Learning on the job: Metaphors of choreography and the practice of sex in sex-on-premises venues

This paper presents findings from two research projects which have investigated the ways in which sex at sex-on-premises venues is practised and understood by the men who 'do' sex in these sites. Both projects aim ultimately to inform education interventions for the prevention of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission and other sexually transmitted infections. Taking the much used metaphor of 'choreography' as a way of theorising the production of sexual contexts, we investigate the discursively constrained co-production of sexual contexts and sexual moments. Choreography, however, can be used both to consider the prescription of sexual styles and practices in these spaces and to consider the way in which 'improvisational' participation constructs these contexts and the sexualities enacted within them. In drawing these 'choreographic' issues together, we develop a perspective which identifies repetition of processes and contexts for sex, but does not see these as wholly reproductive, seeing them as also informed by the role of individual action, preference and choice. This enactment perspective on the production of sexual contexts, a perspective based on the way actions and activities are produced and the ways in which these are understood, emerges as the most accurate account of the sexual cultures made and remade in sex-on-premises venues.