5 Freed from fear: reconstructing older gay male sexuality through PrEP – an account of a generational experience
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Jacek Kolodziej
Abstract
This piece is written as an autoethnographic memoir and study of how it has been and is to live as an HIV-positive gay man from Aotearoa New Zealand across a time of great cultural change. It is a reflection through a sociological and historical lens of how the personal side of my life as a gay man intersects with wider cultural, political and health-related themes. Generational trauma impacted how gay men coming of age during the AIDS crisis engaged in sexual practices. The biomedical methods of HIV prevention, like pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), have the potential to transform community practices, with profound psychological consequences. In this chapter, I present an account of Allan, a gay man in his sixties who lives in Aotearoa New Zealand and uses PrEP. During the AIDS crisis, Allan’s perception of physical closeness with other men became contaminated with fear of HIV transmission and feelings of mistrust, guilt and shame. With PrEP, these feelings disappeared as Allan recovered important functions of his sexual experience: transcending the boundaries of individuality and resisting heteronormative norms through subversive practices. The effects of PrEP can be viewed from a generational perspective to reveal the undoing of the psychological effects of the AIDS crisis trauma and the recovering of the pleasure of sexual connection by older gay men.
Abstract
This piece is written as an autoethnographic memoir and study of how it has been and is to live as an HIV-positive gay man from Aotearoa New Zealand across a time of great cultural change. It is a reflection through a sociological and historical lens of how the personal side of my life as a gay man intersects with wider cultural, political and health-related themes. Generational trauma impacted how gay men coming of age during the AIDS crisis engaged in sexual practices. The biomedical methods of HIV prevention, like pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), have the potential to transform community practices, with profound psychological consequences. In this chapter, I present an account of Allan, a gay man in his sixties who lives in Aotearoa New Zealand and uses PrEP. During the AIDS crisis, Allan’s perception of physical closeness with other men became contaminated with fear of HIV transmission and feelings of mistrust, guilt and shame. With PrEP, these feelings disappeared as Allan recovered important functions of his sexual experience: transcending the boundaries of individuality and resisting heteronormative norms through subversive practices. The effects of PrEP can be viewed from a generational perspective to reveal the undoing of the psychological effects of the AIDS crisis trauma and the recovering of the pleasure of sexual connection by older gay men.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Notes on contributors vii
- Series editors’ introduction xi
- Foreword: Dare we hope for the erotic? HIV/AIDS, sexuality and ageing xxi
- Introduction 1
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Women
- The ‘disease of love’: trajectories of women ageing with HIV in Switzerland 11
- Beyond the biomedical: HIV as a barrier to intimacy for older women living with HIV in the United Kingdom 28
- ‘Everyone is on their own and nobody needs us’: women ageing with HIV in Ukraine 46
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Gay and bisexual men
- Chemsex among gay men living with HIV aged over 45 in England and Italy: sociality and pleasure in times of undetectability 67
- Freed from fear: reconstructing older gay male sexuality through PrEP – an account of a generational experience 84
- In the company of men: gay culture and HIV in Aotearoa New Zealand 102
- Growing old with stigma: a case study of four older Chinese gay/bisexual men living with HIV in Hong Kong 114
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Intersectional lives, multiple stigmas
- Out in Africa: facing the HIV other in Nairobi 139
- Survival of an older Bangladeshi lesbian experiencing intersectional vulnerability 159
- Sanjeevani: early ageing and HIV survival in queer Mumbai 174
- Afterword 191
- Index 194
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Notes on contributors vii
- Series editors’ introduction xi
- Foreword: Dare we hope for the erotic? HIV/AIDS, sexuality and ageing xxi
- Introduction 1
-
Women
- The ‘disease of love’: trajectories of women ageing with HIV in Switzerland 11
- Beyond the biomedical: HIV as a barrier to intimacy for older women living with HIV in the United Kingdom 28
- ‘Everyone is on their own and nobody needs us’: women ageing with HIV in Ukraine 46
-
Gay and bisexual men
- Chemsex among gay men living with HIV aged over 45 in England and Italy: sociality and pleasure in times of undetectability 67
- Freed from fear: reconstructing older gay male sexuality through PrEP – an account of a generational experience 84
- In the company of men: gay culture and HIV in Aotearoa New Zealand 102
- Growing old with stigma: a case study of four older Chinese gay/bisexual men living with HIV in Hong Kong 114
-
Intersectional lives, multiple stigmas
- Out in Africa: facing the HIV other in Nairobi 139
- Survival of an older Bangladeshi lesbian experiencing intersectional vulnerability 159
- Sanjeevani: early ageing and HIV survival in queer Mumbai 174
- Afterword 191
- Index 194
