Group sex among men who have sex with men may be understood as a ‘radical’ practice insofar as it transgresses dominant social discourses around appropriate sexual relations—prioritizing heteronormative, monogamous and risk‐averse sex. These practices are generally defined as steeped in risk, most commonly due to the potential for transmitting human immunodeficiency virus and sexually transmitted infections and accompanied by the possibility of legal and social repercussions. Our ethnographic research study explored the desires, practices and contexts of group sex participants (n (...) = 10) within a popular group sex party destination located in the United States. We employ a poststructuralist perspective (utilizing the work of Deleuze and Guattari) to understand group sex events with the pretext that bodies have no inherent ethics, meaning or essence: they are ‘bodies without organs’. We identify group sex as a form of boundary play, in which participants pursue new limits to what their bodies can do but within a carefully constructed environment that establishes norms of interaction meant to secure trust and safety between participants. A variety of risk reduction practices are shown to be promoted and honoured within these eventful sexual(ized) spaces. The application of poststructuralist concepts of ‘boundary play’ and ‘bodies without organs’ helped to depict the construction and navigation of pleasure, safety and risk among group sex participants. (shrink)

Many men who have sex with men (MSM) express feeling marginalized by discourses within public health and sexual health nursing that determine bareback sex is deviant and unsafe. Their resistance to risk‐based discourses can be seen within radical sex practices such as deliberately becoming‐infected with HIV (bug‐chasing) and breeding‐infection (gift‐giving). The metaphors of bug‐chasing and gift‐giving, particularly those spread across global online spaces, can influence the sexual experiences and practices of MSM. A metaphor analysis was conducted of Internet forums discussing (...) HIV chasing and gifting metaphors, and showed a variety of discursive meanings, tactics and effects to the radical sex practice. A radical research approach was used to explore the processes of becoming‐infected and breeding‐infection as determinant steps in the symbolic resistance of risk‐based discourses, as well as the creation of new forms of life and community among MSM. Our analyses demonstrate how the gifting/chasing metaphors express MSM's marginalization as well as their lines of flight from having their practices captured within public health discourses. We hope to offer alternative nursing approaches for thinking through and engaging with transgressive and queer sexual practices. (shrink)

Chemicals have penetrated everyday lives of men who have sex with men as never before, along with new online and mobile technologies used to seek pleasures and connections. Poststructuralist (including queer) explorations of these new intensities show how bodies exist in the form of (political) surfaces able to connect with other bodies and with other objects where they may find/create a function (e.g., reproduce or disrupt hegemonies). This federally funded netnographic study explored how a variety of chemicals such as recreational (...) drugs, pharmaceuticals and steroids are contributing to the construction of gay, bisexual and other men having sex with men (GBMSM) communities and their interactions with idealized masculinities in the age of increasing technology. Five major thematic categories emerged from our analysis: (1) assembling bodies and technologies, (2) becoming orgiastic, (3) experiencing stigma, (4) becoming machinic and (5) negotiating practices. Our analysis explores how and why GBMSM pursue excesses of pleasure and connection through the assemblages they make with sexualized drug use, online platforms and other men. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that nurses need to be aware of how the production of space in specific contexts – including health care systems and research institutions – perpetuates marginalized populations' state of social otherness. Lefebvre's idea regarding spatial triad is mobilized in this paper, as it pertains to two‐spirited, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer populations (2SLGBTQ*). We believe that nurses can create counter‐spaces within health care systems and research institutions that challenge normative discourses. Lefebvre's work provides us (...) the necessary tools to understand how various places or environments produce identities. In understanding Lefebvre's principles, we believe that nurses can play an essential role in creating counter‐spaces, thereby instigating counter‐institutional practices, for those who experience otherness. (shrink)