Bisexualities and AIDS: International Perspectives (Social Aspects of Aids Series)

239 Pages·1996·1.6 MB·English

by  Peter Aggleton

Bisexualities and AIDS
Social Aspects of AIDS
Series Editor: Peter Aggleton
Institute of Education, University of London
Editorial Advisory Board
Dominic Abrams, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK
Dennis Altman, La Trobe University, Australia
Maxine Ankrah, Makerere University, Uganda
Mildred Blaxter, University of East Anglia, UK
Manuel Carballo, Nyon, Switzerland
Judith Cohen, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
Anthony Coxon, University of Essex, UK
Peter Davies, University of Portsmouth, UK
Gary Dowsett, Macquarie University, Australia
Jan Grover, Oakland, CA, USA
Graham Hart, MRC Medical Sociology Unit, Glasgow, UK
Mukesh Kapila, Overseas Development Administration, UK
Hans Moerkerk, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague, The Netherlands
Cindy Patton, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Diane Richardson, University of Sheffield, UK
Werasit Sittitrai, UNAIDS, Geneva, Switzerland
Ron Stall, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
Robert Tielman, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
Simon Watney, London, UK
Jeffrey Weeks, South Bank University, London, UK
Bisexualities and AIDS:
International Perspectives
Edited by
Peter Aggleton
UK Taylor & Francis Ltd, 1 Gunpowder Square, EC4A 3DE
USA Taylor & Francis Inc., 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101, Bristol, PA
19007
© Selection and editorial material copyright Peter Aggleton,
1996
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without permission in writing from the Publisher.
First published 1996
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection
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A Catalogue Record for this book is available from the British
Library
ISBN 0-203-42178-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-42239-2 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-7484-0393-0 (Print Edition)
ISBN 0-7484-0394-9 pbk
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data are
available on request
Series cover design by Barking Dog Art
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Peter Aggleton
Chapter 1 Bisexual Men in Britain 3
Mary Boulton and Ray Fitzpatrick
Chapter 2 Bisexuality and HIV/AIDS in Canada 22
Ted Myers and Dan Allman
Chapter 3 Not Gay, Not Bisexual, but Polymorphously Sexually 43
Active: Male Bisexuality and AIDS in Australia
June Crawford, Susan Kippax and Garrett Prestage
Chapter 4 Bisexuality and AIDS: Results from French Quantitative 59
Studies
Antoine Messiah and the ACSF Group
Chapter 5 Bisexuality and HIV/AIDS in Mexico 74
Ana Luisa Liguori with Miguel González Block and Peter
Aggleton
Chapter 6 Bisexual Communities and Cultures in Costa Rica 97
Jacobo Schifter and Johnny Madrigal with Peter Aggleton
Chapter 7 AIDS and the Enigma of Bisexuality in the Dominican 1 19
Republic
E.Antonio de Moya and Rafael García
Chapter 8 Male Bisexuality in Peru and the Prevention of AIDS 1 34
Carlos F.Cáceres
Chapter 9 Bisexuality and HIV/AIDS in Brazil 1 46
Richard G.Parker
Chapter 10 Under the Blanket: Bisexualities and AIDS in India 1 58
Shivananda Khan
Chapter 11 Male Homosexual Behaviour and HIV-Related Risk in 1 75
China
Suiming Pan with Peter Aggleton
vi
Chapter 12 The Homosexual Context of Heterosexual Practice in Papua 1 88
New Guinea
Carol L.Jenkins
Chapter 13 Silahis: Looking for the Missing Filipino Bisexual Male 2 04
Michael L.Tan
Notes on Contributors 2 23
Index 2 27
Acknowledgments
Editing this book would not have been possible without the support of numerous
friends and colleagues. Within the World Health Organization’s Global
Programme on AIDS, where the idea for this book originated, I would like to
thank Julie Dew, Purnima Mane, Eva Rodrigues, Sylvie Schaller and Oussama
Tawil. Within the Institute of Education, University of London, I would like to
thank Helen Thomas who liaised with chapter contributors and prepared the
manuscript for publication.
Peter Aggleton
Introduction
Peter Aggleton
The advent of AIDS has stimulated unprecedented interest in the nature of
human sexuality and sexual behaviour, the forms that it takes and the ways in
which it is understood by individuals, communities and societies. Since the first
cases of AIDS were diagnosed there has been much debate about the part that
male ‘bisexuality’ might play in fuelling the epidemic, most usually on the
pretext that such behaviour in itself poses special risks, not only for the
individual concerned but also for sexual partners, both male and female. But to
what extent do such views offer a sound understanding of the epidemic and its
determinants? And to what extent is male ‘bisexuality’ the same all over the
world? These are important questions, not least for the design of health
promotion interventions to encourage HIV-related risk reduction among
behaviourally bisexual men and their partners.
In the popular media and in some medical writing, male bisexuals have often
been characterized as a ‘bridging group’, enabling HIV to be transmitted from
apparently discrete sub-populations of behaviourally homosexual and
behaviourally heterosexual individuals. Most usually, it is suggested that bisexual
men pose a special threat to their female partners through having had sex with
other men, particularly exclusively homosexual men. Such accounts stereotype
reality in that they posit the existence of two identifiable and discrete groups of
individuals, the ‘homosexual’ and the ‘heterosexual’, that are capable of being
‘bridged’ by a third type. They also make assumptions about the nature and
patterning of risk itself by implying, questionably in many circumstances, that
behaviourally homosexual men are more likely to practice unsafe sex than are
women and men in heterosexual sexual relations.
Male bisexuality is in fact a very complex phenomenon, especially when
considered in an international and cross-cultural context. As has been
emphasized elsewhere (Tielman et al., 1991), important distinctions must always
be drawn between bisexual behaviours and bisexual identities. While the former
may be relatively common, only rarely are they accompanied by any sense of
bisexual identity, or of being ‘bisexual’. In fact a wide range of sexual identities
accompany bisexual behaviour. Most usually, the men concerned see themselves
as ‘normal’ and no different from other men. Alternatively and perhaps more
occasionally, they may see themselves as ‘partially homosexual’ or as sharing
2 PETER AGGLETON
one of the locally offered, and often strongly gendered, identities that allow men
occasionally or even regularly to have sex with one another while retaining a
strong sense of heterosexual self.
Not infrequently male bisexuality has been linked to situational factors, both
as a way of explaining when and where sex takes place, and in terms of the
accounts men may give of their actions. Such situational analyses can be a useful
starting point in enabling us to understand sexual relations between men in
environments such as prisons and the military. By themselves, however,
situational analyses tend to describe rather than explain events and behaviours. As
we will see here, only when complemented by in-depth study of the
subjectivities of those involved and the power relations expressed by, and
reproduced through, homosexual relations, do situational analyses have the
strength to explain what may actually be taking place.
Few male bisexual relations are symmetrical in the sense that men apportion
equally their sexual activities with women and with men, and only on the rarest
of occasions is behaviour itself bisexual. Much more common are heterosexual
and homosexual sexual encounters that, taken in sequence, constitute a pattern
indicative of behavioural bisexuality. Such encounters are usually characterized
both by an asymmetry of practice, with sexual relations with either women or
men predominating at any one moment in time, and by temporal variation.
Rather less is known, however, about variations in sexual identity and erotic
desire that may accompany these behavioural patterns.
Any adequate understanding of male bisexuality must go beyond such
relatively superficial concerns to locate bisexuality within particular cultural and
historical contexts. Only this way can we fully appreciate the complex patterns it
takes, as well as recurrent themes regionally and nationally. Many of the
chapters here adopt such an approach, seeking to identify the roots of male
bisexuality in cultural and historical variables as diverse as economic need, the
social segregation of women and men, religious edict and cultural expectations
about masculinity and virility. Such a mode of analysis cautions strongly against
essentialist models of bisexuality and raises important questions about the
attainability of any unitary bisexual politics. It points instead to the contingent
and varying nature of male bisexual practice, and to its multiple determinants.
Understanding more about these determinants and their consequences for HIV-
related risk is central to each of the chapters in this book.
Reference
TIELMAN, R., CARBALLO, M. and HENDRIKS, A. (Eds) (1991) Bisexuality and HIV/
AIDS, Buffalo, NY, Prometheus.