Risk and community: The impact of HIV among gays in Madrid. The case of sex clubs

Abstract

AIDS has been a major challenge to the Spanish LGBT community, not only from an epidemiological, but also from a social and cultural perspective: risk of HIV transmission and seropositivity had to be incorporated into community-building practices in a context of accelerated social change. In this article we try to approach these processes by focusing on the changes that have taken place in the scene of venues where sex is practiced on premises in Madrid. The emergence of sex clubs in the last decade challenges the hegemonic representation of the community and thus decisively alters the map of possible identifications. Specifically, we stress the social diversity of its constituency, and describe the contrasting practices and representations towards HIV and risk of customers who identify with the alternative identities promoted by sex clubs and those who do not. Attitudes towards the risk of HIV transmission and safer/unsafe sex have been incorporated in ways that are deeply affected by the new forms of subjectivity in whose consolidation the clubs have played a decisive role.