Abstract

In order to demedicalize the ethics of pre-exposure prophylaxis as HIV prevention, I consider the social effects on men who have sex with men. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers MSM to be the highest risk group for contracting HIV in the USA. The ethics of using PrEP as HIV prevention among MSM, however, has both a medical dimension and a social dimension. While the medical dimension of the ethics of PrEP includes concerns about side effects, drug resistance and distribution, the social dimension of the ethics of PrEP includes concerns about stigmatization, sexual and romantic relationships and sexual freedom. The medical concerns of the ethics of PrEP may take precedence over the social concerns, but there is a growing body of literature that already addresses the medical concerns. Much less attention has been given to the social concerns of the ethics of PrEP, and in this article, I aim to fill this gap in the literature. Therefore, I focus on the often-overlooked social dimension of the ethics of PrEP to help understand the connection between the risks, relationships and communities of MSM using PrEP as HIV prevention.