The condom in Brazilian sexual scenario: approximations between STI/AIDS prevention and eroticism

• Grant number: 13/09442-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): August 01, 2013
• Effective date (End): January 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Collective Health
• Principal Investigator: José Ricardo de Carvalho Mesquita Ayres
• Grantee: Thiago Felix Pinheiro
• Supervisor: Richard Guy Parker
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina (FM). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Columbia University in the City of New York, United States

Abstract

In Brazil, since the first years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the use of condom has been adopted as one of the main guidelines for prevention of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI). In spite of the increasing its insertion in sexual practices, the safe sex still represents an important challenge for the control of the epidemic. This research aims at comprehending the discourses about condom as STI/AIDS prevention method in the Brazilian context since the decade of 1980s. To that end, it is based in the perspective of social constructionism and, more specifically, in the notion of sexual scripts, according to which sexual experiences result from learning arising from impregnation of multiple scripts related to sexuality and internalization of the modes of operation of the institutions in respect to the sexual norms and possibilities. The dimension of eroticism is adopted as privileged analytical axis and polarized between a medicalized notion of sexuality and a more libertarian notion, according to which erotic escapes from biomedical rationality. It is a qualitative investigation with case study design, grounded in philosophical hermeneutics. Data will be collected by in-depth interviews with people who have significant involvement with the coping with the epidemic of HIV/AIDS in Brazil and can portray with property the social construction of the investigated phenomenon. The analytic interpretive process will follow the hermeneutics premises toward a deep understanding of the identified meanings. (AU)