"In Lust’s Agony”: Narratives and corporal stylization as tools for sexual health education for young gay

Abstract

This work reflects about the production of informational, educational and communicative (IEC) material in health, to HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) prevention, aiming for men who have sex with men (MSM) young people over 18 years old. It discusses the series of materials named “Na Agonia do Tesão” (In Lust’s Agony), produced in the scope of a research project of ethnographic nature, “Homosexualities”, that investigates the aspects that make MSM, living in the Metropolitan Area of Recife (MAR), vulnerable to the virus of AIDS. It is important to emphasize that young MSM are, historically, one of the population and age most impacted by the epidemic of HIV. It is worth it to say that, different from other moments of facing HIV/AIDS, fruitful in IEC material for prevention, there is, currently, a lack of production and distribution of good preventive material oriented for MSM prevention; and also a lack of qualified reflections about the way how IEC strategies work, elements that mobilized the investment of “Laboratory of Human Sexuality Study (LabEshu) in the area of construction and reflection of health education technologies. The text approaches the theoretical-metodological references used in production of IECs, based on study about narratives and corporal stylization. "Na Agonia do Tesão” is composed by five carousels of cards made for social media and internet broadcasting. They present scenes and images of unsafe sex, credible, in order to produce reflections about protection measures to the HIV. In addition, and following a post-pornographic perspective, it discusses in a subliminar way, through images, how race, gender, class, age and other social markers produce oppression and, consequently, vulnerability to HIV and other STI.