Parents, peers and pornography: the influence of formative sexual scripts on adult HIV sexual risk behaviour among Black men in the USA

Abstract

Black men in the USA experience disproportionately high rates of HIV infection, particularly in the Southeastern part of the country. We conducted 90 qualitative in-depth interviews with Black men living in the state of Georgia and analysed the transcripts using Sexual Script Theory to: (1) characterise the sources and content of sexual scripts that Black men were exposed to during their childhood and adolescence and (2) describe the potential influence of formative scripts on adult HIV sexual risk behaviour. Our analyses highlighted salient sources of cultural scenarios (parents, peers, pornography, sexual education and television), interpersonal scripts (early sex- play, older female partners, experiences of child abuse) and intrapsychic scripts that participants described. Stratification of participant responses based on sexual-risk behaviour revealed that lower- and higher-risk men described exposure to similar scripts during their formative years; however, lower-risk men reported an ability to cognitively process and challenge the validity of risk-promoting scripts that they encountered. Implications for future research are discussed.

A Qualitative Analysis of Father–Son Relationships among HIV-Positive Young Black Men Who Have Sex with Men

“…Unfortunately, lack of open communication between parents and children may increase reliance on alternative, higherrisk sources of sexual learning such as the Internet, peers, or early sex partners, a pattern which has previously been associated with riskier behavior among black men. 42 Many participants described insufficient male role modeling to guide them through adolescence. In HIV research, many discussions of masculinity have focused on the negative or risky implications of masculinity beliefs, which are frequently associated with high-risk behaviors such as sexual partner concurrency and inconsistent condom use.…”

Predictors of Sexual Scripts Among Young, Sexually-Active, Substance- Using African American Women

“…Several studies to date explored sexual scripts of AA women [36,49,54,55,59,72,73,75,77,94]. To our knowledge, this is the first study to move beyond the description of sexual scripts to identify and describe factors that are likely along the pathway to sexual script development among YSSAAW.…”

“…face-to-face meetings. Codes were collapsed into themes informed by Wingood's focus of Connell's TGP on the powerless of AA women in sexual decision making [44][45][46]66] and Stephen and Phillip focus on female's sexual script development research of AA women [36,[50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60]. The research team then conducted a frequency analysis on emerging themes using NVIVO11 and Microsoft Excel software.…”

“…To date, these concepts have not been considered in the guiding theoretical framework of HIV prevention interventions with YSSAAW [72]. Historically, researchers have explored varied types of sexual scripts [49,54,55,57,59,[72][73][74][75][76][77]. Most recently, US-based research related to sexual scripts explored gender and sexual behavior among adolescents and college students [78,79], stigma associated with being sexually inexperienced [80], sexual scripts that tolerate sexual coercion among college students and nonconsensual sex/rape among AA and White adolescent and college women [81][82][83], hip hop media as a powerful mechanism promoting saliency of sexual scripts for AA women [84] and most related to this study was a qualitative study assessing the effects of sexual victimization history of undergraduate women on hypothetical sexual script characteristics [85].…”

“…Stephens and Phillips' focus of females' sexual script development research with AA women explores ways culture shapes perception, expression of appropriate and socially acceptable sexual behavior, individual level expectations, and experiences of behaviors that occur in series [49] within a population at high risk for HIV [36,[50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60]. The SST articulates the way sexual scripts provide instructions (i.e., a roadmap) for clarifying the intention and meaning of sexual cues and responding to them, which in turn informs how men and women behave in sexual situations [50,51,[60][61][62][63].…”