In Culture and Sexual Risk: Anthropological Perspectives on AIDS, Han ten Brummelhuis and Gilbert Herdt provide the intense examination of sexual risk and its cultural configurations heretofore missing from the AIDS literature. The chapters on Western gay men speak to the pressing methodological, conceptual, and theoretical needs in HIV / AIDS research and also the understanding and documentation of gay men's lives within the emerging corpus of lesbian and gay studies.

The chapters on the Philippines, Brazil, Haiti, and Africa provide an understanding of the cultural, political, and economic contexts surrounding the transmission and prevention of HIV / AIDS in these cultures. This book addresses many controversial themes that have emerged over the last few years: the ethics of sex research, the role of Western anthropologists in developing nations, the role of heterosexuals in AIDS research, and the impact of AIDS on the discipline of anthropology.