Resum
Many studies have provided information about different individual, social and cultural
factors for the deliberate assumption of risk in sex practices among men who have sex
with other men (MSM). However, there has been little analysis of the role of sexual
health programmes in the understanding of bareback sex. Following sociological debates
about the effects of governmentality in health promotion, this article examines the
extent to which HIV prevention campaigns addressed to MSM in Spain are implicated
in the construction of a social context where bareback sex is possible. It argues that the
implication of Spanish LGBTI activism and the social link between AIDS and masculine
homosexuality from the outset of the epidemic have given safer sex a moral value. At
the same time, the creation of a scenario where sexual care is perceived as desirable
also raises a subjection process where individuals are urged to answer whether they
engage in safer sex practices or not. This article concludes that a new perspective of
intervention is necessary to address the realities of HIV infections among MSM in
contemporary western culture. (Extraído del documento)