Safer Sex Stories Told by Young Gay Men: Building on Resiliency Through Gay-Boy Talk

ABSTRACT Most research about HIV among gay youth focuses on HIV risk behaviors. Many of the studies of gay youth are also driven by a deficit model of development. Scholars have argued that such deficit models may be contributing to their stigmatization while ignoring their resiliency. This article focuses attention on a subset of the sexual stories told by young gay men as part of the Sexual Stores Project. The twenty Anglo and twenty Latino young gay men, ages 18–24, were drawn using a snowball sampling procedure within each ethnic group. Analyses of these semi-structured interviews allow for examinations of these young gay men's safe sex accounts and their experiences in sex education at school. Recommendations for meaningful and relevant HIV prevention sex education guided by “Gay-boy” talk are provided.