Risk, safety, stigma, liberation, and pleasure: The experience of sex in the era of pre-exposure prophylaxis

HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) involves the use of antiretroviral therapy by people who are HIV-negative. PrEP enables men who have sex with men (MSM) to experience condomless anal sex with significantly reduced risk of HIV infection. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Melbourne, Australia, this thesis explores the emergence and use of PrEP by MSM and, more specifically, how PrEP shapes and reshapes the experience of sex. PrEP offers the possibility of experiencing sex through assemblages that foreground pleasure and not, importantly, through assemblages that include risk and danger.