The 'condom lady' speaks: Female sexuality discourses and HIV prevention in community-based organizations

After 25 years of growing awareness about the ADDS crisis in the United States, there continues to be 40,000 new infections each year. While this is a preventable disease, the complexity of the intersection between the salient characteristics of gender, race, class, sexuality, and culture has led to its threatening presence in many communities. One response to this disease has been the growth of community-based organizations (CBOs) to offer prevention education and services to their racial minority communities deemed at-risk for HIV/AIDS.; Through educator interviews and HIV prevention workshop observations, this research study explores the sexuality and gender discourses within CBOs offering HIV prevention programming for women. Although the educators interviewed represent quite diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds and cultural upbringings, and work in CBOs targeting racially diverse clientele, there were many common underlying themes related to sexuality, gender, culture, and sexual health that guided their programming. However, how they specifically put this knowledge into practice and confronted the barriers to sexual health for the women in their communities varied significantly.; A feminist constructionist framework provides the structure for this sexuality discourse analysis. Dominant female sexuality discourses and responses to HIV/AIDS, shaped through mainstream media and biomedical perspectives, have not facilitated sexually healthy decision-making for many women. The prevention programs of these educators were much broader and more comprehensive than the path that biomedical research has taken, which has often isolated HIV prevention and individuals from many relevant social and cultural factors. Educators were much more likely to incorporate the context of a woman's life, including gender, culture, sexuality, abusive relationships, drug use, networks, children, schedules, and self-worth. And for educators who perceived their audiences to be more open to frank sexual discussions (specifically African American women), they often incorporated dialogue about sexual pleasure, masturbation, and sex toys. All educators encouraged empowerment for women in their sexual health choices through education, communication, and self-respect. These HIV prevention programs offer sexuality and gender discourses for women that both build on existing dominant understandings of sexuality and gender, and also provide alternative perspectives that potentially allow for greater female sexual empowerment and health.