HIV-positive men as Superheros

Abstract

Summary Improvements in the prognosis for HIV infection and the impact of biomedical strategies for the prevention of transmission have created very specific situations for men who live with HIV within the homosexual minorities. Originally focused on their duty in preventing transmission, the issue at stake gradually moved towards one of power, with the HIV-infected person, the hero/martyr of the 1980s and 1990s, becoming the hero who has vanquished the fear of Aids. Undetectable viral load, the standard of current treatment, makes the individual himself undetectable, invisible. In a population so profoundly affected by the history of Aids, these are superpowers. The HIV-positive guy has become a superhero. The clinical situation for gay men living with HIV says otherwise. In addition to the modifications they have had to make to their sex-lives, be it compulsory abstinence, a change in sexual roles, limiting sexual partners to those who are also HIV-positive or forming a couple at all costs, gay HIV-positive men today seem forced to negotiate with this image that has been forced upon them, in a context where sexual encounters increasingly adopt a neoliberal model. A command to climax, to avoid any problems, to be satisfied with these superpowers even if they didn’t want them in the first place, in a context where invisibility is demanded. None of this helps HIV-positives to repair the consequences of the infection on their sexuality. By adopting the behaviours that have been assigned to them, some of them use their superpowers and transgress all the interdicts (sexual practices, drugs) simply to feel something again. It is probable that our superheros are only superheroes in the eyes of others. In the future, we can expect gays to distance themselves from the epidemic with the development of PrEP; but will that put an end to this fabricated fantasy that gets under the skin of HIV-positive gay men and provides ample opportunity for sexological clinical repercussions.