Reducing Risk of HIV/AIDS at Circuit Dance Parties

Fall 2006, Volume 28, Number 1

Thomas D. Cook

When circuit parties were created in the 1980s, the large weekend-long dance events were intended in part to raise awareness and funding for HIV and AIDS prevention. Today circuit parties may be doing more harm than help, according to a study by co-investigators Amin Ghaziani, a doctoral candidate in sociology and management, and social psychologist Thomas D. Cook, IPR faculty fellow and Joan and Sarepta Harrison Chair in Ethics and Justice.

The study concludes that the prevalence of unprotected sex at these circuit parties, particularly between HIV-positive men, is increasing the risk of HIV/AIDS. The parties, with up to 20,000 attendees, often attract a large number of gay and bisexual men. At the parties included in the study, more than two-thirds of attendees had some type of sex, and 47 percent of them participated in unprotected sex.

“The parties are seen as gay celebratory events that elicit highly valued feelings of community by participants,” said Cook. “That camaraderie coupled with drugs raises sexual appetites and distorts judgment in a setting where an over-representation of HIV-positive men are engaging in unprotected sex. In this party atmosphere, many forget about the threat of HIV/AIDS—or no longer care about it.”

Ghaziani offers strategies to reduce the rates of potential HIV infection. The study calls for prevention messages arguing that unsafe sex falsely promises eroticism and authenticity, that certain drugs elevate libidos and distort cognition, and that condom use does not betray intimacy or the party ethos.

“The point is not to demonize this subpopulation of gay and bisexual men,” he said. “Instead, we have to find healthier ways of celebrating community.”

The study, “Reducing HIV infections at circuit parties: From description to explanation and principles of intervention design,” appeared in the Journal of the International Association of Physicians in AIDS 4(2): 32-46.