Predictors of condom use among African American men who have sex with men (MSM): social network, racism experienced, homophobia experienced, and sexual identity

W. Smith

This study explored the extent to which social network, racism experienced, homophobia experienced, and sexual identity predicted condom use in a convenience sample of 148 African American Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM). In multinomial logistic regression analyses, homophobia experienced was the strongest indicator of condom use when all the other predictors were held constant. Moreover, experiences of homophobia were greater than experiences of racism among the men in this study. The gay-identified MSM had more conversations about sensitive issues within intimate relationships than the non-gay-identified MSM bisexuals. On the other hand, the non-gay-identified men reported experiencing more internalized homophobia than the gay-identified men. Men of unknown HIV status were less likely to use condoms when compared with men of HIV negative status. Further, more than one-third of the men reported having had sex under the age of 16 with someone at least 5 years older and more than one-third of those men reported that the sex was nonconsensual. The primary limitation of this study was recruiting subjects, especially recruiting those subjects who identified as heterosexual or bisexual MSM.