Desires as defiance: Gay male sexual subjectivities and resistance to sexual health promotion

Abstract

What is the relationship between transgression and sexual desire? In what ways might transgressive sexual subjectivities be linked with trans gressive sexual practices? If some people organise their desires and practices around what is forbidden or taboo, what are the implications for sexual health promotion?

This paper looks at one gay man's experience with the organisation of his sexuality, his erotic desires, and his actual sexual practices and examines the complicated interconnections between gender per formance, the organisation of sexual desire, and embodied sexual practices. It puts forward a theory of sexual subjectivity that replaces naturalised assumptions of sexual orientation and a genetic or biologic theory of homosexuality, with one of agency and resistance to gender norms. Next, the paper examines the history of safe sex campaigns for gay men during the first two decades of AIDS in the United States and, drawing on the work of British researcher Peter Keogh, examines the ramifications of extending citizenship to a despised population in exchange for repudiating a forbidden sexual practice. Moving into an examination of contemporary campaigns in response to unprotected anal sex activity in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, the author suggests that what is seen as a 'new wave' of health promotion efforts, continues this practice of creating 'good' and 'bad' gay citizens that might be an engine behind the expansion of unprotected anal sex in the gay male imaginary. The paper closes with key questions about the efficacy of traditional health promotion methods with particular populations of gay men.