Photo courtesy of ALun Davies of Miles performing at the art event WERK in 2012, Dalston Fabrics
The Bareback Museum is an art project which has developed out of my intimate experiences with sex and institutions. In 2014, PEP and PrEP changed. The medication was no longer a cocktail of drugs which had bad side effects but became a practical treatment to overcome the desires for unprotected sex. I used PEP three times within 2014-15 and started to have conversations with health institutions. There are many narratives which follow on from front facing perspectives, as medical staff distributing treatment and also the view from the users and non users of the drugs. After the third course of PEP I began to realise that I was starting to become depressed by the reality of a bio political event, taking place between institutions, my body and in the conception/ possibility of risk from the disease. It also effected the personal and interpersonal sexual scripts around condom use. Bareback was now institutional and not simply a taboo. It is a queer event.
Since writing this statement in 2017, I believe that PEP has dramatically changed the landscape of unprotected sex to bring forth questions about Bareback identities as a queer event across LGBTQIA+ communities.