How to be a healthy homosexual: HIV health promotion and the social regulation of gay men in the UK

Keogh, Peter (2008) How to be a healthy homosexual: HIV health promotion and the social regulation of gay men in the UK. Journal of Homosexuality , 55 (4). pp. 581-605. ISSN 0091-8369 (Print), 1540-3602 (Online)

Abstract

Primary Objective: Health promotion has arisen as the main response to the problem of HIV prevention among gay men. Using the linked concepts of governmentality and health promotion as a neoliberal disciplinary technology, this article argues that health promotion in the time of AIDS has contributed to new forms of social regulation and governance for gay men. Methods and Procedures: This article presents an analysis of data from a study of U.K. HIV health promotion for gay men (interviews with health promoters and analyses of health promotion materials). Conclusions: This analysis of health promotion is helpful in describing an emerging form of governance dependent on incentive rather than censure (censure, pathology and “cure” are how we traditionally describe the use of medical knowledge in the regulation of homosexuality).

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