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Inner-city women and AIDS: The psycho-social benefits of unsafe sex

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Abstract

The paper describes and analyzes findings from a larger study of the links between low levels of condom use and impoverished, urban, African-American women's experiences and understandings of heterosexual relationships. The research identifies and explores psycho-social barriers to safer-sex. This article examines, in detail, HIV/AIDS risk denial and women's strategic use of unsafe (condomless) sex and “monogamy narratives” to build and to maintain this denial. The tendency to view urban African-American women's conjugal affiliations as instrumental is questioned.

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  1. Department of Sociology/Anthropology Dept. 3BV, New Mexico State University, Box 30001, 88003, Las Cruces, NM

    E. J. Sobo

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Sobo, E.J. Inner-city women and AIDS: The psycho-social benefits of unsafe sex. Cult Med Psych 17, 455–485 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01379310

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