4th International AIDS Conference Stockholm, Sweden. — June 12-16, 1988

Int Conf AIDS. 1988 Jun 12-16;4:1.110 (abstract no. PL17)

John H. Gagnon
Department of Sociology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 08540

The onset of the AIDS epidemic has made evident how scanty our knowledge base is about sexuality, not only in the developing world where behavioral science resources are limited, but in the developed world as well. That the findings of the Kinsey group of nearly half a century ago remain relevant to current scientific discussion is an important measure of the lack of a well-developed and active research tradition in the area of sexuality.

From the beginning of the AIDS epidemic there have been some attempts to support sex research relevant to both the transmission of the disease and behavior change. While some of this research has had its uses in the early stages of the epidemic, much of it has been ad hoc and methodologically flawed. In part this is because of a lack of baseline data, trained personnel and easily accessible and tested research techniques. But another contributing factor has been because the majority of this research has been driven soley by a concern for the disease and has not taken into account the larger role of sexuality in the life of individuals in specific cultures and societies. Most of the research up to this point has been on sexuality in the perspective of AIDS and not AIDS in the perspective of sexuality.

A number of major sex research intiatives are now being undertaken both nationally and internationally which may give us a more fundamental understanding of sexual development. That these initiatives have been so long in coming suggests the peculiar status of sexuality as a social practice and as the object to scientific research in the modem world. Perhaps it is well to understand that long after the AIDS epidemic is history, sexuality will remain with us as a source of both pleasure and difficulties.

880612
PL17

Copyright © 1988 - International AIDS Society (IAS). Reproduction of this abstract (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the IAS.