Sexual Partner Concurrency of Urban Male and Female STD Clinic Patients: A Qualitative Study

Partner concurrency (i.e., overlapping sexual partnerships) facilitates the spread of STDs, including HIV. The present study
explored the context of and motivations for partner concurrency among patients recruited from an urban STD clinic. Eight focus
groups were conducted with 59 patients (47% women; 77% African American). Qualitative analyses revealed five motivational
themes related to the occurrence of concurrent partnerships for men and women. Participants reported these partnerships tend
to occur: when people believe that sexual partners are unfaithful or cannot be trusted; when sexual satisfaction is low; when
patients report the need for different partners to fulfill multiple needs; in retaliation for a partner’s concurrency; and
when people wish to maintain a sexual relationship with an ex-partner who is the parent of a shared child. Four additional
themes unique to men were identified. Men reported that they had multiple partners because this practice supports their sense
of masculinity and is consistent with familial modeling and community norms, and because having multiple partners is “in a
man’s nature.” Men also mentioned that the imbalance in the number of women-to-men in their sexual network facilitates partner
concurrency. These findings can help prevention practitioners and researchers to develop interventions to reduce risk associated
with partner concurrency.