HIV illness narratives in New Zealand: the significance of the experiences of HIV-positive homosexual men between 1983 and 1997

New Zealand had its fi rst reported case of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in 1983, two years after the disease was identified in America. The HIV and AIDS epidemic has had a severe social impact on a nation that was largely uneducated about the contagious disease, and feared its fatal consequences. This article examines the previously untold individual experiences of homosexual men with HIV, as discussed in their life narrative interviews. While these men’s narratives are individually subjective, dominant thematic threads emerge across the narratives which indicate patterns in gay men’s experiences with HIV in New Zealand’s social and cultural history.