AIDS and men:Taking risks of taking responsibility

The global AIDS epidemic is led by men. Men have more opportunity to contract and transmit HIV; men usually determine the circumstances of intercourse; and men often refuse to protect themselves and their partners. Even if no more than one in four men endangers themselves and their female or male partners, this represents hundreds of millions of men who, it appears, regularly act without thought for their partners. Can men be persuaded to change their behaviouor? How do concepts of masculinity affect risks and responsibilities in relation to the epidemic?

The first section of this book examines the relationship between men’s actions and AIDS world wide, the impact of those actions on men and women and initiatives designed to help men protect themselves and their partners. The second section, written by journalists from eleven countries in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, illustrates many different aspects of that relationship – from machismo in Mexico to drug injection in Russia, from  men in prison in Brazil to men living with HIV in Thailand, from men as fathers in the Ivory Coast to men who have sex with men in Kenya.

ISBN: 1-870670-40-x
Publisher: Panos Institute, Zed Books
Year of Publication: 1999