Abstract
Our analyses address the question of how bisexual Latino men organize their sexual partnerships. Heteronormativity can be understood as the set of social norms and normative structures that guide sexual partnering among men and women. We provide descriptive statistics to describe bisexual Latino men’s sexual partnerships. Logistic and linear regression modeling were used to explore bivariate and multivariate relationships. Of our total sample (N = 142), 41.6 % had unprotected vaginal intercourse 2 months prior to the interview; 21.8 % had unprotected anal intercourse with female partners; 37.5 % had unprotected insertive anal intercourse with male partners; and 22.5 % had unprotected receptive anal intercourse with male partners. In our multivariate model, machismo was directly associated with meeting female partners through formal spaces (workplace, school, and/or church), but inversely associated with meeting male partners in formal spaces. Machismo was positively associated with meeting male sex partners through social networks (i.e., friendship and kinship networks). The more comfortable men were with homosexuality the less likely they were to meet men online and the more likely they were to meet men through social networks of friends and kinship. Interventions to reduce sexually transmitted diseases that target bisexual behavior as an epidemiological “bridge” of transmission from homosexual to heterosexual networks might very well benefit from a more complex understanding of how Latino bisexuality is patterned. Thus, this exploratory analysis might lead to a rethinking of how to address risk and vulnerability among Latino bisexual men and their sexual networks.
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Acknowledgments
This article is based on data collected from the research study entitled, “Gender, Power, and Latino Men’s HIV Risk,” a project sponsored by the U.S. Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Grant No.: 1R01HD-056948-01A2; 2009–2014; Principal Investigator, Miguel Muñoz-Laboy). We would like to thank the members of our research team: Shauna Bannan, B.A., Diana Hernández, Ph.D., Casey Hinton, Jennifer Hirsch, Ph.D., Ashley Perry, M. P. H., C. P. H., Edgar Rivera-Colón, Ph.D., Cassidy Shaver, B.A., and Karolynn Siegel, Ph.D. The authors would like to extend our deepest gratitude to our research participants who shared their lives with us. The content of this article is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NICHD or the NIH.
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Muñoz-Laboy, M., Garcia, J., Wilson, P.A. et al. Heteronormativity and Sexual Partnering Among Bisexual Latino Men. Arch Sex Behav 44, 895–902 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-014-0335-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-014-0335-x