Quences literature has taken a illness prevention perspective having a focus on objective measures of sexual behavior or STIs, with several fewer articles focused on the prospective for PrEP to enhance sexual agency and sexual satisfaction and decrease mental well being symptoms. This may very well be a outcome of the field’s relative unwillingness to grapple with sexuality and sexual pleasure as worthy variables inside the scope of HIV analysis. Kane Race (2016) argued that, “In its meticulously cultivated posture of disinterest toward the intensities of sex, HIV science compounds this aversion, producing the sexual as a domain to recoil from rather than actively confront or otherwise embrace within a spirit of engagement.”J Sex Res. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2022 December 08.Grov et al.PageInvestigators from multiple PrEP research groups have published similar sentiments in the past quite a few years, noting the limitations of an method to PrEP rollout that neglects the behavioral and social components and only prioritizes adverse or problematic elements of sexuality for instance STIs. The theme of sexual pleasure has been the focus of some campaigns promoting HIV danger reduction and PrEP use (e.(+)-Gallocatechin In stock g., Calabrese Underhill, 2015), nonetheless, it is nevertheless the exception and not the norm. In their commentary within the New England Journal of Medicine, Marcus and colleagues (2019) wrote that, while many clinicians might be narrowly focused on HIV prevention or may worth sex for reproduction extra than sex for other purposes, “patient-centered care requires recognizing that illness prevention may not be one of the most essential health outcome to sufferers… By enabling condomless sex with less worry of HIV transmission, PrEP has the potential to facilitate the intimacy and pleasure that could improve sexual well-being for many people” (p. 511). In their commentary in the American Journal of Public Wellness, Boone and Bowleg (2020) created complementary points, highlighting that “sexual pleasure is inextricably linked to sexual wellness and sexual rights” and that “[r]esearch on sexual pleasure.Gadolinium Protocol .PMID:23795974 . was virtually nonexistent for Black guys regardless of sexual identity. With handful of exceptions… danger, danger, and deficit, not sexual pleasure, had been the principal frame for Black GBMSM’s sexualities and sexual health” (p. 157). A evaluation in the literature on PrEP and sexual pleasure tends to make it clear that there is certainly much more research needed, specifically for PrEP-using GBMSM of color. Various recent qualitative studies have located that for some, sexual pleasure, intimacy and empowerment can result from employing PrEP (Bil, van der Veldt, Prins, Stolte, Davidovich, 2016; Mabire et al., 2019; Newman, Guta, Lacombe-Duncan, Tepjan, 2018; Philpot et al., 2020; van Dijk et al., 2020). Likewise, 1 study reported that participants’ skilled increased sexual “confidence” (Lea et al., 2018), and yet another discovered that PrEP use facilitated much more “adventurous” sexual experiences (Prestage et al., 2019). Investigators interviewed 45 participants who had been enrolled within the ANRS-IPERGAY trial of on-demand PrEP in France and Canada. Outcomes of their thematic analysis yielded 3 most important categories, all strongly interconnected: participants’ partnership with condoms; intimacy and pleasure; and reaching a far better sexual high-quality of life (Mabire et al., 2019). Numerous participants reported that taking PrEP allowed them to improve their sexual satisfaction by decreasing or discontinuing (with some partners) the use of condoms for anal.
