Gay Male Sexual Practices and Identity: A Multi-Cohort AI Study of Subjective Experiences of and Behavioral Reaction to the HIV/AIDS Epidemic
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2023
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Quantitative analysis of an online survey of gay men using advanced data mining and unsupervised machine learning techniques, theoretically based on Life Course Theory, demonstrates that gay men have more satisfying lives in direct proportion to their integration into urban gay communities and the greater potential for social support such integration provides. Nineteen new psychosociometric scales specific to American gay men were created or adapted to provide a multidimensional measure the biographical state of men participating in the survey. Introjected homophobia has a strong inverse correlation with both life satisfaction and social support. Number of symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder is tightly and inversely associated with levels of social support. Given the strong and significant inverse correlation between life satisfaction and introjected homophobia, clinicians should assess introjected homophobia levels as a part of the intake process for gay men. Clinicians should also ensure that gay male patients are assessed for isolation from urban gay communities. Gay sexual identity milestones were significantly later for the two birth cohorts following the boomers, possibly because fear of HIV delayed identity development. Gen Z men, the first to develop identities after HAART drugs exponentially reduced AIDS fatalities, had milestones comparable to boomers, who also came of age without fear of HIV.
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