Abstract
It is plain that public health has an interest in forms of technosexuality, either as a source of danger or as a method for extending itself. In this chapter, I want to address some of the tensions for public health governance concerning the assumptions it relies on regarding the individual and their social relations. In particular I want to address altruism, contagion, risk and forensics. Each of these concepts represents an assumption of social action that finds expression in public health. I also want to consider how technological innovations, particularly of the biological kind, have influenced the expression of these assumptions. In the previous chapter in connection with the Health Belief Model (HBM) and treatment optimism research concerning HIV biotechnologies, I noted some of the effects of assumptions that social actors in the technosexual realm are risk averse and rational individuals. I noted how this assumption of risk aversion may not relate very well with the perspectives of people who already know they have HIV infection. Such assumptions also appear to have a forensic quality because they mobilise blame. In relation to the practice of serosorting, I also made reference to a reliance on altruism and self-protection and how these articulated with the knowledge of HIV embodiment provided by the HIV antibody test. In this chapter, I want to consider if this heterogeneity of risk aversion, altruism and self-protection gives rise to an effective melange of governmental strategies or a muddle of incoherent, and sometimes clashing, assumptions.
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© 2009 Mark David McGregor Davis
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Davis, M. (2009). Innovation and Imperative. In: Sex, Technology and Public Health. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230228382_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230228382_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-35788-8
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-22838-2
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