My presentation examines the structural vulnerabilities to HIV that black gay men's experience in the U.S. and what these men do about it. I draw from ethnographic data to highlight what some black gay men do to withstand the anti-black racism and homosex-normativity that underpin HIV prevention public health strategies. I argue that sexual practices, spaces, and situations in which Black gay men engage are a means through which they claim and enact sexual autonomy during this HIV crisis that disproportionately impacts them.

 

Marlon M. Bailey is an associate professor of women and gender studies at Arizona State University. His book, Butch Queens Up in Pumps: Gender, Performance, and Ballroom Culture in Detroit, a performance ethnography of ballroom culture was awarded the Alan Bray Memorial Book Prize by the GL/Q Caucus of the Modern Language Association. Professor Bailey is currently conducting an ethnographic study of the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on Black gay subjectivity.