Abstract EN:

The present research analyses the french non governmental movement of the fight against aids. Its birth derived from the french gay movement which pre-existed before the 1980's. Nevertheless, the new movement cannot be restricted to the factor of sexual orientation as not all homosexuals take part to the new engagement. Besides, even among gay volunteers, a great variety in terms of class status, sexual experiences and serological status appears. Precisely, this diversity played a major part in the development of the aids movement. Some of the volunteers wanted to promote a communitarist approch to fighting against aids, whereas others (who generally shared a higher social status and who were less integrated in the gay world) were not preoccupied only with the problems of gay men but with the whole population. Thus, this research analyses how the intimate experiences of the gay volunteers, those related with their personal experience of homosexuality, influence their political opinions and strategies for fighting against aids. Moreover, in the particular field of prevention, the private experiences (both social and intimate) of the volunteers happen to influence the rules of prevention that they want to promote.