Table 2.
Quotes of African American and Hispanic MSM by theme
| Attachment (detachment) to areas and mobility between areas | ||
| Lack of connection to home neighborhoods | ||
| 1 | “Like, where I live does not matter. Do you know what I mean? I just want it to be nice.But I go to places where I know I can find what I want to find, if I want to have it” | AA, 28 years, HIV-pos |
| 2 | “Places do not really have an effect on me like that. I do not have places have thatkind of effect on me” | AA, 28 years, HIV-pos |
| 3 | “I do not think I am committed to [my neighborhood]” | Hispanic, 32 years, HIV-neg |
| 4 | “[I am moving] because I do not like-- because I've always been the type to--do not like to get familiar with-- I do not like to stay in one area too long.” | Hispanic, 39 years, HIV-neg |
| 5 | “Um, to be honest, I do not really hang out at my neighborhood, so…like… it’s a placewhere I sleep and where my stuff is, like it’s where I live, but it’s not necessarily whereI do all my stuff at” | AA, 35 years, HIV-pos |
| 6 | “Well, it was fine but I never felt like I belonged, cause it wasn’t my place, I always neededto um, to make myself almost invisible, because that was the way that I grew up,” | Hispanic, 45 years, HIV-pos |
| 7 | “I mean honestly this is just where I live. Do you know what I mean? Just because I live in a--usually live in a place does not mean I necessarily make friends with the people that livearound there. Because I'm busy. I’m doing stuff. I got shit to do.” | AA, 28 years, HIV-pos |
| 8 | “People aren’t as friendly as and welcoming, and I do not know any of my neighbors.I do not talk to any one of my neighbors. I only have three friends in LA. And those people idid not even meet in LA.” | Hispanic, 28 years, HIV-pos |
| 9 | “Like, i love, i love my apartment. My apartment is like my home. I go to my room there andit’s my home, my sanctuary. I do not want-- i just wish i could take that building and moveit to another neighborhood.” | Hispanic, 28 years, HIV-pos |
| 10 | “I mean where I live on Skid Row downtown Skid Row there’s nothing posh, there'snothing glamorous, there's nothing.” | Hispanic, 39 years, HIV-neg |
| 11 | “No, not really, I only go there to sleep” | AA, 28 years, HIV-neg |
| Positive links to home neighborhoods/places | ||
| 12 | “The place where I live… to be honest, I am just happy that I have a place based on my experience and my situation, I am just glad that this place exists for gay people, so I feel comfortable, I feel safe, and everything that I need, so I am just thankful for that” | Hispanic, 45 years, HIV-pos |
| 13 | “I feel great. I feel like everybody is kinda on the go, or like everybody is creating something. it’s just so many artists and so many dancers that you see everywhere. it just has a really cool vibe to it and I like it. just believe like a home is a safe space, and I always want to live in a community that I feel safe in and I feel like I want to come home to it” | AA, 31 years, HIV-neg |
| 14 | “I feel comfortable and I feel safe, um, I like that most things are walking distance, the grocery store, you know, the movie theater, um, restaurants, bars, um, so that’s important to me. There’s quite a bit of representation in the LGBT community, um, so that’s about… that’s where I live, um, it feels safe, um, I like it because I am in between two larger cities. but for the most part, I spend a large part of my time, mostly of my time, um, like within my city, within a 2 mile radius” | Hispanic, 34 years, HIV-neg |
| 15 | “Um, people are definately gay, out, and proud there [WeHo] and uh, and um, there is a sense of community there um, because of that,” | Hispanic, 32 years, HIV-neg |
| 16 | “[West Hollywood] is clean, it’s close, that I feel safe and comfortable there, um, I can you know, wear what I want and do what I want and act like what I want without fear of really being stigmatized for being gay, um, I know there’s a lot of judgement within the gay community, but I could really care less if someone thinks I’m cool or not, or hot or not, more so than I would be more concerned over someone you know, hate criming me or um, slurring me” | Hispanic, 34 years, HIV-neg |
| 17 | “I do not know. I do not interact with the people there [West Hollywood]. It's-- there's no interaction there. verses where I'm living now, there is more of interaction where you actually see… [Living in South LA now] It's-- I like it. it's home for me. I'm comfortable. it's like-- to me it's like the center” | AA, 28 years, HIV-pos |
| Separation of social and sexual places | ||
| 18 | “Yea, i do not like really going too much in my neighborhood to have sex. And i do not like having sex at home either.” | Hispanic, 39 years, HIV-neg |
| 19 | “I think outside of West Hollywood everybody is more guarded about their sexuality and whatnot” | Hispanic, 41 years, HIV-pos |
| 20 | “I kind of live my whole gay life somewhere else, not in my neighborhood.” | Hispanic, 41 years, HIV-pos |
| 21 | “Uhm, [people who I hook up with] definitely cannot live in my neighborhood” | AA, 35 years, HIV-pos |
| 22 | “Ummm, I do not have sex where I live, I try not to do it there.” | Hispanic, 35 years, HIV-pos |
| 23 | “Oh, I would say two completely different worlds. I would say Ladera is more a place to lay your head. More-- feels more like home. Not that downtown is not home to people, but that’s not my relationship with that part of the city, so it does represent something different to me. Like, nightlife and that social element” | Hispanic, 28 years, HIV-neg |
| Determinants of mobility and chosen spaces | ||
| High rates of geographic mobility | ||
| 24 | “I've moved-- I went to rehab so I… Not really no. I mean I move twice, three times now.” | AA, 28 years, HIV-pos |
| 25 | “So i lived in [ER], I lived in [MH] which is kind of the same area but just like literally 5 minutes down the street from one another. I'm going to just call it two different communities and then after that I lived in Hollywood for about 3 years alone and then I moved to North Hollywood and then Studio City and then back to North Hollywood Arts District. Yeah, so I lived in like six different places” | AA, 31 years, HIV-neg |
| 26 | “Then I came back I was staying with this person. We were off [Location 1]. And then from [Location 1] to [Location 2], from [Location 2] to [Location 3], from [Location 3] to [Location 2]. From [Location 2] to East LA, from East LA then I was living with my ex in South LA, and I now reside in South LA.” | AA, 28 years, HIV-pos |
| Homelessness and housing instability | ||
| 27 | “And at the time a friend of mine that lived here said ‘you know what if you come over here (LA) and help me out with my partner you can stay here with us and we’ll work something out.’ and i did. He told me that on like a tuesday and by thursday i was here. I did not even think twice. But that did not go too well. There was a lot of jealousy and a lot of high drug use and i just could not handle it. So, that’s the first time that i was actually homeless for 2 or 3 months until i got the apartment. And the apartment burned down in july 2016. And then just bouncing back and forth and officially I became homeless since february.” | Hispanic, 40 years, HIV-pos |
| 28 | “And, you know, I think that was like my downfall when I moved out here because I really wanted to work for LGBTQ agencies and so for the first year I moved in with my sister and like I was… because me and my sister did not have that great of a relationship, I kept like houses surfing to different peoples houses, so I was basically experiencing homelessness” | AA, 28 years, HIV-neg |
| 29 | “I was in rehab up in the high desert area, [WS]. I stayed there for 4 months and I had nowhere to go. I got a card from one of the-- I was going to say inmates-- the in-patient people. And he was, you know, like “hey if you do not have anywhere to go, here, call this guy and tell him that you are working your program and he'll hook you up with a homeless shelter.” Bam. so, I took his card, and I wound up in Pasadena.” | Hispanic, 32 years, HIV-neg |
| 30 | “So I think I only stayed another 3 months and ended up getting a job and I afforded enough money to like move to downtown, so I ended up staying in downtown in a community, but it was a community bathroom floor situation, almost like little bungaloos, like in a old hotel building, revamped, which a lot of which were downtown, it was really nasty, it had bed bugs, it was really gross” | AA, 31 years, HIV-neg |
| 31 | “I went to the treatment center. It was outpatient, it has sober living there as well. I was working for another organization as a volunteer and, umm, for a harm reduction class. And umm, I basically called the man and I said if my options are running out, I’m tired of jumping from house to house, or sex clubs, to have somewhere to sleep, and I have HIV - I’m homeless and HIV. And he was like, “You’re a high risk. Let me call you back in ten minutes”. He called me back and said “You need to be at this destination, by 10 AM” And uhhh, he got me in, for treatment somewhere. And most people have to go through a process of waiting this or inpatient - I was fortunate enough to not have to to that. The past two years is the best because I have a home and I do everything in my power to keep it” | Hispanic, 35 years, HIV-pos |
| Race and racism in experiences and places | ||
| 32 | “There’s not much HIV homosexual African Americans, there’s not much of that there. I would probably go elsewhere cause it probably would not be a safe thing to do there” | AA, 35 years, HIV-pos |
| 33 | “Depending on where I was, you know… South Central they usually-- there’s a large Latin and African American population. Silverlake is mostly white. West Hollywood is mostly white. East LA is mostly Hispanic. So, depending on where I was, yeah. Definitely would have been somebody different.” | Hispanic, 40 years, HIV-pos |
| 34 | “There was like no stability, I could not find a stable job, it was like the economic downturn. It was really… just terrible and because I think it had a lot to do with my race.” | AA, 28 years, HIV-neg |
| 35 | “I would go to like um, Latino night, which is like black and latino night at… in West Hollywood to different clubs. Um, I would go to like… there is this place in Inglewood, and they have… it’s a gay bar, and it’s predominately black, there is like a sprinkle of white people that go, a sprinkle of latino, but it’s predominately black and I go there, so yeah, cause I feel more comfortable there” | AA, 28 years, HIV-neg |
| 36 | “So I found myself in a lot of gay white spaces and even with being a white gay spaces, I was treated like a leper and so there was a lot of opportunities at work not given to me” | AA, 31 years, HIV-neg |
| 37 | “I mean the type of income I have, and the type of occupation I have, you are limited to the options that you have. I mean I can blame it on me being black. I just, that’s where I can afford to live.” | Hispanic, 39 years, HIV-neg |
| 38 | “[Skid Row] is its own little world man. It’s crazy. Again there i do not fit in. there, I definitely do not fit in. As much as i try, they make it a point to make me feel like I do not belong there. Predominantly because the population there is african american. So, anybody that does not look like them they are outsiders” | Hispanic, 40 years, HIV-pos |
| 39 | “Like I go to the gym, I try to eat healthy, but I’m not like the typical perfect ‘West Hollywood Gay” | Hispanic, 28 years, HIV-pos |
| HIV prevention, testing, and seroconversion | ||
| Challenges | ||
| 40 | “The thing was that it was way far out of the-- like I would take three metros and a bus just to get there. And if I was late like 5 or 10 minutes I would have to reschedule.” | Hispanic, 40 years, HIV-pos |
| 41 | “Yes, there was a time I’m gonna to say about a year ago. I was at another clinic and there was a discrepancy with the doctor and the prescription and the pharmacy. And I went without medication for like 6 months. Because they were only seeing me every six months. And i think i might have missed an appointment, so I had to wait more time. And in the stress with all that was going on and i actually became detectable. It wasn’t that high, but it was detectable.” | Hispanic, 40 years, HIV-pos |
| 42 | “It's been a long [since HIV test] -- I used to do it like every month but it's not been like that. And i do not know... maybe because I do not have a car right now and it used to be like a track in Santa Monica where you could just go and get the rapid test. Maybe because of that.” | Hispanic, 26 years, HIV-neg |
| 43 | “Like, if I had never moved to LA I probably would not have HIV. That’s… yeah.” | Hispanic, 28 years, HIV-pos |
| Opportunities | ||
| 44 | “So it's not like I've never like had instability when it came down to medical treatment. so I've always had refills and I've always stuck with like a pharmacy franchise to where I can go in any pharmacy because I've always dealt with stuff like Walgreens CVS. so those types of pharmacies” | Hispanic, 39 years, HIV-neg |
| 45 | “But regardless I still go through-- it’s a [HIV testing] van that they do right across the street from me. so I’ll still do that like every 3 months.” | Hispanic, 39 years, HIV-neg |
| 46 | “I mean, there’s like HIV testing trucks everywhere. So if I see a truck with a rapid HIV test and I’ve had unprotected sex recently, I will just jump in and get checked” | Hispanic, 32 years, HIV-neg |
| 47 | “[Last HIV test] It was a mobile van, um, it was for Halloween, um, the Oasis clinic had a Halloween party and I got tested in a van” | AA, 28 years, HIV-neg |
| 48 | “The clinic here versus [other country]: we are better because within a week I was able to get all my STDs results, my CD4, my viral load count and all that versus [other country] sometimes I do not get them I do not know anything I do not get any response or anything. So it's really different.” | AA, 28 years, HIV-pos |
| 49 | “I think here in LA, if you do not have the care for your ailment that’s because you do not want to. Because there’s clinics all over the city from different organizations, from different-- so there’s no excuse not to have care. If you do not to have it it’s because you really do not want to, because it’s everywhere.” | Hispanic, 40 years, HIV-pos |
| 50 | “I always been very lucky [with accessing HIV care], I am afraid I always because of my legal status [visa expired] and what happens if I am not able to get my medication” | Hispanic, 45 years, HIV-pos |
| Hookups and finding sex | ||
| Role of geo-social hook up apps | ||
| 51 | “Just people’s houses. It’s just become more-- and this is kind of what’s killed the gay scene in my opinion is just the fact that first there’s grindr. So there’s no need to go out and meet anybody because it’s right there in your phone” | Hispanic, 41 years, HIV-pos |
| 52 | “Online. Just online. That’s it. I do not go to sex clubs. Nothing like that. Just online.” | Hispanic, 37 years, HIV-pos |
| 53 | “Grindr. Adam. Craigslist. No, scratch that. I look at Craigslist but it's mostly Adam and grinder. I usually travel locally within 5 miles, 5 to 10 miles. the reason why is because I do not want to bump into somebody while I'm in the streets. if they are right there and it's like mid-morning, not even mid-morning, like early morning-- you know, i know that Tweakers are out and you know they never go out. I mean I know what's up.” | Hispanic, 32 years, HIV-neg |
| 54 | “And then so I was just finding places to stay you know through apps and other sources. Yeah, yeah. you know, and so I had this schedule of okay I'm going to hook up from like 11 at night so I can end up spending the night there and then leaving in the morning. like that. if I have things to do then I can leave in the morning and do my thing. I mean it's constant I had to do it everyday. and sometimes they would let me stay there like a week or whatever. But, I did that until i was [inaudible]. And so that was very overwhelming.” | Hispanic, 40 years, HIV-pos |
| 55 | “Like I would not sign on [to an App] when I’m at home. I go like to Inglewood, or to West Hollywood, or… like certain places in LA” | AA, 28 years, HIV-neg |
| Geography of sex | ||
| 56 | “Silverlake being one of them, because I believe it's like-- it's kind of like West Hollywood but a little bit more for the Bears, kind of thing. for the bearded ones. so Silver Lake is a good place. South Central is a good place. dangerous a little bit, but not as dangerous as Skid Row. I think, you know what, all of LA is a good place to hook up, because anywhere you go, especially if you are not from that neighborhood and then you turn on Grindr and they see that you are like oh I've never seen this guy before, so that kind of helps to kind of be a little nomadic and just travel around the city.” | Hispanic, 40 years, HIV-pos |
| 57 | “Well mostly I like young guys, so I either like, for example, like guys here. You know what I’m saying? Guys here. But usually guys here-- I mean the average age of people moving in WeHo when I first moved here was 25 and up. Now it’s like 30 and up. Like when I go to UCLA because there’s younger guys there. But that’s about it.” | Hispanic, 37 years, HIV-pos |
| 58 | “Yeah, I never go clubbing anywhere outside of WeHo” | Hispanic, 37 years, HIV-pos |
| 59 | “But downtown is like my place of choice [to hookup], Whether it be overground or underground,” | AA, 31 years, HIV-neg |
| 60 | “there’s so many places that you can go, or even just gay accepting, or queer accepting, you know, if you wanna take it to that level, so I do frequent them with my friends, and as far as underground spaces, um, mostly within like past Skid Row, there’s a couple of venues that I have been working with and talking to, you know, I am not going to say their address or anything, but um, mostly like in the Skid Row areas, and again, those parties, the undergrounds are definitely where everything is acceptable, it’s almost like place for things to be acceptable, um but I am also about a correlation that is all about safety and drug training, um, kinda going to right after this but, um, having trained with how to deal with… people OD-ing on meth, or on um, ketamine, or on G, or on any of the popular drugs, I have been given like narcan training, um, and I go into those spaces ready for that, so I tend to frequent most of the underground spaces just to make sure people are being safe” | AA, 31 years, HIV-neg |
| 61 | “Inglewood, South LA, I do not do too much Hollywood cuz I cannot stand it.” | Hispanic, 39 years, HIV-neg |
| Substance use | ||
| Accessability and place | ||
| 62 | “Yeah, there’s a lot of people even on grindr that are like “on deck” or even offering it to people” | AA, 31 years, HIV-neg |
| 63 | “For sure. For s-- and the amount of dru-- oh my god the amount of drug use people use [in WeHo]. That’s for sure. Yeah. I mean I do not use drugs at all but that’s really really huge and really abundant. And I mean, I was talking to my friend actually the other day about that. When I first came over here maybe like 20% of the guys that I hooked up with, you know, doing drugs, were doing crystal meth, whatever, you know. It’s gotten to the point of 90%. That’s a lot. That’s really really huge. Imagine it went from 20% to 90%. That’s a lot of people” | Hispanic, 37 years, HIV-pos |
| 64 | “After I left the house at like 22 I started living in my car. and I picked up a really bad crystal meth-- I mean I’ve had one, but it got really bad when I was in the streets.” | Hispanic, 32 years, HIV-neg |
| 65 | “so I started doing the meetings, outpatient, I’m on disability, and I just get bored with how boring life is. so I meet the wrong people in the outpatient and start using again. and I’m being homeless again because of my using” | Hispanic, 32 years, HIV-neg |
| 66 | “I did not - I did not get into drugs until I found out my (HIV) status and that - that really- it’s anywhere you turn and that’s what bothers me” | Hispanic, 35 years, HIV-pos |
| 67 | “I was diagnosed with HIV, so I think the HIV made me use it more often, because I did not know what came to my mind, that I never… I thought I was going to die, so I just kept on using, and that I… and that was the people that I started meeting, that… when I discovered that world--it just opened, opened up a new door for me” | Hispanic, 45 years, HIV-pos |
| Substance use and sex | ||
| 68 | “Especially if I am cross faded, smoking and drinking, or if I’m doing shrooms or something like that, um, I tend to get really hyper horny and then I like really cruisy and like I really wanna do like the highest extent of my like kinks, you know?” | AA, 31 years, HIV-neg |
| 69 | “Mostly like in the Skid Row areas, and again, those parties, the undergrounds are definitely where everything is acceptable, | AA, 31 years, HIV-neg |
| 70 | Yeah, we, it was friends. We were using. We rented a hotel. A suite. And then we invited guys over. Like friends and… meth … having sex. it was the sex party.” | AA, 28 years, HIV-pos |
| 71 | “Meth and sex go together” | AA, 28 years, HIV-pos |
| 72 | “And it is like - it’s a challenge - I do not know - it’s a struggle right now for me - because I know that I’m worth more, but I know where I can go at the end of the day if I want to get high or wanna have sex. And they go together. Now this is something I’ve been struggling with for awhile” | Hispanic, 35 years, HIV-pos |