Identity fictions in the (sexual)politics of PrEP

the “barebacking whore” and the “medicated saint”

Abstract

This article presents the results of a cartographic study involving cisgender gay men who use HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) and self-identified as barebackers (individuals who engage in anal sex without condoms). The study mapped forms of self-narration emerging from the interplay between barebacking and PrEP. Two main discursive lines were observed: the first, more aligned with dominant health discourses, associates HIV prevention with a set of sexual moralities and the construction of a “virtuous subject,” characterized by self-responsibility and self-surveillance; the second, divergent from sanitary recommendations, portrays PrEP as a facilitator of barebacking and as a transgressive strategy to intensify pleasure. These two discursive frameworks configure an assemblage we term the dilemma between the “medicated saint” and the “bareback slut.” The cartographies suggest that these identity fictions are mobilized in an instrumental, utilitarian, and contingent manner.