This paper aimed to analyze the meanings attributed by young men to male sexuality and sexual practices in order to understand any difficulties in adhering to preventive practices in relation to AIDS. Based on the theory of sexual scripts and the concept of habitus, we performed a discourse analysis on a collection of 42 stories, from their youth subsamples differentiated in terms of education and socioeconomic status. Two conflicts seem to influence crucial preventive sexual practices of participants. On the one hand, cognitive elements of a "sexuality informed" oppose the dimension of pleasure related to sexual practices; on the other, these information elements are opposed to the more stable components related to psycho male habitus. The empirical basis on which it worked allows a deeper understanding of the clear limitations of the effectiveness of prevention initiatives in health based on information about risky sexual practices.
gender and health; sexuality; gender identity; narrative; qualitative research
