Respectable Gentlemen and Street-Savvy Men: HIV Vulnerability in Sri Lanka

ABSTRACT

In this article, I investigate how particular discourses surrounding class specific understandings of sexual behavior and female morality shape awareness and views of the disease and personal vulnerability. Although both groups belong to the working class, those employed by the transportation board consider themselves government servants and, therefore, “respectable gentlemen.” Construction workers identify easily with their class position, recognizing and sometimes trying to live up to the stereotypes of free sexuality. These different perceptions directly affect their concern and awareness of risk factors for sexually transmissible infections and safe-sex practices. While the “respectable gentlemen” consider themselves invulnerable, the “street-savvy men” learned about risks and took precautions to prevent STIs.

KEYWORDS:

• Sri Lanka
• class and sexuality
• construction workers
• HIV/AIDS vulnerability
• migrant men
• transport workers

Acknowledgments

I thank United Nations Development Program (UNDP), SARDI (India), and Center for Women’s Research (CENWOR) Sri Lanka, Humanities Institute of the Drake University, and the American Institute for Sri Lanka Studies for funding and facilitating the fieldwork informing this article. I also thank Catherine Harnois, Neil DeVotta, and three anonymous reviewers for their detailed and insightful comments.

Funding

This work was supported by the United National Development Program (UNDP) through a grant disbursed through South Asia Research and Development Institute (SARDI) in 2004 and a research grant from Drake University’s Humanities institute in 2008 and partly through a research grant from The American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies in 2015.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the United National Development Program (UNDP) through a grant disbursed through South Asia Research and Development Institute (SARDI) in 2004 and a research grant from Drake University’s Humanities institute in 2008 and partly through a research grant from The American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies in 2015.

Notes on contributors

Sandya Hewamanne

Sandya Hewamanne is the author of Stitching Identities in a Free Trade Zone: Gender and Politics in Sri Lanka (2008) and Sri Lanka’s Global Factory Workers: (Un) Disciplined Desires and Sexual Struggles in a Post-colonial Society (2016). She teaches anthropology at the University of Essex, United Kingdom.