HIV This Week

Bolding G, Davis M, et al. Heterosexual men and women who seek sex through the Internet. Int J STD AIDS 2006;17:530-4.

Heterosexual women (n=330), heterosexual men (n=319) and gay men (n=331) attending a London HIV-testing clinic in 2002-2003 completed a confidential self-administered questionnaire concerning their sexual behaviour and use of the internet for seeking sexual partners (response rate 70%). One-in-twenty (5%) heterosexual women and one-in-ten (10%) heterosexual men had used the internet to look for sexual partners in the previous 12 months compared with nearly half (43%) the gay men (P<0.001). Rates of high-risk sexual behaviour with a casual partner were elevated among those who used the internet to look for sex (compared with those who did not). However, people who looked for sex through the internet were just as likely to meet their high-risk casual partners offline as online. The authors conclude that the findings suggest high-risk heterosexual women and men are selectively using the internet to look for sex rather than the internet per se leading to riskier sexual behaviour.

As part of a wider study of internet-using Latino men who have sex with men (MSM), Carballo-Dieguez and colleagues studied the likelihood that HIV-negative (n=200) and HIV-positive (n=50) Latino MSM would engage in sexual negotiations and disclosure of their HIV status prior to their first sexual encounters with men met over the Internet. They also analyzed the sexual behaviours that followed online encounters. The results showed that both HIV-negative and positive men were significantly more likely to engage in sexual negotiation and serostatus disclosure on the internet than in person. Those who engaged in sexual negotiations were also more likely to use condoms for anal intercourse. Compared to HIV-negative MSM, HIV-positive MSM were significantly less likely to disclose their serostatus, and 41% of them acknowledged having misrepresented their serostatus to a prospective sexual partner met over the internet. Although similar proportions of HIV-positive and negative men had condom-less anal intercourse, HIV-positive MSM were more likely to report lack of intention to use condoms. Pleasure was the reason most frequently cited for lack of condom use. Cybersex was reported by only one-fifth of the sample. The authors conclude that the internet, an understudied milieu of sexual networking, may present new possibilities for the implementation of risk reduction strategies, such as the promotion of sexual negotiation prior to first in-person encounter and serostatus disclosure.