Respecting Local Sexual Cultures—The Process of Innovative HIV Prevention Outreach Within a Public Sex Environment

ABSTRACT

Despite emerging evidence of the efficacy and continued importance of sexual health outreach within public sex environments (PSE), current literature fails to examine how such interventions work. Accordingly, we present a qualitative process evaluation of an innovative PSE outreach service in England, UK. Through interviewing volunteers (n = 5), cruisers (n = 14), and all salaried staff (n = 5), we provide an insider's perspective highlighting both the challenges of PSE outreach provision and the unique solutions developed locally. Outreach success is achieved through respecting the local sexual culture within which cruising activities occur. Moreover, this illustrates the importance of local cultural sensitivity when delivering health promotion in challenging settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Outreach work
• process evaluation
• men who have sex with men
• public sex environment
• sexual cultures
• HIV prevention
• UK

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We express our gratitude to all the people who took the time to participate in this study, particularly the SOS team and volunteers. This work was funded by City of Brighton and Hove Primary Care Trust.

Notes

1. Additionally, a review of grey literature (Scott, 1998) that examined sexual health interventions within PSEs, was published only online and is no longer obtainable.