Byron Paul
a School of the Arts and Media , UNSW Australia, Sydney , Australia.
Cult Health Sex. 2017 Apr;19(4):486-500. doi: 10.1080/13691058.2016.1239133. Epub 2016 Oct 13.
This paper examines how young people's friendships influence safer sexual practices. Through a thematic discourse analysis, interviews with Sydney-based young people (aged 18-25 years) and Australian-based sexual health websites for young people are considered. Interview data illustrate how friendships can support young people's sexual experiences, concerns and safeties beyond the practice of 'safe sex' (condom use). This is evident in friends' practices of sex and relationship advice, open dialogue, trust and sharing experiential knowledge, as well as friend-based sex. Meanwhile, friendship discourse from selected Australian sexual health websites fails to engage with the support offered by friendship, or its value to a sexual health agenda. Foucault's account of friendship as a space of self-invention is considered in light of these data, along with his argument that friendship poses a threat to formal systems of knowing and regulating sex. Whether sexual or not, many close friendships are sexually intimate given the knowledge, support and influence these offer to one's sexual practices and relations. This paper argues that greater attention to friendship among sexual health promoters and researchers would improve professional engagements with young people's contemporary sexual cultures, and better inform their attempts to engage young people through social media.
本文探讨年轻人的友谊如何影响更安全的性行为。通过主题话语分析，研究了对悉尼年轻人（18至25岁）的访谈以及澳大利亚面向年轻人的性健康网站。访谈数据表明，友谊如何能在“安全性行为”（使用避孕套）之外，支持年轻人的性经历、关切和安全。这在朋友提供性和关系建议的做法、开放对话、信任和分享经验知识以及基于朋友的性行为中很明显。与此同时，澳大利亚选定的性健康网站上的友谊话语未能涉及友谊所提供的支持，或其对性健康议程的价值。鉴于这些数据，福柯将友谊视为自我创造空间的观点，以及他认为友谊对正式的性认知和规范性系统构成威胁的观点，都得到了考量。无论是否涉及性，许多亲密友谊在性方面都是亲密的，因为它们为一个人的性行为和性关系提供了知识、支持和影响。本文认为，性健康促进者和研究人员更多地关注友谊，将改善与年轻人当代性文化的专业互动，并更好地为他们通过社交媒体与年轻人互动的尝试提供信息。
