Secrets and silences: unspoken aspects of conjugal life for HIV/AIDS serodiscordant couples
Maksud, I.
Cadernos de Saude Publica 28(6): 1196-1204
2012
ISSN/ISBN: 1678-4464 PMID: 22666823 DOI: 10.1590/s0102-311x2012000600018Document Number: 571663
One of the current issues raised by HIV/AIDS is the phenomenon of serodiscordance: affective-sexual relations between partners with different HIV serology. The article analyzes issues that cannot be discussed within established relationships in these couples and/or with family, friends, and neighborhood networks. The article discusses two dimensions of silences and secrets in serodiscordant relationships: (1) individual secrets and silences that are established for each member of the couple and (2) double secrets, established by the couple in relation to others. The article is based on in-depth interviews with 26 serodiscordant couples. The analysis was based on comparative systematization, which allowed observing how the same thematic contents varied according to the interviewee's gender and HIV status. The data show how the subjects develop daily strategies to maintain aspects of private life that can be threatened by the dynamics of gossip, understood not as an independent phenomenon, but as a function of collective norms and beliefs in given social spaces.