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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Elanah Uretsky, MA, M Phil, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University, 722 W. 168th Street, New Yor, NY 10032, 212 305 5656, emr9@columbia.edu

This paper examines the work related activities that lead wealthy businessmen in urban China, often referred to as “Mobile Men with Money', to engage in high-risk sexual behaviors. The provision of pleasure, in the form of services from commercial sex workers, is often linked to political and economic success for urban men in contemporary China. A sense of loyalty and obligation to work related duties in a rapidly transforming socialist system structured by both a market economy and traditional patron-client relations requires many urban men to solicit the services of commercial sex workers as part of their job. However, the presence of a strong state structure that officially prohibits these types of activities creates a dynamic of competing discourses that pose difficulties to public health programs aimed at preventing STIs and HIV among this group of men. Conclusions are based on eighteen months of qualitative ethnographic research in three Chinese cities among men and their potential sexual partners. Participant observation and in-depth interviews are used to describe urban men's motivations for seeking sexual partners outside of marriage as well as the political, social, and individually related challenges these men face in protecting both themselves and their sexual partners from STI and HIV infection. The goal of the research is to develop a new method for HIV prevention that targets these men within both their formal and informal workplace environments.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to

• Identify alternative definitions of work
• Recognize the links between work related responsibilities and high-risk behaviors
• Develop ways for assessing the needs for HIV prevention programming targeted for the workplace and developing alternatives to workplace programs

Keywords: HIV Risk Behavior, Sex

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation