A startling and important new report from Sigma Research, entitled Sexually charged: the views of gay and bisexual men on criminal prosecutions for sexual HIV transmission has found that the majority of more than 8000 gay men surveyed in 2006 during the annual Gay Men’s Sex Survey support prosecutions for ‘reckless’ HIV transmission.
An excellent summary of the report’s findings, Ignorance and stigma provide foundation for gay men’s support of criminalisation of HIV transmission by Michael Carter, can be read at aidsmap.com.
The report’s lead author, Catherine Dodds, reported part of these findings at the 2008 CHAPS conference, and I had the honour of joining her on stage to discuss how the gay community might be able to respond to them. A report of our presentations was published in the July 2008 edition of THT’s Issue magazine.
Update: 17th March. In order to respond to a comment I’m uploading a table from the report showing who exactly supports prosecutions by HIV testing history.
As you can see, although ‘only’ 49.4% of HIV-positive gay men do not agree with prosecutions, a further 31% are not sure, leaving a significant minority (19.6%) in favour of prosecutions. This compares with 56.3% of HIV-negative gay men and 63.5% of untested gay men who support criminal prosecutions.