However, the heterogeneous nature of the community suggests that gay men may not exactly share one common language, even though engaging in similar behaviors. For gay men, this has meant the extensive formulation of “safer sex” interventions in which low-risk sexual behaviors are promoted using vernacular common to the gay male community Previous research ( Leventhal, Safer, & Panagis, 1983) had found that the most effective messages for producing health-related behavior change were those that were both in the language of the target population and delivered by credible sources.
This health threat necessitated rapid development of public health interventions targeting specific sexual behavioral changes in the gay male population. While gay men’s language has been of interest in the fields of linguistics and literature for several decades ( Hayes, 1976), it was not until the AIDS epidemic that “gayspeak” acquired considerable attention from behavioral sex researchers.
