Article

Sexualities
2015, Vol. 18(1/2) 158–175
Barebacking in France: ! The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1363460715569142
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An account of the
‘Zone NoKpote’
workshops conducted
by AIDES in 2009
Daniela Rojas Castro
AIDES, France

Gabriel Girard
AIDES, France

Abstract
Research on bareback behaviours and identities constitutes a wide field of academic
work. Literature on this issue has focused on the associated psycho-sociological factors,
on the evolution of gay sociabilities and on the discursive and socio-political uses of
bareback sex. But few of these studies have explored local appropriation of the terms in
non-English-speaking contexts. The present article aims to provide an empirical illus-
tration of this process in the French context. It is based on a qualitative study of the
impact of a series of sexual health workshops for men who do not use condoms
(‘barebackers’).

Keywords
Bareback, France, harm reduction strategies, HIV/AIDS, sexual health

At the end of 2008, a bitter conflict broke out between Act Up-Paris and AIDES
(the two main HIV/AIDS organizations in France) about bareback sex and about
what should be done vis-a-vis this phenomenon. AIDES decided to host a series of
workshops for gay men who have sex without condoms. To understand the ensuing
crisis better, it is first necessary to describe the French HIV-prevention context.

Corresponding author:
Daniela Rojas Castro, AIDES, Tour Essor, 14 Rue Scandicci, Pantin, Cedex 93508, France.
Email: drojascastro@gmail.com
Castro and Girard 159

How can we understand condomless sex between men in the era of HIV/AIDS?
In France, as in the rest of the world, this epistemological and political issue has
been prominent in the prevention arena since the 1980s. Condom promotion and
the widespread safer sex movement have symbolized the historical and worldwide
mobilization of gay communities against this epidemic (Pinell, 2002). Thus, the
fight was principally directed against states and public health authorities. The
first generation of activists managed to impose non-moralistic prevention messages
that reflected the reality of homosexual relationships (Girard, 2013).
However, at the end of the first decade of AIDS, prevention stakeholders for the
gay community were confronted with another challenge: the sustainability of safer
sex (Ekstrand et al., 1989). Despite the information available and numerous out-
reach activities, some men decided not to use condoms, either temporarily or per-
manently (Kippax et al., 1993; Schiltz and Adam, 1995). The explanation of these
‘risky practices’ became a major and enduring preoccupation of community and
scientific debates on HIV/AIDS prevention (Kippax and Race, 2003). This led to a
proliferation of journalistic, psychological, sociological, anthropological and/or
public health discourses on risk. At the time, the ‘relapse’ hypothesis was discussed
in France, as elsewhere (Adam and Schiltz, 1996; Hart et al., 1992). The second half
of the 1990s was marked by the advent and appropriation of the term ‘bareback’, a
polysemic category describing intentional condomless sex (Le Talec, 2007). In a few
years, barebacking went from being a layman’s term to being the focus of research
and then analysis (Carballo-Dieguez et al., 2009). Its widespread dissemination and
the discussions it provoked marked a crucial turning point in the way HIV risk was
envisaged (Rofes, 1998; Rotello, 1997; Scarce, 1999). From then on, it was accepted
that condom use no longer constituted the unquestionable moral basis of gay men’s
prevention practices and bareback sex became the subject of numerous studies
(Berg, 2009). Assessing psycho-social risk factors and barebackers’ motivations
was central to this research (Halkitis et al., 2005; Mansbergh et al., 2002; Suarez
and Miller, 2001; Woltiski, 2005). The community aspects of the phenomenon were
also assessed, notably in connection with people’s experience of living with HIV
(Elford et al., 2007; Yep et al., 2002), the role of the internet (Carballo-Dieguez
et al., 2006; Grov and Parsons, 2006; Halkitis and Parsons, 2003; Leobon et al.,
2011), gay masculinities (Dowsett, 2009; Halkitis et al., 2004) and drug use
(Halkitis et al., 2001). Other studies looked at the structural determinants of bare-
backing, by asking questions about how gay sociability has changed and the rise of
individual prevention in the form of antiretroviral treatment (Adam, 2005; Davis,
2008; Girard, 2013; Rowe and Dowsett, 2008). Finally, from a critical perspective,
several analyses aimed to derive a better understanding of the discursive and socio-
political dimensions of bareback sex (Dean, 2009; Halperin, 2007; Race, 2007;
Warner, 1999). However, there are very few studies carried out on the transnational
dissemination of the term and its local use. As a result, the majority of existing
studies pertain to English-speaking countries (Berg, 2009). The purpose of this
article is to make an empirical and original contribution to understanding the
impact of the bareback phenomenon in the French context.
160 Sexualities 18(1/2)

Bareback in the French context

In most Western countries, the issue of sex without condoms has sparked much
debate inside gay communities, particularly in the United States (Rofes, 1998;
Rotello, 1997 Warner, 1999). In France, this controversy was remarkable for its
intensity, its duration and the degree of its politicization.
Although the term ‘bareback’ only appeared for the first time in the gay press in
1999, intentional risk-taking had already been thought about by numerous stake-
holders (Lestrade, 2000). The controversy over bareback saw Act Up-Paris, on the
one hand, and the writers Guillaume Dustan (1996, 1999) and Erik Rémès (1999),
on the other, pitted against each another and this conflict publicized the debate
(Broqua, 2006; Girard, 2013; Le Talec, 2007). At the 1999 Lesbian and Gay Pride
in Paris, the organization directly accused Dustan of promoting unsafe sex; Didier
Lestrade, the founder and former president of Act Up-Paris personified this charge.
Act Up demanded an exemplary prevention effort rooted historically and symbol-
ically in condom use. For their part, Dustan and Rémès (both HIV-positive)
defended their right to freedom of expression and their choice not to conform to
this prevention ideal. The vehemence of the two opposing positions caused discus-
sion to stall; HIV/AIDS and LGBT organizations struggled to position themselves
in relation to it. It cannot be said that bareback sex was being promoted and, even
in a worrying epidemiological context (Velter et al. 2006), Act Up’s accusations
were not widely supported. The government and the public health sector remained
silent because they feared being accused of adopting a moralistic stance. Within the
gay community, bareback sex had developed a bad reputation. This provocative
but multifaceted word was mostly used to describe and criticize behaviour that was
judged immoral, such as the voluntary transmission of HIV. In addition, the word
bareback (le bareback) sounds very similar in French to a slang word for meat (la
barbaque, as in barbecue). It was through pornography that the term gradually
became more popular. Hence, in France, it primarily denotes a type of porno-
graphic film – and the sexual practice depicted therein – rather than an identity.
Discussions of this topic began to change significantly from 2002, the year in
which AIDES – the longest established HIV/AIDS organization in France – con-
ducted an experimental ‘harm reduction’ campaign in Marseilles (Girard, 2013).
Those working in the field for the organization had, for many years, been aware
of the inherent limitations of their work in promoting condoms. Thought of as
‘condom priests’, volunteers had trouble reaching the gay men who were most at
risk of HIV infection. In addition, the organization was facing prevention difficulties
in its own ranks: many activists admitted to having sex without condoms (on a
regular basis or otherwise) and some became HIV-positive while working for the
organization. The pragmatic harm reduction approach adopted by AIDES was
based on one it had already implemented for drug-users. Strategies were commu-
nicated for reducing risk when condoms are not used: positioning, withdrawal,
taking viral load into consideration, using lubricant. Harm reduction was based
on emerging scientific data (Elford, 2006; Parsons et al., 2005) and was also modeled
Castro and Girard 161

on the work of other prevention organizations around the world. The ‘Enjoy
Fucking? You can reduce the risk!’ (2001)1 campaign by the British group Gay
Men Fighting AIDS was cited as an example. To the pragmatism asserted by
AIDES, Act Up-Paris responded with community-based considerations of represen-
tativeness and responsibility. The ideological opposition between the two organiza-
tions gave structure to the public debate on prevention during the 2000s. The French
mainstream gay magazine Teˆtu provided a forum for the position defended by Act
Up. AIDES was accused of not promoting condom use. The decade was character-
ized by the emergence of ‘gay health’ as a focus for scientific and political preoccu-
pation (Jablonski et al., 2010). This trend was inspired by experiments conducted in
various countries (USA, Canada, Switzerland). Gay health implies shifting the centre
of gravity of HIV-prevention towards a global approach to health (physical, mental,
emotional), that is more respectful of the variety of ways it is possible to be gay. In
France, it was the organization Warning (resulting from a split inside Act Up in
2004), which publicly promoted this approach. In November 2005, in Paris, an
international colloquium was organized on the subject. At the same time, AIDES
took up the issue, which was in line with its harm reduction approach.
With this harm reduction approach, AIDES anticipated the turmoil created by
biomedically inspired prevention advice: individual recommendations, taking viral
load into consideration and the attempt to create links between statistical risks and
individual health. The emphasis was thereby put on individual autonomy and a
calculated approach to risk. Conversely, for Act Up, bareback sex was the symptom
of a break-down in community solidarity: in the face of growing individualism Act
Up felt it was crucial to reassert the collective dimension of the epidemic. However,
the organization became locked into a naming and shaming approach, targeting
some gay men – notably HIV-positive men – who have sex without condoms.
This stance prevented them, over the long term, from forming connections with
those on the fringes of the gay community who are the most sexually active.
Even as they were embroiled in controversies, community stakeholders seemed
to neglect the idea of forming online peer networks to connect men who felt aban-
doned by traditional prevention strategies. The internet, with its specialized web-
sites, became a refuge and a place to assert one’s experience of condomless sex. It
was in this context that the ‘Zone NoKpote’2 workshops were created in Paris.

The genesis and evaluation of the ‘Zone NoKpote’ workshops

In December 2008, a group of 12 men who have sex with men (MSM) without
condoms set up peer sexual health workshops that would take place on a monthly
basis. These ‘Zone NoKpote’ workshops were entirely created and facilitated by the
‘barebackers’ themselves and their main objective was to create a safe place of
mutual assistance in which participants could speak freely about their sex lives
and their health concerns. The workshops had the following four objectives:
(1) to help end isolation by creating a network of mutual assistance; (2) to improve
communication with sexual partners and with health-care providers; (3) to develop
162 Sexualities 18(1/2)

prevention strategies adapted to the sexual practices of barebackers by clarifying

information about harm reduction and (4) to fight against discrimination.
Most of the participants belonged to the same sexual network. In most cases, the
facilitator was the connection between them.
As an example of the heated debates that arose around these workshops, on
10 December 2008 Act Up-Paris published an open letter to AIDES condemning
the hosting of these workshops. According to Act Up, it was hypocritical to juxta-
pose the concept of health with bareback sex: endorsing these workshops discredited
the preventative practices of HIV/AIDS organizations because the workshops were a
means of proselytizing for risky sexual behaviour. AIDES responded to this letter by
explaining why an organization working on HIV-prevention and interested in pro-
moting harm reduction strategies should host these workshops.
It should be noted that even inside AIDES it took a long time to talk about
sexual harm reduction and about bareback sex and that the decision to host these
workshops was not unanimous.
Given the public conflict surrounding this experiment, the French Health
Ministry asked AIDES to provide proof that these workshops achieved the same
standards as other health interventions. Thus an evaluation was conducted by the
AIDES Research and Evaluation unit in order: (1) to establish whether the work-
shops fulfilled their objectives; (2) to characterize the people attending; (3) to
describe the main results and (4) to measure the level of satisfaction.
Semi-structured interviews (conducted in June 2009) and a questionnaire
(December 2009, when the series of workshops ended) were used to this end.
Eight people agreed to fill in the questionnaire: they were HIV-positive French
gay men with a mean age of 49 (37–61) years and six of the eight had a university
degree. Six agreed to be interviewed. For both methods participants were asked to
complete forms giving their consent in writing. A more detailed description of the
methods employed, of the participants’ socio-demographic and health characteris-
tics, as well as some results have already been provided elsewhere (Rojas Castro
et al., 2012). We have accordingly chosen to mention again here only the most
relevant of those results for present purposes. This article presents a selection of
empirical material collected during the study. We deliberately chose not to propose
radical interpretations of the remarks presented. On the one hand, because the
voice of those who were most affected by this disease is a sociological object that
we must be handled with care. We are mindful of the fact that researchers’ points of
view can override that subjective voice. On the other hand, in light of the afore-
mentioned controversial setting, we felt it was important to guard against the risk
of over-interpretation from such a relatively small sample.

Self-presentation of participants in the ‘Zone NoKpote’

workshops
Given the important identity-based component of this phenomenon, we wanted to
find out if the interviewees spontaneously portrayed themselves as barebackers.
Castro and Girard 163

It should be noted that the participants were attending sexual health groups
addressed to people ‘not using condoms’ and that the words ‘bareback sexuality’
were used as a subheading in the flyer advertising the workshops.
‘Bareback identity’ was not salient: none of the interviewees presented them-
selves as barebackers. The terms more frequently used were ‘man’ and ‘gay’. Age
also came up, since most of the participants were middle-aged. Even if bareback
identity was not put forward, two people made indirect reference to their sexual
practices, but in two entirely opposing ways. The first clearly rejected an identity-
based rationale, preferring to emphasize the capacity of each individual to choose
his sexual practices:

I am a gay man, I am HIV-positive, but I don’t feel I belong to a gay

community . . . Everyone has their own sexual practices; they have to come to terms
with them according to what they want and what they think. But I don’t claim to be
part of a particular community.

The second man stressed the relationship between sexuality and the current social
context, in which sexuality is freer, not only in terms of condom use, but also in
terms of attitudes to monogamy and indeed to homosexuality. Consequently, an
effort must be made in terms of education and information about this opportunity,
an effort that is described here as a struggle to be fought:

There is a kind of freedom today. We are no longer condemned to having the same
partner for 30 years. I am a 50-year-old gay man happy to be living in this
period. . . . We need to fight for education and better understanding.

As a matter of fact, these two positions had a considerable impact on the evolution
and indeed ending of the workshops, since the two opposing rationales prevented a
consensus developing around a single way of working: a split developed between
the two sides.
In view of the fact that participants were somewhat different, they were asked if
they saw themselves as similar to, or different from, the other participants. For the
majority, the answer was simple: We are alike through our sexuality. More inter-
estingly, the HIV-negative participants were in a minority of two:

I have one very clear characteristic . . . I am still HIV-negative. So I have sex without
condoms and so far I have not been infected. (I know I take risks in some situations.
I’m ok about that. . . . And I’m the only one who is negative. But it was an interesting
exchange).

For participants in the workshops it was less important to self-define as ‘bare-

backers’; it was more important to self-define in terms of serological status
(being HIV-positive), this being a significant marker of a sense of belonging to a
community with a common destiny.
164 Sexualities 18(1/2)

What is bareback?
Given the multiple definitions of the word ‘bareback’ (Huebner et al., 2006), the
interviewees were asked to describe what meaning it had for them and also what it
implied to others, particularly to other gay men. Most of the respondents declared
that barebacking is merely natural, traditional, or old-fashioned sex. The definition
itself did not interest respondents so much as their dislike of the excessive intellec-
tualization of bareback, something which they suggested seems to encourage fan-
tasies about this practice: ‘I’m not an etymologist, it’s fucking without condoms,
that’s all . . . I’m going to use a very crude word but I think it’s mental masturba-
tion’. Nevertheless, there was one aspect that came to the fore when participants
were asked about a definition, that of sero-concordance. Thus, according to
the respondents, bareback sexuality, or sexuality without condoms, refers
to sex between HIV-positive men: ‘With HIV-positive people, I don’t use them
[condoms] any more, but with HIV-negative men, I do!’. Furthermore, this HIV-
positive sexuality is now possible because of therapeutic advances. However,
these breakthroughs (for example, the ‘Swiss Statement’, the public announcement
made by Swiss physicians in 2008 about the effective role of viral load undetect-
ability in reducing sexual risk to transmit HIV) were not thought to be ‘applicable’
to HIV-negative men. For the participants, it was their experience of living with
HIV that provided adequate information to practise barebacking safely. Thus, the
attendance of two HIV-negative men at the workshops was not always straight-
forward. On the other hand, one of the HIV-negative men, who agreed to be
interviewed, thought that the definition provided by his peers was reductive.
When asked about the possibility of finding a definition of ‘bareback’ that suited
everybody, it was clear that this was highly unlikely: ‘An international definition,
maybe . . . but not one held by the majority. Some guys say that a barebacker is
someone who wants to infect others or to get infected himself or who refuses any
kind of prevention’. The topic of proselytism was closely linked to a definition of
barebacking. Two men made explicit reference to Guillaume Dustan’s books.
They claimed that the world described in those books is representative neither of
the gay community nor of people who have condomless sex:

Can’t we simply have sex without condoms, like couples do, because it’s more
natural, because it’s better, without getting into this ideological diatribe which
doesn’t mean anything to me? . . . There is a book by Dustan, promoting/glorifying
barebacking and getting infected, we really need to get the message across that this
only represents a tiny minority of people and is not at all what the gay community
is about.

Therefore, it is not surprising that several participants felt uncomfortable with this
bareback terminology.

It’s not the word I would use at all . . . It’s a harsh word and quite severe in my view.
Castro and Girard 165

How do other gay men perceive bareback?

There is no doubt that when asked about bareback sexuality inside the gay com-
munity, we heard the fiercest language used in the interviews. Words such as ‘irre-
sponsible’, ‘criminal’ and ‘murderous’ were repeatedly employed. Respondents
declared they felt perceived as people who deliberately transmitted HIV to
others. This attribution of intent was particularly onerous for the respondents,
who considered themselves victims of the controversy around books such as
Nicolas Pages (Dustan, 1999) and Serial fucker: journal d’un barebacker (Rémès,
2003), autofictional accounts that did not correspond to their own self-perception.
In some cases, this representation of barebackers as criminals had been reported
outside the gay community:

I have to say that people like Guillaume Dustan didn’t help matters much. Dustan
and Rémès, well the difference between Dustan and Rémès is that Dustan is a
writer. . . . As far as I’m concerned, infecting someone deliberately is inconceivable.

Perceived and treated as criminals by some, participants were also accused of being
too ‘safe’ by more radical barebackers. Thus, the facilitator was disparaged by
internet users on a French bareback site (www.bbackzone.fr) when he uploaded
the minutes of the workshops:

There are discussions and exchanges that are formed and when we say we are trying to
do sexual harm reduction, to talk about HCV and STIs, some guys say, hey stop, stop,
you’re on a barebacking website, we’re not here to do prevention, we don’t give a shit.

The existence of workshops on bareback illustrates the instability of a group

organized around so stigmatized a characteristic. For some members of the
group, the workshops were seen as conducive to a position of responsibility
(in terms of prevention) and even of respectability. As far as some other gay
men (outside the group) were concerned, this apparent willingness to normalize
bareback sex undermined the erotic appeal of unsafe sex. For the latter, the
outside world, particularly the virtual world, opens up the possibility of freeing
oneself from the burden of responsibility or respectability imposed by prevention
norms.

Why bareback?
Scientific literature has tried to identify and theorize about the factors associated
with barebacking (Berg, 2009). Participants were asked to offer their opinion
about these factors in order to find out if they recognized themselves and their
practices.
One primary issue was drug-use. Participants considered drug-use a means of
triggering sex but not an explanation for barebacking.
166 Sexualities 18(1/2)

As for the desire to belong to the HIV-positive gay community, this issue came
up spontaneously in the response of one of the group participants:

On the bareback website, I often meet guys who want to get infected. I think it’s
because they want to belong to a community, to be recognized, or maybe there’s a
victim thing going on, the idea of being sick.

Concerning self-esteem, we noticed several contradictions. The older participants

felt bareback was natural for them and a demonstration of high self-esteem, but
when practised by younger people the older ones saw bareback as fooling around
and thus a sign of low self-esteem:

In the beginning, barebacking was not at all associated with self-esteem, on the
contrary . . . Now, we see more and more young people who fantasize about getting
infected, we see more and more people who are unaware of their HIV status who don’t
know where they stand and who, nonetheless, are afraid of getting tested.

In fact, this ‘younger’ versus ‘older’ division emerged several times in the inter-
views. For the older participants, bareback sexuality was thought of as a choice
that can be envisaged once you become HIV-positive, since it is the result of one’s
experience, of maturity. Consequently, younger men who practise barebacking are
‘disapproved of’ because they are not mature enough and they put themselves at
risk of HIV:

It really bothers me to see so many young HIV-negative people. It really raises doubts
in my mind because in my view, barebacking is a sexual practice for very mature and
responsible individuals. And we realize that there are more and more immature young
people on the website.

In any case, it clearly appeared that most of the interviewees believed bareback
sexuality to be a very complex phenomenon that cannot be explained solely by the
factors previously mentioned. On account of their long experience of HIV, bare-
backers are more capable of protecting themselves by benefiting, for example, from
the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy, which profoundly changed the
relationship to HIV transmission. Moreover, the issue of age-related erectile dys-
function was also mentioned. For some men, the only alternative to having sex
without condoms was giving up on their sex life:

Different people have different reasons . . . First I am on antiretroviral treatment. I’ve

been living with HIV for 23 years. When I found out I was HIV-positive I thought
I would die in two or three years. Now I’m retired and I’ve learned to live with it and
keep things in perspective. . . . Let’s just say that Viagra is coming in handy . . . for
physical reasons and also a psychological reason that with time I’ve been able to
Castro and Girard 167

look death in the face. I’ve been looking at it for 23 years now. In the beginning we
didn’t have anything, not even AZT. I learned to live with it and to protect myself.

I used condoms for 15 years. And then when I couldn’t stand them anymore, it was
either give up sex or take medication and I didn’t want to do that so I decided to have
sex without condoms.

These excerpts of interviews underline the fact that the interviewed men main-
tained a reflective relationship to prevention standards and a critical stance vis-
a-vis theories purporting to explain bareback sex. The interviewees had
formulated their own layman’s understanding of good and bad reasons to practise
bareback sex.

Main expectations and outcomes of the workshops

The opportunity to meet others like themselves and to talk about medical issues was
much more important than individual expectations: ‘In my case, I came for infor-
mation, to meet other HIV-positive people because it’s always interesting to talk
about it. But I didn’t come with any pre-conceived notions or assumptions. . . . It’s
interesting to get information on medical issues’. The main expectation, clearly
stated by the interviewees, was to make their experience known on the HIV pre-
vention scene and the workshops were thought of as a means to achieving this.
Thus social interest took precedence over individual interests: ‘I didn’t come with
any pre-conceived ideas. The most important thing is that a group is formed’.
This last expectation was fully accomplished, according to the respondents.
Beyond individual benefits (ending isolation, sharing experiences), implementing
an intervention that addresses the sexual health needs of those practising bareback
(even if inside the group the definition of that term was not always shared) emerged
as the most significant outcome of the ‘Zone NoKpote’ workshops: ‘It’s not a result
for us, it’s a result for prevention in general. It’s talking about risk reduction and
HIV. It’s about putting HIV prevention back on the gay agenda’.

The ‘Zone NoKpote’ workshops, their impact within

HIV organizations and the future
Bareback has been the subject of fierce debate within French HIV organizations, as
we noted. The implementation of the workshops had an obvious impact on the
already complex relationship between Act Up-Paris and AIDES, as well as inside
AIDES. There were divisions inside the organization on the subject of hosting such
workshops. AIDES had traditionally always refused to get involved in debates over
barebacking, preferring instead the more inclusive harm reduction approach. In
addition, for historical and ideological reasons deriving from its Foucauldian foun-
dations, AIDES is critical of ‘identity-based positions’. The self-affirmation of
168 Sexualities 18(1/2)

‘bareback’ seemed an oversimplification of the issue of risk taking. In this context, we

thought it would be interesting to ask the workshop participants about their percep-
tions and opinions regarding: (1) the objectives and role of AIDES during the imple-
mentation and development of the workshops; (2) the impact of the existence of the
workshops on the HIV prevention scene and (3) the future of the workshops.
Thus we hoped for a better understanding of the reasons for ending the work-
shops, but also for useful information in case a new series of workshops was
organized.

The role of AIDES in implementing the workshops

Some interviewees felt that, at the very beginning, AIDES did not really ‘want’
these workshops. Nevertheless, they stated that it was understandable that hosting
them was not a simple choice for this organization:

I don’t know if I’ll go on, because some workshops are slow getting started, it’s not
[the facilitator]’s fault. I think he is reticent about AIDES . . . This is my point of view
as an outsider. I suppose the president of a big organization like this cannot make a
commitment on such a sensitive topic. I understand that too.

In line with this result, one interviewee reported that the minutes of each workshop
were in fact a ‘management tool’, which somehow showed, according to the inter-
viewee, the discomfort of the organization’s management about these workshops:

Maybe AIDES did not really know how to deal with the topic. . . . Somehow, we are
being checked up on, I wouldn’t exactly say that but checked in the sense of which
direction we’re going in . . . minutes are taken down during each meeting.

Thus, most of the participants declared that while AIDES had certainly hosted and
publicly defended the ‘Zone NoKpote’ workshops, this support was not ‘comfort-
able’ for the organization to give.
A second block of results concerned the issues arising from an information leaflet
proposed by the workshop group. The goal of this flyer was to communicate with
the gay community about the definition of bareback sex. It was highly valued by the
men attending the workshops, since it was a means of fighting against discrimin-
ation and avoiding misunderstandings about the meaning of the word bareback:

I think we would all agree on saying – we created a little leaflet which is a first step in
communicating to gay people, to the gay community and to barebackers . . . It’s a sort
of summary aiming to put our practices in perspective . . . We wanted to initiate it. The
leaflet is well done because it tells people the truth, the best prevention method is still
the condom and for those who don’t use it for whatever reason, they should take such
and such a precaution if they want to avoid . . . when faced with fear, knowledge is the
answer.
Castro and Girard 169

The continuation of the workshops was, as a matter of fact, intimately related to

the future of the flyer. Since participants clearly desired that bareback sex be talked
about differently, the flyer was considered as an opportunity for changing the way
in which the HIV prevention message was communicated in France:

We have to go on, why do we have to go on? Because the message will be difficult to
get across. As far as AIDES is concerned, there won’t be any problem, I won’t even
get into Act Up’s position, which is stupid but with public authorities it’s easier to use
impactful language like ‘there is only one solution to protect against HIV: condom
use’ because if you say if you have sex without condoms, you look after your health,
you have prophylactic treatment if necessary, it’s good but it costs a lot more to
finance treatment than if people accept to wear condoms. So the message is going
to be difficult to get across to public authorities. But we must go on with this effort and
we especially have to help those who practise barebacking not to feel guilty.

Nevertheless, several difficulties emerged within the group over the contents of the
flyer and it was finalized by a sub-group of participants acting outside the frame-
work of the AIDES workshops.

The effect of the existence of the workshops on the French

HIV-prevention scene
We found, first of all, a favorable opinion of the position taken by AIDES. This
favorable opinion was articulated alongside a lucid awareness of the conflicts that
the support of AIDES for the workshops had generated from the discussion
groups:

‘I think it’s great that AIDES is getting involved in this issue and de-dramatizing it.

Some people must have been displeased that AIDES organized these workshops’.

Respondents stated that they rejected the stance of organizations such as the
SNEG (the national gay employers’ organization) and Act Up-Paris. Some par-
ticipants expressed their disgust about the former’s campaign entitled ‘Notre fierte´?’
(Our Pride?), which had sought to challenge what it presented as increasing indi-
vidualism on the part of gay men, as well as the trivializing of condomless sex and
the growing claims for recognition of bareback sexuality. Concerning Act Up-
Paris, participants stated that this organization maintained a ‘stereotypical’
stance instead of adapting their discourse to new discoveries:

Act Up missed an opportunity by having a stereotypical stance that they do not want
to deviate from and which doesn’t take into account new medication, triple therapy,
new treatment, knowledge of how the treatment works, how the virus replicates and
so on . . .
170 Sexualities 18(1/2)

In reference to the Science fiction campaign by Act Up-Paris, waged primarily in

the Marais, the Parisian gay district, some of the interviewees reported agreeing
with some of the information provided by the campaign. Nevertheless, they did not
appreciate the discriminatory approach to providing such information:

They raise one or two important points but their approach is always stigmatizing for
people. They contradict themselves, because everybody in Act Up says, ‘Never have
sex without a condom’ and they are all HIV positive. . . . Beyond their contradictions,
I think they suffer from stigma, from an abrupt message, but some things they say are
true.

We observed that criticisms of Act Up were present even among those men parti-
cipating in the workshops but who had stated that they were not engaged in the
debates between community organizations over bareback sex.
More interestingly, as the interviews were conducted it was found that even if
the participants were pleased with and encouraged by the implementation of the
workshops by AIDES, they preferred not to get into the inter-organizational
debate. In their opinion, giving too much attention to this debate would provoke,
as a natural consequence, a radicalization of the respective discourses:

I think it’s the role of AIDES and Act Up to deal with these issues, I think it’s their job
to do so, I’d even say (in inverted commas) that they only exist for that
reason. . . . However, I think we should be careful not to be too radical because that
would be the worst thing. That’s all. Anyway they can’t stop bareback sex from
happening.

A future for the workshops?

When the evaluation took place (six months after the launch of the workshops), it
was already clear that they would not continue for much longer. As a matter of
fact, the organization Warning offered to host the workshops some time after the
interviews were conducted.
Since one of the objectives of this evaluation was to have an overall understanding
of the positive and negative points of the implementation and development of the
workshops in order to improve this kind of intervention in the future, we asked the
participants how they envisioned the future of these workshops. Some emphasized
the need to publicize the flyer about bareback sex and the importance of organizing a
‘poz party’. As for the leaflet, some men explained that preparing this flyer would
make it possible for HIV organizations that are known for their antagonism over this
issue to connect and agree with each other. Regarding the party, as one respondent
explained, the issue was to be able to create a space beyond community organizations
Castro and Girard 171

for the people attending the workshops. If these two objectives were not accom-
plished, it would be necessary to carry on with the workshops:

What will the outcome be? The leaflet? Why not? If we can all agree . . . if AIDES, if
Act Up, if everybody agrees, all the better. As for a meeting, I don’t think so, because
each of us has our own life, their little group, each one has their own community.

The idea of the poz party emerged right from the very beginning and has been coming
up ever since. There is a real desire to meet somewhere else and not only in a com-
munity organization.

Finally, some participants clearly stated that the natural thing to do was to end the
workshops. In their opinion, the ‘Zone NoKpote’ workshops had emerged in a quite
particular context and had had a very precise objective on the French HIV-pre-
vention scene. Once this task was completed, the natural thing was to disappear.

Conclusion
The present article provides an empirical and original contribution to understand-
ing the bareback phenomenon in France by analyzing the content of a series of
interviews conducted during an ad hoc evaluation of the ‘Zone NoKpote’ work-
shops hosted by AIDES. However, the following considerations should also be
taken into account. First, the number of interviews was small. This is not neces-
sarily a limitation, since we were interested in describing the people who attended
these workshops, which can be considered a unique world in the context already
described. Thus, the gay men who attended these workshops cannot be considered
representative of everyone who engages in bareback sex. Second, we are aware that
the men who agreed to be interviewed were also those who, during the workshops,
exhibited the most strident rejection of bareback as an identity-based practice.
Those men who drafted the bareback information leaflet, a valuable communica-
tion tool aimed at forging a consensual definition of bareback sex and reducing
discrimination against barebackers, were more reluctant to be interviewed. Third,
the evaluation of these workshops was conducted by an internal research and
evaluation unit. This might have induced some bias; on the other hand, in view
of the context, this proximity clearly facilitated the recruitment of respondents and
the openness of exchanges.
The ‘Zone NoKpote’ workshops aimed to improve the sexual health of gay men
having condomless sex, as we have already noted. In order to fulfil this principal
requirement, specific objectives such as ending isolation, sharing harm reduction
strategies and fighting discrimination were established. Even if these objectives
were reached, the main outcome, according to the interviewees, was to put this
controversial issue firmly on the gay men’s HIV-prevention agenda.
172 Sexualities 18(1/2)

Launched in December 2008, the workshops lasted one year. They began with
the appearance of an open letter from Act Up-Paris claiming that they (the work-
shops) were a ‘political laboratory aiming at standardising unsafe sex’. AIDES,
hosting the workshops, answered this open letter by defending its harm reduction
approach and the need to work with all of those concerned by prevention issues.
Workshop participants were supportive of the position of AIDES even if they were
also aware of the lack of consensus within the organization over the decision to
host the workshops. Somehow, the debate over the workshops generated, among
the participants, a desire to produce a flyer aimed at clarifying what bareback sex
meant for them (a form of sexuality which does not seek to contaminate others)
and at reducing discrimination against those who practise bareback sex.
Unfortunately, this flyer was never validated by AIDES, mainly because of other
preoccupations within the Paris branch of this organization at the time. Debates
about this leaflet illustrate the heterogeneity of the group who attended the work-
shops. The lack of response from AIDES-Paris to the contents of the flyer radica-
lized those who had a more identity-based approach to the bareback issue and
annoyed those who were seeking to normalize bareback sex inside the gay com-
munity. The former gradually stopped attending the workshops while the latter,
who felt defeated, decided to leave AIDES and moved to Warning, where a flyer
was finally printed. After that, the ‘Zone NoKpote’ workshops as such ended and
were not re-launched by AIDES or by other organizations.
For the facilitator, for the participants and for AIDES, this experiment was a
real challenge. Nevertheless, it demonstrated the importance of creating spaces for
those who do not follow the prevailing norms of HIV-prevention and it clearly
stated that prevention must move beyond opinionated moralizing that can only
produce discrimination and negligence in terms of public health.
The history of the workshops sheds light on the French political context of
HIV prevention during the 2000s. On one level, the controversy over the ‘Zone
NoKpote’ workshops was just another skirmish in the protracted war between
the two main HIV/AIDS organizations in France. The moralistic view of bare-
back sex and risk reduction strategies was a central issue in these controversies.
That is why the decision to host the workshops at AIDES sparked off such an
argument. Furthermore, as regards the debates between participants, the short-
lived existence of the workshops demonstrates the difficulty of coming to a
shared understanding of what bareback sex means. The heterogeneity of the
participants’ points of view played an important role in ending this experiment.
Finally, we can say that ‘Zone NoKpote’ illustrates one of the last controversies
between organizations over barebacking in France. When the group dis-
appeared, a new issue emerged and changed the prevention paradigm: the
Swiss Statement on HIV viral load and risk reduction (Vernazza et al., 2008).
Debates on the biomedicalization of HIV prevention would thenceforth take top
position on the agenda.
Castro and Girard 173

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank everyone who participated in the workshops and our colleagues
Jean-Marie Le Gall, Vincent Coquelin and Sandie Sempé for their role in the evaluation of
the workshops. Finally, thanks to Grace Cunnane for her valuable help with the translation
of the present article.

Notes
1. See http://www.adrespect.org/common/adlibrary/adprintdetails.cfm?QID¼4692&ClientID¼
11064 (accessed 5 May 2014).
2. ‘Kpote’ is an artisanal phonetic transcription of the slang term for condom (capote) that
prevails in French common usage, deriving from the sound of the letter ‘K’ (ca), in
French, and the remainder of the word (pote), whence ‘NoKpote’, meaning ‘no condom’.

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Daniela Rojas Castro is a social psychologist (PhD). She leads the Community-
Based Research Board of AIDES, a French HIV/AIDS organization.

Gabriel Girard is a sociologist (PhD). He is post-doctoral Fellow at Institut de

recherche en santé publique de l’Université de Montréal (Québec, Canada).
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