The Talking Sex Project: descriptions of the study population and correlates of sexual practices at baseline

The Talking Sex Project is an HIV risk reduction education project for gay and bisexual men. It was developed to evaluate two types of small discussion groups using a randomized control study design. This paper reports on the baseline measures of knowledge, attitudes and sexual practices. The 612 subjects had a mean age of 32 years, were all English speaking and were relatively highly educated. Bivariate analyses found that younger men, those in a relationship, those reporting bisexual activity and those with higher levels of substance use were significantly more likely to have unprotected anal intercourse. While overall knowledge was not associated with sexual behaviour, a significant relationship was found with knowledge of risk of anal sex. Attitudes, in particular, the belief in the efficacy of condoms and the enjoyment of safer sex were found to have the strongest associations with protected anal intercourse. The paper provides an understanding of some of the factors which may be important to behaviour change and clues for the targeting of programs.