Gay MenThe largest gay population is in the city of Sydney with Oxford Street being the best-known area for at least a particular subgroup to congregate. An area on this street known as “The Wall” is the place male *** workers congregate. Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, and the Gold Coast all have a number of acknowledged gay and lesbian venues, including bars, restaurants, night clubs, and theaters. These venues are recorded in the publication Gay Guide. Smaller towns have similar venues, but tend to have a lower profile.
It is easy to stereotype the patterns of behavior for gay men, however, it would be more accurate to say that there is as much diversity in relationship and ****** patterns among the gay population as there is among the nongay population. The spectrum - from long-term monogamous relationships, serial monogamy, triads, groups, to frequent, anonymous ***, and ****** abstinence - would all be represented within the gay community.
One representative pattern of gay male behavior has most recently been documented by researchers from Macquarie University in New South Wales. The study revealed that urban gay men had high levels of knowledge about HIV transmission and had substantially changed their ****** behavior. Attachment to the gay community, defined as ******, social, or cultural/political, was found to increase the likelihood of behavior change. Isolation and nonattachment decreased the chance of sustained behavior changes (Crawford et al., 1991).
In contrast, results of a study of men who use the beats in western Sydney, differ somewhat from the Macquarie study. Wherrett and Talbot (1991) found that 40 percent of men reported they practiced unprotected anal intercourse with casual partners, 10 percent with regular partners, and 95 percent of the sample reported having experience of anal/genital intercourse without condoms at some time in their lives. Forty-eight percent of men stated that they had had unprotected intercourse within the last six months. The authors suggest that the findings from these and other similar studies reveal that there are large numbers of men who have *** with men who are not attached to the gay community and are the least likely to adopt safer *** practices.
