Lesbians, Bisexual Women, and Perceptions of Risk in the Bluegrass

In September 1992, we embarked upon a research project designed to investigate lesbian attitudes towards HIV/AIDS risk and the impact on these attitudes of a safer sex workshop for lesbians and bisexual women. This project was part of a graduate seminar aimed at familiarizing students in the Anthropology Department at the University of Kentucky with techniques involved in community-based ethnographic research. As anthropologists, we were interested in collecting data on individual behaviors and perceptions of risk. We then wanted to contrast our findings with institutionally recognized risk categories and behaviors, such as those of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Over the course of three months, teenagers, minorities, and so on. A pamphlet aimed at teens will often employ the language teens use. Similarly, materials geared toward gay men will not present information on vaginal intercourse. If one examines a range of such materials, one finds that lesbians are nowhere represented or targeted. (See Rebecca Cole and Sally Cooper

Ethnography · Family medicine · Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV · Lesbian · Perception · Sociology · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Medicine · Psychology · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics · Sex work and related issues