This essay examines issues related to sexuality and HIV/AIDS in Latin America. It focuses on the ways in which sexual cultures organize representations and practices that may lead to vulnerability in relation to HIV infection, and discusses the development of a large-scale prevention program in Brazil for men who have sex with men. It suggests that interventions to reduce the risk of HIV infection must seek to function not only at the level of behavior, but more importantly at the level of the representations that people hold about their sexual practices. Changes in behavior must be conceptualized as part of a more broad-based process of social change - a process which is less technical than social, cultural and political in nature.
HIV/AIDS; sexuality; homosexuality; prevention; Latin America