Additionally, over half of HIV-positive men and men on PrEP reported five or more anal sex partners at sex parties in the past six months compared to the 27% of men never on PrEP. Men not on PrEP, however, were significantly more likely to have only attended one sex party in the past six months, 31%, compared to men on PrEP and HIV-positive men, 17% and 7% respectively. Seventeen percent reported being HIV-positive-undetectable, and 29% reported being HIV-negative men on PrEP. The majority of the men who attended sex parties reported being HIV-negative and not on PrEP, roughly 54%.
(Men with HIV who were detectable were dropped from the analyses.)
The researchers included 211 men in the final analyses to compare HIV-positive-undetectable men, HIV-negative men on PrEP, and HIV-negative men who had never used PrEP. There were 234 men who had attended sex parties in the past year: 18% reported being HIV-positive (84% of them undetectable), 27% reported being HIV-negative men on PrEP, and 55% reported being HIV-negative and not on PrEP. Four items assessed participants’ subjective understanding of how the context of sex parties influence their own sexual risk behavior. Three items explored the participants’ understanding of norms around HIV disclosure and responsibility at sex parties. Six of the items evaluated the assumptions participants had about other men at sex parties regarding their HIV, STI, and PrEP statuses. Participants were then asked to rank 13 items, developed by the study team, using a five-point scale from one (strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree). (The 20 person requirement was used to exclude folks who had small, private threesomes or sex parties.) Lastly, participants were asked if they had been to a sex party with at least 20 people in the past year. Participants were then asked for HIV-status (and viral load levels) and if on PrEP (and how well they adhered to regimen). In order to participate in the study, you had to be at least 18 years old, have had sex with a man in the past year, identify as male or transgender, and live in the NYC metropolitan area. Recruitment advertisements were posted on a major social networking website, two social networking mobile applications for gay/bi men, on small-ad websites, and a blog listing sex parties in NYC.
Secondly, “We wanted to get some data about how these new prevention strategies might impact safer-sex behavior and attitudes among sex-party goers.” “Do gay sex parties attract men who are riskier, or does something in the environments where group sex occurs cause men to engage in riskier behavior than they typically engage in?” he asks. Firstly, it was to explore why men who attend group sex parties engage in high-risk behaviors. The goal of the study, Meunier tells NewNowNext, is twofold. In 2017, they collected data from men who had attended sex parties in the past 12 months and published their findings in the Journal of Sex Research. Etienne Meunier and Karolynn Siegel of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health are at the forefront of studying group sex research. While there is still and will continue to be high concern about transmitting HIV, researchers are also now willing to look at the ways sex parties influence a gay man’s identity-for better and for worse-and foster a sense of community.ĭr. TasP and PrEP have changed the landscape of gay sex. This is commonly explained with the phrase undetectable = untransmittable, and using treatment of HIV as prevention is known as TasP (Treatment as Prevention). Since PrEP’s inception, there has been yet another visible shift slowly occurring in the literature: The widespread knowledge that men living with HIV who have an undetectable viral load are unable to pass on HIV to other men through sex. Given the high efficacy of PrEP (nearly 100%), it is possible to engage in condomless sex with various partners without fear of contracting HIV. Over half a decade later, it’s estimated that roughly 136,000 people are on PrEP in the United States. Then, in 2012, the FDA approved Truvada, a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Up until recently, HIV has been the main purpose of studying men who frequent bathhouses, truck stops, parks, and sex parties. Barbara Alper/Getty Gay Pride marchers in New York City, June 1983.