provides recommendations for meaningful and relevant HIV prevention sex education guided by ‘gay-boy’ talk.