Bareback Panic in the Public Sphere

• In Event: 20214 - Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies

Abstract

This work examines the surprisingly negative reactions among gay men to the introduction of pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP. PrEP refers to a medical regimen where HIV negative people take a drug designed to treat HIV to prevent the transmission of HIV. PrEP has proven to be at least as effective as condoms in preventing HIV transmission, but those who take PrEP and engage in more condomless sex (commonly referred to as barebacking) are still viewed by some as dangerous and immoral. Although some scholars have claimed that the negative reactions to PrEP comprise a sex panic (a type of moral panic), I argue that sex panics are those that occur among a general population and this panic is limited to gay men. Drawing on Cathy Cohen’s concept of indigenous panics (2009), I argue that the negative reactions to PrEP among gay men is an intracommunity panic, but not a sex panic among the general population. Given the centrality of the public sphere to moral panics, I support this claim with a qualitative content analysis of 76 mainstream news articles and 294 queer news articles that focus on PrEP or barebacking. I found that there was not a general sex panic due to the relative dearth of mainstream articles on PrEP along with its framing as a public health tool rather than a sexual one and the framing of PrEP controversy as an intracommunity issue relevant only to gay men. However, moral shocks that set off the panic came from and were targeted against gay men, and queer news media produced a plethora of articles repeating these claims, concerns over increased barebacking, and framings of bareback sex as inherently problematic.

Author

• Benjamin Kampler, Kalamazoo College