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This paper examines discourse on serodiscordant relationships in interviews with 16 HIV-positive and 3 HIV-negative gay men living in Scotland. Drawing on critiques concerning love, reason and HIV serostatus normativity, this paper supplies a much-needed insight into how gay men in serodiscordant relationships negotiate HIV prevention. Among other matters, some HIV-negative men were said to knowingly request risky sex with their HIV-positive partners as an expression of love. In some situations, the person without HIV claimed a normative serostatus that implied they could 'invest' more in the relationship by offering to have sexual intercourse that may expose them to HIV. Such dynamics expressed devotion on the part of the HIV-negative man, but implied obligation for the HIV-positive man. Based on these and other perspectives we argue for closer attention to gay men's subjectivity in the present circumstances of proliferating biomedical forms of HIV prevention; more thoroughly reflexive public health engagements with gay men's sexual cultures; and a research agenda for gay men that challenges HIV-serostatus normativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article compares trends in sexual risk among gay men in London, England and in Glasgow, Scotland. The trends in unprotected anal intercourse (UAI), UAI with partners of unknown/discordant HIV status and UAI with more than 1 partner were analyzed using multivariate logistic regression. Each rose significantly in 1999 and 2002 in London, but only in 2002 in Glasgow. HIV testing levels were lower in Glasgow, while sexual risk was higher in London.

Objective: Male circumcision has been shown to reduce the risk of HIV acquisition among heterosexual men but the impact among men who have sex with men (MSM) is not known. In this paper, we explore the feasibility of research into circumcision for HIV prevention among MSM in Scotland.Methods: Anonymous, self-complete questionnaires and Orasure oral fluid collection kits were distributed to men visiting the commercial gay scenes in Glasgow and Edinburgh.Results: 1508 men completed questionnaires (70.5% response rate) and 1277 provided oral fluid samples (59.7% response rate). Overall, 1405 men were eligible for inclusion in the analyses. 16.6% reported having been circumcised. HIV prevalence was similar among circumcised and uncircumcised men (4.2% and 4.6%, respectively). Although biologically, circumcision is most likely to protect against HIV for men practising unprotected insertive anal intercourse (UIAI), only 7.8% (91/1172) of uncircumcised men reported exclusive UIAI in the past 12 months. Relatively few men reported being willing to participate in a research study on circumcision and HIV prevention (13.9%), and only 11.3% of uncircumcised men did so.Conclusion: The lack of association between circumcision and HIV status, low levels of exclusive UIAI, and low levels of willingness to take part in circumcision research studies suggest circumcision is unlikely to be a feasible HIV prevention strategy for MSM in the UK. Behaviour change should continue to be the focus of HIV prevention in this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]