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Gay men and other Men who have sex with men (MSM), Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS Introduction

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of AIDS

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Definition

Men who have sex with men (MSM) include gay and bisexual men, MSM who do not identify as gay or bisexual despite their behaviors, male sex workers, and transgender men who have sex with men who identify as gay or have sex with other men. The term “MSM” was originally intended to describe same-sex behaviors between men rather than identities, orientations, or cultural categories. It was designed to be less stigmatizing than culturally bound terms such as gay, bisexual, or homosexual and has been useful as an epidemiologic tool to help characterize the HIV pandemic in challenging contexts. However, in the era of HIV, there are growing contingents who now identify as MSM and feel a connection with the MSM community challenging the initial intention of the term. Separately, the term in 2016 is often used interchangeably with the term gay which can be dehumanizing to those who identify as members of the LGBT Community (Trapence et al. 2012). And given the dynamic nature of...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Public Health and Human Rights, Department of Epidemiology, 615 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA

    Shauna Stahlman, Chris Beyrer & Stefan D. Baral

  2. Department of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, USA

    Patrick S. Sullivan

  3. Fenway Health, The Fenway Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Kenneth H. Mayer

  4. Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Kenneth H. Mayer

Authors
  1. Shauna Stahlman
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  2. Chris Beyrer
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  3. Patrick S. Sullivan
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  4. Kenneth H. Mayer
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  5. Stefan D. Baral
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shauna Stahlman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Cell & Molecular Biology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Thomas J. Hope

  2. Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, USA

    Mario Stevenson

  3. University of California, San Diego Dept. Pathology, La Jolla, California, USA

    Douglas Richman

Section Editor information

  1. Obstetrics and Gynecology, Vanderbilt University, Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health, D-7235 MCN; 1161 21st Avenue South, 37232-2581, Nashville, TN, USA

    Sten Vermund M.D., Ph.D.

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Stahlman, S., Beyrer, C., Sullivan, P.S., Mayer, K.H., Baral, S.D. (2016). Gay men and other Men who have sex with men (MSM), Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS Introduction. In: Hope, T., Stevenson, M., Richman, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of AIDS. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9610-6_249-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9610-6_249-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-9610-6

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