Fridae

This survey was conducted from November 2002 to February 2003. A total of 1,295 MSM responded, but four responses had to be discarded. The responses were collected mainly through an online survey, but also at three participating gay saunas, the AfA HIV Anonymous Testing Centre, three participating gay clubs/bars, and from the DSC Clinic.

The following are some findings from the survey:

Age of first sexual intercourse
Almost three in ten males (29.1%) had oral/anal sex for the first time with another guy between the ages of 15 to 18 years of age; one in four (24.4%) had it between 19 to 21years of age. 10.3% had their first sexual encounters below the age of 15; and were also more likely to have had unprotected anal sex when they first started having sex.

How you meet guys
The Internet was the most common way of meeting sexual partners (60.6%); 47.8% met sexual partners at gay saunas, 30.3% at gay clubs/bars, and 28.1% through friends and social events.

Unsafe sex
39.3% of the respondents had had unprotected anal sex with boyfriends, 22.9% with casual partners.

Reasons for having unsafe sex
The most common reason cited for not using condoms was that the sexual partner was a boyfriend (43.3%). Other common reasons were - condoms were unavailable (15.4%), the partner seemed healthy and clean (14.3%), and they had only had sex a few times before (14.2%).

Lube
The most common lubricants used were the safest ones, i.e. water-based lubricants (76.5%). However, many were still using unsafe lubricants such as saliva (20.3%), creams, lotions and oils (15.5%), and soap and shower gels (5.3%).

HIV testing
40.4% of the respondents had never been for an HIV test. More than half the respondents (51.1%) were not sure where anonymous HIV testing was available in Singapore, while another 8.4% were unaware that such testing was available here.

Misconceptions
While 93.1% correctly identified having unprotected receptive (being the 'bottom') anal sex as high risk, only 78.5% regarded unprotected insertive (being the 'top') anal sex as high risk.

These and other findings of the survey are being used to develop new educational materials and to plan HIV prevention programmes.