Living With HIV/AIDS: a gay man's autoethnography

Abstract

In Canada, queer men (or ‘men who have sex with men’) continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS, representing at least 50% of all people living with HIV/AIDS (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2012). Every year, thousands of new infections significantly increase the toll that HIV/AIDS takes on queer men and their communities. With this epidemiological reality as context, I set out to explore how my subjectivity (as a gay, HIV-positive man) was and is shaped, specifically with respect to the following HIV/AIDS-related, socio-cultural phenomena: activism, community service, ‘safer’ sex, diagnosis and criminalization. These five phenomena provide focal points (or themes) for the presentation and analysis of my experience of living with HIV/AIDS, both before and after becoming infected. Through insider knowledge, my research examines three decades of personal stories, using critical reflexivity to increase my awareness (as well as my reader’s) of the myriad challenges and complexities of living one’s life in the midst of the ongoing pandemic.