Constructing the neoliberal sexual actor: Responsibility and care of the self in the discourse of barebackers

Abstract

This paper analyses on the discourses employed by a subset of gay and bisexual men who no longer practise protected sex more than twenty years into the HIV epidemic. In‐depth interviews with 102 men in Toronto are used to examine the moral reasoning of those for whom the language of barebacking provides a shared set of accounts and tacit understandings for unprotected sex. Barebacking raises some of the central issues of contemporary theory around risk, responsibility, and ethics, and poses new challenges to HIV prevention policy as barebacking discourses adapt some of the major tenets of neoliberal ideology by combining notions of informed consent, contractual interaction, free market choice, and responsibility in new ways. At the same time, interviews with barebackers reveal competing and contradictory discourses that suggest new avenues of engagement for HIV prevention initiatives.

Keywords:

• HIV transmission
• gay men
• neoliberal
• responsibility
• bareback

Acknowledgements

This work is part of a larger study on HIV risk management with co‐investigators Winston Husbands, James Murray, and John Maxwell, and the assistance of Elmer Bagares and Danielle Layman‐Pleet. First presented in 2003 to the AIDS Impact: Biopsychosocial Aspects of HIV Infection Conference in Milan, the research was made possible by grants provided by the Canadian Strategy on HIV/AIDS and the Community‐Based Research Program of Health Canada. The view expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Health Canada.