Dowsett, Gary. (2013, April). Rethinking HIV in the Future of Gay Men. Presented at Beyond Behaviours: Uncovering the Social Production of HIV Epidemics Among Gay Men, Vancouver, Canada.
In coining the term ‘post-AIDS’ 18 years ago, I was noting then the dissolution of a singular and unified experience of HIV and AIDS for gay communities. Not only were HIV+ and HIV- gay men having increasingly different experiences, but divergent trajectories were opening before us. Since then, many other factors have been coming into play, e.g. age and generation, migration and internationalisation, the ascendency of the biomedical and the technosexual, and the supremacy of neoliberal politics (including sexual politics). Now, if gay men are to survive as such—and there is a question about this too—are there larger issues than HIV and AIDS that ought to command our attention? Or do we need to rethink how we situate HIV and AIDS within the larger framework of gay men’s health; maybe, even within men’s health as non-gay men look more like us and we look more like them? Is ‘health’ even the right frame? This might be just a question of politics, or it could be a question of theory. Are we finally returning to the original gay liberation agenda of the eradication of difference, or simply being traduced (seduced?) by our success at intimate citizenship? Some of these questions might be answered.
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