Sexual desire and pleasure in the context of the HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP)

Abstract

This article explores both the sexual desires and pleasure in the context of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use among gays, bisexuals and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM). Our main findings suggest that individuals were assuming notions of natural and unnatural sex, while these categories were linked to condomless sex, acquisitions of sexually transmission infections (STIs) and their perceptions of intimacy. Individuals also believed they could enhance pleasure and desire by acknowledging their inner subjectivity and societal positions associated with PrEP. We argue that the individuals play a positive and conflicting ethic towards sex while on PrEP.

Quality of Sex Life and Perceived Sexual Pleasure of PrEP Users in the Netherlands

“…Furthermore, perceived improvements in quality of sex life may be related to increased sexual pleasure. PrEP users reported improvements in sexual pleasure since they started using PrEP, and they related these improvements to increased sexual desire (Da Silva-Brandao & Ianni, 2020) and greater feelings of sexual freedom (Mabire et al, 2019). Another possible factor related to quality of sex life is chemsex (the use of drugs while having sex) as MSM engaged in chemsex to enhance sexual pleasure (Weatherburn et al, 2017).…”

Sexual and Relationship Benefits of a Safer Conception Intervention Among Men with HIV Who Seek to Have Children with Serodifferent Partners in Uganda

“…Guided by feminist perspectives on sexuality, which emphasize intersectionality and address the ways in which women's sexual experiences are tied to societal structures and inequities [16][17][18], researchers have advocated for assessing the sexual health outcomes that are desired by people with HIV and then studying the factors that enable those outcomes, rather than exclusively focusing on HIV prevention goals and other deficit-based analyses [15,[19][20][21][22][23]. Though a few studies have addressed these issues in MWH who have sex with men [24][25][26], there is a notable dearth of information on intimacy and pleasure among MWH who have sex with women, particularly around conception.…”

Discipline for pleasure: a new governmentality of HIV prevention

“…Indeed, as Kane Race and Martin Holt emphasize, the often-creative co-production of biomedical technologies and GBM communities is also entangled with drugs, HIV preventive technologies, and pleasure (Holt 2014 , 2015 ; Race 2015a , 2017 ). Similarly, da Silva-Brandao and Ianni note that “while on PrEP, individuals find new possibilities of managing their sexual practices and ways to transform their experience of pleasure and desire during sexual practices … PrEP can facilitate the fulfilment of sexual fantasies such as condomless sex, relieving fears of its users” (da Silva-Brandao and Ianni 2020 , p. 1401). In this regard biomedical technologies such as PrEP play an important role in an assemblage of technologies that enable (and foreclose) new ways of experiencing and engaging with sexual practices (Preciado 2013 ; Race 2009 , 2015a , b , 2016 ).…”

“…The present discourse “no longer revolves around irresponsible outlaws that must be disciplined by medical knowledge, but disciplined patients who request for themselves a disciplined status on behalf of freedom. The individual disintegrates perceived biopower framings into liberating forms of sexualities despite being highly disciplined” (da Silva-Brandao and Ianni 2020 , p. 1409). We agree with da Silva-Brandao and Ianni here, but also point out that any notion of a linear historical transition from discipline to pleasure in public health campaigns during the HIV era is misleading.…”

“…Investigating how PrEP is represented in the visual imagery of health ads, this article focuses on how pleasure, sex, and desire are balanced with messages about planning, calculation, and pre-emption. New qualitative scholarship has documented how PrEP use amongst men who have sex with men (MSM) balances sexual desire and pleasure with planning, discipline, and pre-emption (da Silva-Brandao and Ianni 2020 ; Grant and Koester 2016 ; Race 2016 ). However, less has been said about how PrEP health campaigns balance pre-emption and spontaneous sex, planning and pleasure .…”