"Honesty, communication and trust are what bring peace of mind"

Most HIV research asks some version of: what are people doing wrong? For this study, we flipped the question: what are people doing right?

We interviewed 51 HIV-negative Latino gay and bisexual men across five Southern cities — not about their risks, but about how they navigate HIV in their daily lives. A strengths-based lens, grounded in resilience theory.

The backdrop is heavy: a real climate of fear around both HIV and homosexuality, with stigma and taboo actively getting in the way of prevention. That part isn't new, but it matters — you can't design good prevention while pretending it isn't there.

What struck me were the strategies men described that were practical and thoughtful: carefully sizing up a partner before anything happens. Setting clear boundaries for what happens and what doesn't. Teaching themselves what they were never taught.

Nobody handed them a manual. They built one.

That's the shift I'm arguing for: prevention that only speaks the language of risk misses the skills people are already using. What if our programs started by recognizing those strategies and got serious about navigating partner trustworthiness, safety, and new ways to get good information to people without the fear-based packaging?

The title of the paper is a direct quote from a participant. Honestly, he said it better than any of us could.

The paper: Gelaude, D., Roland, K. B., Gaul, Z., Reyes, J. V., & Denson, D. J. (2024). "Honesty, communication and trust are what bring peace of mind": Narratives of HIV risk among Hispanic/Latino men who have sex with men in the southern United States. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-024-02106-w