Condom use among homosexual men

Abstract

A postal questionnaire survey of 262 homosexual men was carried out to investigate patterns of sexual behaviour and the use of condoms. Two hundred and twenty-nine of these subjects had been sexually active during the past year, with the mean number of male sexual partners being 8.09. One hundred and eighty men engaged in oral sex, and 117 ejaculated during this activity, of whom 103 (88%) did not use a condom. One hundred and sixteen men had engaged in insertive anal intercourse in the past year, and 102 had ejaculated during this activity. Of these, 32 did not use a condom. Some, however, only engaged in this activity within a monogamous relationship. The overall proportion of men who continued to engage in very high-risk sexual activity was small, however a different picture emerged if the sample was analysed in terms of the number of encounters with different men during the past year. Of the total estimated number of such encounters, almost half involved anal intercourse, and about half of these were unprotected. The reason for the apparent discrepancy is that those who continue to engage in high risk behaviour tend to be particularly sexually active.