Sex,lies,and videotape: A content and textual analysis of media coverage of the HIV criminal prosecution of Michael Johnson

Abstract

Media coverage of HIV criminal cases has deployed sexualized and racialized tropes, and portrayed defendants as villains. Several media analyses of HIV criminal trials have been conducted, though only one was in the US, and none involved young Black gay men, who are disproportionately impacted by HIV. We conducted content and textual analyses of 91 media stories focused on the 2015 case of Michael Johnson, a Black gay college student living with HIV who was convicted under Missouri’s HIV non-disclosure laws. To capture both dominant and resistant meanings in news stories, we included mainstream news outlets, as well as HIV-related, African American and GLBT community-oriented outlets. Open and axial coding were carried out by a team of four researchers and thematic analysis was used to explore how media framed Johnson, his sexual activities, condom use, and alleged nondisclosure. Results showed that media stories portrayed Johnson as dishonest and sexually predatory by drawing on narratives of deception and framing him as the sole agentic actor in his sexual encounters. We argue that these media frames, coupled with what is included and excluded in media coverage negatively impacts public opinion of PLWH, reinforces HIV criminalization ideologies, and performs a disciplinary function in the lives of PLWH.

Keywords

HIV criminalization Black gay men stigma news media

Introduction

In 2013, Michael Johnson, a 23-year-old Black gay man living with HIV was attending college at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri. That year, five men accused him of not disclosing his HIV status before having sex with them. On 10 October 2013, he was arrested and charged with one count of “recklessly infecting another with HIV” and four counts of “attempting to recklessly infect another with HIV.” In May 2015, he was convicted of all charges and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Media coverage began on the day of his arrest and continued during and after his trial. This paper draws on content and textual analyses of media coverage to examine how media constructed public perceptions of Johnson, his sexual activity and his racialized sexuality. To assess the cultural assumptions embedded in media coverage of this case, we first examine the literature on media framing, media representations of HIV, and their racialized dimensions.

Media frames and depictions of HIV

Media framing is an active process through which some voices and aspects of a story are included in the frame and others are excluded (Dworkin and Wachs, 1998; Dworkin and Wachs, 2009, Messner and Solomon, 1993). According to Messner and Solomon, “the news frame determines what is highlighted, emphasized, ignored, or marginalized” (p. 120), making frames inherently ideological. By drawing on hegemonic meanings and understandings of the world, the ideological nature of frames is often invisible.

News media framings have long associated HIV with deviance and immorality. Initially emphasizing the behaviors of gay men, people who inject drugs, and other stigmatized groups led to discourses of blame and moral censure of people living with HIV (PLWH), whose identities were seen as synonymous with risk (Clarke, 1992; Colby and Cook, 1991; Cullen, 2006). Consequently, a dichotomy emerged between the “guilty”—those perceived as responsible for their infections—and the “innocent”—those perceived as vulnerable (Cullen 2006; Gilmore and Somerville, 1994). News stories about “promiscuous” gay “lifestyles” suggested HIV was a punishment for immorality and solidified the links between AIDS and homosexuality in the public imagination (Myrick, 1998). In contrast, Ryan White, a teenager who contracted HIV through a blood transfusion, was seen as innocent and elicited sympathy. His story shifted public perceptions of HIV, allowing policymakers to enact The Ryan White CARE Act of 1990, the first legislation to fund prevention and care (Donovan, 1997).

Advances in scientific knowledge and the rights of PLWH, and the femininization and heterosexualization of HIV in some parts of the world (Cáceres et al., 2008; De Alencar et al., 2016; Gilmore and Somerville, 1994; Hong et al., 2011) have led to broader, more empathetic depictions of PLWH, though the guilty/innocent dichotomy persists. Two common metaphors used in representing HIV are “AIDS as crime,” in which HIV infection is portrayed as a criminal act involving a guilty culprit and an innocent victim, and “AIDS as villain,” in which a PLWH is characterized as evil (Gilmore and Somerville, 1994). Speakman (2017) described “techniques of vilification” used in media to cast HIV non-disclosers as guilty of great harm and as acting deliberately, maliciously, or without concern. By naming and shaming criminal defendants, the media serves the disciplinary role of reinforcing norms of acceptable behavior (Flavin, 2000; Hess and Waller, 2013).

Media frames portraying PLWH using negative stereotypes enhance the seeming criminality of HIV transmission and send the message to “watch out for people who might have HIV” given their predisposition to illegal, sinful, and/or violent behaviors (Flavin, 2000). Such depictions transform a PLWH from a complex human being into an “AIDS carrier” or “AIDS outlaw” who is untrustworthy, and a danger to sex partners and society (Lupton, 1999; Petty, 2005). Media narratives are also imbued with, and reify existing racial and ethnic stereotypes about gender, sexuality, guilt, and innocence (Booth, 2000; Cooky et al., 2010; McKay et al., 2011; Persson and Newman, 2008).

Race and media coverage of HIV

Controlling images (Collins, 1986) of Black men—negative stereotypes about Black men (e.g. Black men as violent, hypersexual, or lazy) that justify their continued oppression—have persisted for centuries. African Americans were subject to policies of “separation, subjugation, and even extermination,” in part, due to the promotion of colonial tropes about uncontrollable animalistic African sexuality (Flint and Hewitt, 2015). In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, lynching was often the punishment for Black men who faced both real and fabricated allegations of raping White women (Alexandre, 2012). Today, Black men’s bodies and perceived strength, aggressiveness, and sexual prowess are both feared and desired (Collins, 2005; Green, 2008).

Johnson Aziga was convicted of murder for HIV non-disclosure in Canada. Media representations drew on his race (Black) and country of origin (Uganda) to portray a promiscuous, misogynistic, Black man who was either motivated to infect white women or callously indifferent to the harm he caused (Speakman, 2017). Nushawn Williams, a young Black man in upstate New York, was blamed for an outbreak of HIV and described as an “AIDS monster” and “AIDS predator” for having unprotected sex with several women without disclosing his status (Shevory, 2004). Headlines in Australian press have likewise referred to African refugees, accused of deliberate transmission, as “AIDS assassins” or “HIV predators” and deployed racist narratives reifying the imagined connections between dark skin, HIV, and deception (McKay et al., 2011; Persson and Newman, 2008). Using criminal law in place of public health strategies makes PLWH, particularly members of marginalized groups, especially vulnerable to negative media portrayals.

HIV criminalization laws

HIV criminalization refers to using existing laws (e.g. assault, or attempted murder), or enacting new laws against PLWH (Burris and Cameron, 2008). HIV-related criminal laws are rooted in a belief that public health measures are insufficient, and that criminal laws are needed to enforce norms of acceptable behavior (Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic & Watkins, 1988: 30). Criminal laws are the result of social processes including structural arrangements (e.g. racial and cultural composition, and social conflict), media coverage, activism, and social movements (Jenness, 2004; McGarrell and Castellano, 1993). Social stigma, media reports, and moral entrepreneurs who fought to make HIV a criminal problem were critical in the proliferation of HIV criminal laws (Hoppe, 2017). Indeed, what exists today is a system of laws based on fear, blame, and stigma (Federman et al., 2011; Jürgens et al., 2009), not the science of HIV transmission. Indeed, according to the scientific evidence, HIV cannot be transmitted, sexually, by those who are on treatment and maintain viral suppression (Eisinger et al., 2019). The moral or ethical belief that PLWH “should” disclose (Adam et al., 2015; Murphy et al., 2015; Rutledge 2009) has become a legal mandate, reinforcing the belief that PLWH are untrustworthy.

In the state of Missouri, PLWH must disclose their HIV status to sexual partners prior to engaging in sexual behavior. Sex without disclosure is a felony, and conviction can result in a prison sentence of up to 15 years for exposure, and 30 years for transmission. The only affirmative defense under this statute is disclosure, which is difficult to prove. Likely, the only witnesses are the sex partners themselves, and disclosure is rarely documented (Center for HIV Law and Policy, 2018).

Given its role in agenda-setting, driving and responding to public opinion, and public education, media coverage shapes social understandings of HIV and PLWH (Birrell and Cole, 1990; Hertog and Fan, 1995; Kagan, 2015; Lupton, 1999; Persson and Newman, 2008). To date, media analyses of HIV criminal cases have largely been conducted outside the US (Miller, 2005; Lupton, 1999; McKay et al. 2011; Mykhalovskiy et al., 2016; Newman and Persson, 2009; Persson and Newman, 2008; Worth, 1995). Flavin (2000) conducted an analysis of media coverage of HIV-related assaults in the United States (US). Though, her analysis focused on headlines only, in major newspapers. Shevory’s analysis of the Nushawn Williams case is the only media analysis of an HIV nondisclosure prosecution in the United States (US) (Shevory, 2004).

This is the first media analysis, that we know of, to explore representations of a young, Black, gay man prosecuted under HIV criminal laws in the US. Thus, we are able to situate our analysis in the context of race relations and sexual and HIV politics, that are particular to the contemporary US. Further, the aforementioned analyses focus on cases that occurred more than 15 years ago. This is important, as both the HIV (e.g. treatment as prevention) and media landscape has changed significantly over the intervening years. Indeed, news sources are more diverse, democratic, and publishing news online is done with little effort (Dennis and Merrill, 2006; Humprecht and Esser, 2018). Thus, beyond focusing on mainstream, major newspapers only (e.g. Flavin, 2000; McKay et al., 2011; Newman and Persson, 2009; Persson and Newman, 2008), we included media stories from alternative news websites as well as those focusing on particular communities.

Young, Black gay and bisexual (BGBM) men simultaneously face racism, homophobia, and HIV-stigma, alongside socio-economic and educational inequalities. Each of these social axes provides a fertile area of analysis for understanding contemporary media framings of HIV and criminalization. Michael Johnson’s is a recent case in the era of advanced prevention, treatment, and medical knowledge, and raises issues salient to the HIV criminalization discourse, including mutual responsibility for safer sex, ethics of criminalizing non-disclosure, and moralistic views of sex and sexuality. The prolific use of hook-up apps is also relevant as open communication about sexual health on these platforms is controversial and men report varying levels of comfort discussing HIV status with casual partners (Ramallo et al., 2015; Warner et al., 2018). To explore media’s role in shaping discourses of race, sexuality, and HIV, we examine how media frames depict his sexual activities, condom use, and HIV disclosure to partners. We conclude with a discussion of the disciplinary function of media narratives in the lives of PLWH, and how these affect public opinion and criminalization laws.

Methods

In December 2015, we conducted a LexisNexis and Google search using the terms: Michael Johnson; Tiger Mandingo (Johnson’s online persona/screenname); HIV; HIV-Criminalization; and St. Charles, MO. To capture both dominant, as well as resistant and polysemic (multiple) meanings in news stories (Fiske, 1986; Hall, 2001), our sample included not only mainstream and alternative national news outlets, but also HIV-related, African-American and GLBT community-oriented media outlets. Media stories that reported, largely, from the perspectives of law enforcement and Michael Johnson partners were identified as using dominant framings. Media stories identified as using resistant frames were those that included Johnson’s voice or those close to him, as well as those that provided an analysis of the relational, social, and historical context of this case. Media outlets, regardless of their specific community of focus, presented both stories employing dominant frames and those employing resistant frames.

Our search included print newspaper articles, local television news segments, magazine articles, blog posts, and articles published by legal, policy, and advocacy organizations. We identified 93 media stories published between 10 October 2013 (the day of Johnson’s arrest), and December 2015 (6 months post-conviction). The current analysis includes 51 media stories (55% of the total sample) employing narratives that frame Michael Johnson as deceptive.

Each of the four authors independently coded 10 articles, and then discussed codes as a team to develop the initial codebook. Subsequently, we engaged in an iterative process in which each member of the team independently coded one article followed by secondary coding by one of the other members of the team. We then discussed and resolved coding discrepancies until we reached agreement. The codebook was set through this initial coding process, and definitions were added in order to ensure accuracy and consistency in the application of codes. All articles were then independently double coded by one of the authors and one of two masters-level research assistants. Inter-rater reliability was calculated to be 90%. All coding was then transferred to Dedoose, a qualitative software package (Dedoose, 2016).

Results

To explore how media portrayed Michael Johnson’s sexual encounters, racialized sexuality, and HIV status disclosure, we conducted a content and textual analysis of the 93 articles collected. Four common framings of Johnson’s actions as deceptive emerged. He is described as having (1) lied or “failed to disclose” his HIV status; (2) recorded “secret sex tapes” of his sexual activities between himself and his sexual partners; (3) had condomless sex through deception; and (4) lied to medical staff about his sexual behavior. Framing Johnson as deceptive builds on historical tropes about dangerous Black male sexuality, and constructs a “criminal-victim dichotomy,” perpetuating “the figure of the Black male sexual lothario” and representing defendants as amoral sexual agents and their accusers as innocent victims (Mykhalovskiy et al., 2020). A total of 51 out of 93 (55%) media reports that included one or more of these four deceptions (Table 1). Of these, 14% (n=7) challenged these dominant narratives by presenting critical counternarratives, which we discuss within each theme.

Table 1.

Prevalence of deception themes in media.

	n	%
Dishonesty about status	28	54.9
Dishonesty about status + Secret sex tapes	9	17.6
Dishonesty about status + Condomless sex through deception	5	9.8
Dishonesty about status + Dishonesty about sexual behavior	4	7.8
Secret sex tapes	2	3.9
Dishonesty about status + Secret sex tapes + Condomless sex through deception	2	3.9
Dishonesty about status + Condomless sex through deception + Dishonesty about sexual behavior	1	2
Total	51	100

Dishonesty about HIV status

Nearly all (n = 49) media frames described Johnson’s alleged non-disclosure as deception towards his sexual partners. Media portrayed this narrative by reporting that Johnson: (1) intentionally lied to his partners, or (2) omitted/failed to disclose HIV status; or (3) by implying his deception by describing his partners’ as passively unaware of his status. (Table 2).

Table 2.

Media Frames: dishonesty about HIV status (n = 49).

	N**	%
Explicitly lied when asked	28	57
Didn’t tell/ Withheld/ Failed to inform	14	29
Partners described, passively, as “unaware”	11	22

Totals equal more than 100% as some articles included a combination of these subthemes.

Most (57%) media stories, used quotes directly from the trial to frame Johnson’s nondisclosure as an intentional lie: “Assistant prosecutor Philip Groenweghe said Johnson deserves severe punishment, saying he lied to his partners that he was HIV-negative” (Schlinkmann, 2015). A number of articles, included the following quote from the prosecutor’s argument: “He didn’t just fail to disclose his status. . . When he was specifically asked if he was clean. . . he lied” (Bms Staff, 2015; Gremore, 2015; Murphy, 2015; Wee, 2015). This narrative was repeated in more than two dozen other articles. For example, an article on thegrio.com stated that, “The first victim, identified as DTL, said that prior to sex, he asked Johnson if he was ‘disease-free’, and that Johnson said he was, despite the fact that medical records show he was diagnosed with HIV three weeks prior” (Thegrio, 2015).

Some media outlets (29%) framed his alleged nondisclosure as an omission, not an intentional lie. Indeed, judges have determined that a “failure to disclose,” as opposed to explicit lying, is deception in HIV criminal trials (Grant, 2009; Mathen and Plaxton, 2011; Rawluk, 2013). As one local TV station described: “Johnson, a member of the Lindenwood University wrestling team, was told he was HIV-positive in January and knew of the virus before engaging in sexual activity with the victim but did not disclose it to him” (Heath, 2013). Another article described, “Police said medical records showed Johnson was told he was HIV positive last January but didn’t disclose it to the victim before engaging in sexual activity with him later that month” (Schlinkmann, 2013). Importantly, both of these reports describe his behavior as a matter of fact, though they were published more than 18 months prior to the trial.

Lastly, just under one quarter (22%) described his partners as being passively unaware of Johnson’s HIV status. “Police believe none of Johnson’s partners, whom he met both online and through school, were aware. . . that he had HIV, the virus that causes AIDS” (Grenoble, 2014). On a local news broadcast, reporters described it this way, “They [police] believe those partners were unaware Johnson was HIV positive” (Millitzer, 2014). Similarly, another article stated, “Johnson, who attended private Lindenwood University in the suburbs of St. Louis, has been charged with knowingly exposing at least five unaware sexual partners” (Owens, 2014). These framings suggest that Johnson didn’t disclose though they do so by framing his partners as unknowing victims.

Eight articles (16% of total sample) that discussed Johnson’s alleged nondisclosure provided a critical alternative to the dominant frames. While these articles described the facts of the case, often quoting the prosecutor and witnesses, they also discussed relevant social and cultural issues and gave context to the case. One article addressed barriers to disclosure:

There are myriad reasons why someone doesn’t disclose, or lies about, their HIV status. A lot of the time it’s down to stigma, rejection, and fear. I’m all for encouraging people to be more open about their HIV status, but that requires more than just wagging our fingers at HIV positive people to “be better”. It begins with shifting the culture of stigma away from HIV as something to fear. . . HIV is a public health issue, not a criminal one (Holas, 2015).

Another article argued that responsibility should be shared between partners, “. . .anyone who chooses to engage in sexual activity carries equal responsibility for his/her own health. Unfortunately, in Missouri and 32 other states, the law states otherwise and places greater responsibility on the person living with HIV” (Smith, 2015). In contrast, to the dominant media narratives, these articles from HIV and LGBT community-related publications, acknowledged and discussed the complexities of consent, disclosure, and non-disclosure.

Deception through sex videos

Just under one third of the articles in this sample (n = 16; 31%) described Johnson as having recorded sexual encounters without sexual partners’ knowledge. Nearly all media frames relied exclusively on claims by police and prosecutors, and either described it as his partners being passively unaware or as an intentionally secret action by Johnson (Table 3).

Table 3.

Media frames: dishonesty about sex videos (n = 16).

	n	%
Partners did not know/were unaware	11	69
Secret/Covert/Surreptitious	5	31
	16	100

Most articles (69%) framed the discussion of sex videos in terms of his partners’ lack of awareness. “After finding the tapes on a laptop, prosecutors now believe the partners were clueless the 22-year-old was HIV positive or that they were being taped” (Zarrell, 2014). Another article stated that, “Police and prosecutors have reason to believe that Johnson’s sexual partners. . . may not have been aware that their sexual relations were being videotaped” (Weich, 2014).

Several articles (44%) described the sex tapes as an intentionally secret action by Johnson:

Police believe none of Johnson’s partners, whom he met both online and through school, were aware they were being filmed. . .Last week, investigators found a laptop full of what appear to be Johnson’s covertly-filmed sex tapes, dating back to his days as a student (Grenoble, 2014).

Every mention of the videos relied solely on statements by law enforcement that they believed that his partners were unaware, with one exception: an article on GayStarNews.com stated that two of Johnson’s partners “said they did not know they were being filmed” (Wee, 2015).

Michael Johnson was portrayed as having further victimized his sex partners by recording their engagement in gay sexuality. This builds on the familiar ideas of same-sex sexual behavior as shameful (Allen and Oleson, 1999; Huebner et al., 2014), and recent concerns about non-consensual porn (McGlynn and Rackley, 2017; McGlynn et al., 2017). Johnson faced no charges related to these videos, which suggests that their inclusion in media narratives served to synergize with HIV deception narratives to exacerbate depictions of Johnson as secretive and predatory.

Only one article, by Steven Thrasher in Buzzfeed, an independent online media platform, describes that Johnson and one of his sex partners testified that they “consensually filmed their sexual encounter” and that “stills from the video were printed and handed out to the jury” (Thrasher, 2015). Despite having one of the men testify that he consented to the video, all other media framed them as the sole, secret actions of Johnson.

Condomless sex as deception

A small number of articles (n = 8, 16%) employed frames suggesting that Johnson deceived his partners by not wearing a condom. Media frames achieved this by deploying one of two approaches. First, was to suggest that the act of condomless sex was a unilateral choice made by Johnson. Others describe the choice as consensual but only because Johnson provided a pretext to get his partners to agree (Table 4). Those that described it as Johnson’s sole responsibility used statements such as, “Court records show Johnson failed to wear a condom. . .” (Zarrell, 2014). This suggests that Johnson simply failed to act in spite of other reports that Johnson’s partners consented to condomless sex (Gremore, 2015; Thrasher, 2015). Another article described: [Johnson] “continued to engage in unprotected sex” (Harris, 2015). Here, the media frame places the onus for condom use solely on Johnson, and removes any responsibility from his partners. Every article that included a discussion of condomless sex also discussed his alleged nondisclosure as a deception. Thus, in the context of the larger narrative of Johnson that is presented by the prosecution, police, and his sex partners, his unilateral responsibility for condom use becomes part of his effort to deceive and prey on his partners. Though, the idea that effective HIV prevention depends on a shared responsibility, regardless of serostatus has been accepted since the early days of the epidemic (Berkowitz et al., 1983; Davis, 2008; Rangel and Adam, 2014).

Table 4.

Media frames: condomless sex as a form of deception (n = 8).

	n	%
Failed to wear condom/engaged in unprotected sex	5	62.5
Explicit lie to coerce unprotected sex	3	37.5
	8	100

While a few articles described condomless sex as a consensual act, they deployed language suggesting that consent was obtained through deception. According to two articles, “Both men said they agreed to have unprotected sex but only after Johnson told them he did not have any condoms” (Gremore, 2015; Wee, 2015). One of these articles immediately followed this by quoting from the prosecutor’s closing statement, “What we have here is a perfect storm of malice” (Wee, 2015). Importantly, both of these articles also included the aforementioned quote from the prosecutor, “He didn’t just fail to disclose his status. . . When he was specifically asked if he was clean. . . he lied.” Thus, by pairing this information alongside the prosecutor’s narrative of Johnson as deceptive, his alleged reasons for not wearing a condom become a part of the larger construction of him as a predator. The media frames largely describe Johnson’s partners as being a part of the decision-making process. However, their decision to engage in condomless sex is presented as a decision they agreed to only in response to Johnson telling them that he had no condoms or that they didn’t fit, rationales that the reader is led to believe are pretexts for Johnson’s plan to expose his partners to HIV.

Three articles, using resistant framings, added additional context in an attempt to further examine whether there was shared decision-making involved in the condomless sex. One described how the prosecutor intentionally undermined Johnson’s alleged reasons for not using a condom making clear his view that Johnson was attempting to deceive his partners:

Groenweghe asked Adolf [a nurse practitioner] to describe how a condom could be blown up like a balloon until it was big enough to fit over someone’s head. This was designed to expose as bogus, the excuse Tryon and Lemons [his accusers] said Johnson gave — that he was “too big” or the condoms were “too tight” (Thrasher, 2015).

Two articles include the voice of one of Johnson’s partners, who said that he “wanted condomless sex because Michael was ‘huge’ and only his ‘third black guy’” (Juzwiak, 2014; Thrasher, 2014). This reflects the reality that stereotypes, such as those about penis size and sexual prowess, often shape desire for Black men (Wilson et al., 2009), and that his partner had his own independent rationales for his sexual encounter with Johnson. Though, nearly all of the media stories in this analysis drew on fear of Black male bodies, while ignoring Johnson’s partner’s expressed admiration for a Black male body (Collins, 2005). These articles provide challenges to dominant media frames that assume Johnson is the sole agent of subjective desire and safer sex. This resistant framing depicted Johnson’s partners as having agency and their own independent decision-making processes during sexual intimacy. It is critical to note that articles drawing on these more dominant frames never included discussion of his partners and their own motivations and actions.

Deception about sexual activity

Lastly, a few articles (n = 5) deployed media frames that featured notions of deception to describe Johnson’s interactions with public health nurses. These articles described Johnson as lying about his sexual behavior post-diagnosis:

The prosecutor argued that Johnson recklessly exposed his partners to HIV, even after telling a nurse, and a state disease prevention specialist testified, that he wasn’t sexually active during several follow-up visits in the 10 months after being diagnosed with HIV, a precursor for AIDS, at a campus clinic in January 2013 (Molinet, 2015).

One article quoted a nurse practitioner who testified in the trial that: “I was concerned he was possibly spreading HIV and other diseases. . . He told me he wasn’t sexually active” (Weich, 2015). While no article offered a challenge or counternarrative to this deception, Thrasher notes its importance in the trial, “the most damaging testimony came when Martin [a nurse practitioner] said Johnson told her he wasn’t sexually active when he clearly was, a lie that prosecutor Groenweghe hammered home” (Thrasher, 2015). While inaccurate self-reporting of sexual behavior is not a crime, it is a social transgression. The prosecutor and media coverage featuring the prosecutor leveraged this transgression towards a media frame of deception. In doing so, the media contributes to the social process through which society constructs PLWH as criminals who will prey on sexual partners, and lie about their sexual behavior to cover their transgressions.

Outside the frame: Michael Johnson’s voice

The critical process of media framing helps to shape public opinion and provides a structure through which the audience can make sense of the story (Brienza and Revers, 2016). This includes what is inside and what is outside of the media frame (Dworkin and Wachs, 2009, Messner and Solomon, 1993). Michael Johnson’s voice is rarely included inside the media framing of events. Many of these articles referred to Johnson by his social media name, “Tiger Mandingo,” which served to portray him as hypersexual and animalistic. The term “Mandingo” describes a mystical, sexually aggressive Black man, with a large penis (Bowleg et al., 2017; Rhodes et al., 2011). However, there is little recognition of his interior life, or accounting for his subjective experiences as a young, Black, gay man living with HIV in a conservative region of the country. He is not presented drawing on his own points of view in relation to his case or the context in which his interactions are lived. His voice is completely outside the frame in a large majority (69%) of these media narratives.

A total of 16 (31%) articles include Johnson’s voice in the frame. The vast majority (n = 13; 76%) of these tended to humanize him. Though, importantly, these articles represent only 25% of all articles in this analysis. Buzzfeed conducted interviews with Johnson while he was in jail and was, thus, able to quote him:

“My dream for my life is to continue with college, get my bachelor’s degree, and become a role model for people that are struggling to be gay, just as I was struggling. . .My goal is to go to the Olympics, if that is still an option” (Thrasher, 2014).

Three other articles, citing the Buzzfeed interview, used this quote (Bms Staff, 2015; Gremore, 2015; Murphy, 2015).

Another article in Buzzfeed highlighted Johnson’s own thoughts on how the intersections of his various identities—his race, sexual orientation, HIV status, star athlete status, and his muscular physique—impacted his sex life, as well as his criminal trial and pending appeal. “I couldn’t just let it be, because I’m black, and I’m in a place where being gay and HIV-positive is hard. . . this is something that could happen to other HIV-positive people” (Thrasher, 2015). Thrasher highlights the challenges of a poor, young, Black man living with HIV facing a group of White partners as his accusers. “[Johnson’s] mother said he told her, ‘Mama, I told people I was HIV [positive] . . . and they wanted me anyway, because of who I am’. . . So in a way he feels kind of used.” (Thrasher, 2015). Most articles that included his voice were those critiquing HIV criminal laws, or offering a deeper analysis of the case. The consequence of his voice being outside the frame is that most readers were exclusively exposed to the negative image of Johnson painted by law enforcement and his sexual partners.

In contrast, the remaining articles—only three of those employing dominant frames—included two particular quotes from his Facebook account; both of which are derogatory towards his intelligence. In one, which the Riverfront Times referred to his voice as “semi coherent” (Toler, 2013), and The Daily Caller and New York Daily News described as “grossly ungrammatical” (Murphy, 2015; Owens, 2014), Johnson appears to offer advice to men reluctant to bottom:

A men say ”’I’ll never bottom, nor would i for anyone. Him asking his boyfriend after thinking and waiting for the right time, asking baby would you Top me this just one time! loving it from the start. Mother always say try before you say “no I don’t like it.” (Murphy, 2015; Owens, 2014).

Including this post does not provide Johnson’s perspective on his case. Instead, it is used to suggest that he was “exhorting more gay men to bottom” (Murphy, 2015; Owens, 2014), and it serves to belittle his intelligence. Articles also included a post from the day before his arrest, “I messed up big time, but I learned to never mess up again” (Guerra, 2013; Murphy, 2015; Owens, 2014; Toler, 2013). Each article noted that he posted this just before his arrest, with three describing him as posting “frantically” and “repeatedly.” These frames suggest that he was aware of and admitting to his guilt, though it is not clear, from news stories, what Johnson is referring to in these posts. Further, the accounts are completely devoid of any consideration of how his race, gender, and sexuality may matter for his decisions on disclosure to others (Arnold et al., 2014; Hunter, 2010; Watkins-Hayes, 2014).

Discussion

Of course, criminal law is an endless source of newsworthy content (Hess and Waller, 2013; Jewkes, 2004). Stories revolving around deviance, promiscuity, sexual otherness, race, sexuality, and their intersections are treated as particularly newsworthy (Berger, 2010; Dworkin and Wachs, 1998; Persson and Newman, 2008). The power of the media to shape the image of criminal defendants is profound. This analysis is the first to examine media representations of a young, Black, gay man living with HIV prosecuted under HIV criminal laws in the US. Further, recognizing that news sources are more diverse and democratic (Dennis and Merrill, 2006; Humprecht and Esser, 2018), we include media stories from alternative news websites as well as those focusing on particular communities. Here we sought to explore how media narratives framed Michael Johnson’s actions, behaviors, and sexual encounters with his sexual partners. We found that media framed Johnson as deceptive using four narrative tools. He is alleged to have: lied or failed to disclose his status; secretly recorded sex tapes; used a pretext to convince his partners to have condomless sex; and lied to medical staff about his sexual behavior.

Media frames also presented Johnson as having sole agency and responsibility in sexual interactions, and framed his partners as having no agency or mutual responsibility. For example, articles repeatedly cited that police believed all videos were made surreptitiously by Johnson, despite one of his partners testifying that it was consensual. Johnson is described as having “failed” to wear a condom, and his partners are portrayed as giving consent only because he told them that he didn’t have a condom or that they wouldn’t fit as a pretext. Condomless sex, the sex videos, and lying to nurses about his sexual behavior were not charged as crimes. Their inclusion in the trial, and in media coverage served to reify the “AIDS as crime” metaphor which requires a criminal and a victim (Gilmore and Somerville, 1994).

These media stories may initially appear to be objective reporting. Though, a close look at their frames reveals links to hegemonic understandings of race and sexuality (Booth, 2000; Cooky et al., 2010; McKay et al., 2011; Newman and Persson, 2009). More specifically, they rely heavily on longstanding tropes about gay male promiscuity and riskiness, and dehumanizing colonial understandings of uncontrolled, animalistic African sexuality (Flint and Hewitt, 2015). Consumers are left with notions of the Black male predator and the dangers of interracial dating (Flint and Hewitt, 2015, Hooks, 2004). It is important to note that building on hegemonic notions of Black men as criminal, dangerous, and deceptive does not require the media to used explicitly racial language. Thus, the historical tropes on which these narratives build are largely invisible to the reader. Desire of Black male bodies is largely based on eroticized stereotypes, including: penis size; sexual aggression; and macho or dominant gender expression (Wilson et al., 2009). According to Johnson’s mother, he felt that his partners wanted him because of “who he was.” As noted, one of his partners told Buzzfeed that he wanted to have condomless sex with Johnson because he was “huge” and only his “third black guy” (Juzwiak, 2014; Thrasher, 2014).

According to strong scientific evidence, PLWH who maintain an undetectable viral load cannot sexually transmit HIV, which has profound implications for HIV criminal law (Eisinger et al., 2019). That disclosure is the only allowable defense against these charges in Missouri (Center for HIV Law and Policy, 2018) is significant. While his partners can simply accuse him of nondisclosure, he has little recourse to prove disclosure, and an undetectable viral load would have meant that his partners could not have contracted HIV during their sexual encounters with him. Readers are left with the nurse’s concern that he was “spreading” the virus, which implies that he was not on treatment, but media narratives did not address his actual treatment status.

Arguably, one long-lasting impact of these media narratives is the disciplinary work that is carried out when naming and shaming defendants in criminal cases such as this. The media has the freedom to report on criminal cases whether the charges are proven or not, and there is an “‘unmistakable’ link between public exposure and shaming,” which is “a potent form of punishment” (Hess and Waller, 2013: 60). The media exercises this disciplinary power (Foucault, 1975) by normalizing and reinforcing acceptable social behavior. In this case, HIV status disclosure is the acceptable behavior, despite a number of significant social barriers ranging from social rejection to physical and verbal abuse (Abler et al., 2015; Courtenay–Quirk et al., 2006; Gielen et al., 2000). This disciplinary power leads to the “pillorying effect” whereby the defendant becomes an exhibit to the public and has very little ability to counter their own image as depicted (Noelle-Neumann, 1993).

Media narratives shaped an image of Johnson that is predatory, dishonest, and manipulative by overwhelmingly reporting the same incendiary facts of the case and making little to no mention of his partners’ consent, agency, or roles in sexual decision-making. These frames privileged the voices of prosecutors, police officers, and his sex partners, leaving his voice outside the frame in more than two-thirds of articles in this analysis. Thus, the voices of those with the powers to accuse, investigate, arrest, charge, and prosecute were also the only voices granted the power to shape media narratives. Importantly, these voices largely represent the criminal justice arm of the state which, both historically and currently, arrests, prosecutes, and incarcerates Black men at alarming rates (Alexander, 2020). Thus, in addition to performing those state-sanctioned function of “maintaining order,” these voices also participate in doing the disciplinary work, on Black male bodies, through media stories. Johnson’s own voice, and the voices of those who knew and supported him would have provided context and additional nuance to the contours of the case but were largely absent.

A number of limitations of our analysis are worth noting. First, our analysis includes only one HIV criminalization case. Because of the specific nature of this case, including Johnson’s and his partners’ identities, as well as the particular details of the case, analyzing news media coverage of a comparable case was not possible. Further, because the contours of this case are geographically specific, the dynamics and news coverage in other parts of the US may differ. Lastly, despite the utility of an analysis of whose voices are inside and outside the frame, the larger reliance on courts to adjudicate this matter may over-determine who was interviewed, and the temporal nature of our analysis may preclude an opportunity to examine subsequent media coverage that may include Johnson’s his voice in the frame.

Media frames in this case, and others, contribute to an “increasing enthusiasm for criminal prosecution. . .and the undermining of collective responsibility, social support, and education” (Kagan, 2015). In such an environment, the persistence of HIV criminalization laws is more likely, as is their disparate enforcement. The influence of media frames is not limited to public perceptions, broadly speaking. Media constructions also influences the responses of policy makers (Colby and Cook, 1991) and the policies that they ultimately put forward. Ultimately, HIV criminal laws should be reformed or repealed, allowing HIV to be seen as a strictly public health problem. Meanwhile, it is critical that media frames of HIV criminal cases shift from including only the voices of law enforcement and accusers to including the voices of criminal defendants and their attorneys. Doing so would humanize PLWH, reduce stigma, and provide the opportunity to educate media consumers about current scientific knowledge, as well as the emotional and complex nature of disclosure.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Chadwick K Campbell

Author biographies

Chadwick K Campbell is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at the University of California San Francisco. His work primarily focuses on the social, structural, and intersectional inequalities driving the HIV epidemic among gay and bisexual men of color.

Florencia Rojo is assistant professor of Sociology at Colorado College. Dr Rojo’s research explores trauma, violence, and migration with Latin American immigrant communities.

Naina Khanna is executive director of Positive Women’s Network, and a doctoral candidate is Sociology at the University of California San Francisco. She is a national speaker, trainer, and advocate for people living with HIV.

Shari L Dworkin is dean and professor in the School of Nursing and Health Studies at the University of Washington Bothell. Dr Dworkin’s research focuses on gender relations, sexualities, masculinities, and HIV. She has also conducted critical media analyses exploring gender, race, health, and the body.

References

Abler

Sikkema

Watt

, et al. (2015) Depression and HIV serostatus disclosure to sexual partners among newly HIV-diagnosed men who have sex with men. AIDS Patient Care and STDs 29: 550–558.

Adam

Corriveau

Elliott

, et al. (2015) HIV disclosure as practice and public policy. Critical Public Health 25: 386–397.

Alexander

(2020) The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York, NY: The New Press.

Alexandre

(2012) The Properties of Violence: Claims to Ownership in Representations of Lynching. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.

Allen

Oleson

(1999) Shame and internalized homophobia in gay men. Journal of homosexuality 37: 33–43.

Arnold

Rebchook

Kegeles

(2014) ‘Triply cursed’: Racism, homophobia and HIV-related stigma are barriers to regular HIV testing, treatment adherence and disclosure among young Black gay men. Culture Health & Sexuality 16: 710–722.

Berger

(2010) Workable Sisterhood: The Political Journey of Stigmatized Women with HIV/AIDS. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Berkowitz

Callen

Dworkin

(1983) How to Have Sex in an Epidemic: One Approach. New York: News From the Front Publications.

Birrell

Cole

(1990) Double fault: Renee Richards and the construction and naturalization of difference. Sociology of Sport Journal 7: 1–21.

10.

Bms Staff (2015) Wrestling Champ Deliberately Infected Lovers with HIV. Black Media Scoop. [Internet]

11.

Booth

(2000) “JUST TESTING” Race, sex, and the media in New York’s “Baby AIDS” debate. Gender & Society 14: 644–661.

12.

Bowleg

Del Rio-Gonzalez

Holt

, et al. (2017) Intersectional epistemologies of ignorance: How behavioral and social science research shapes what we know, think we know, and don’t know about US Black men’s sexualities. The Journal of Sex Research 54: 577–603.

13.

Brienza

Revers

(2016) The field of American media sociology: Origins, resurrection, and consolidation. Sociology Compass 10: 539–552.

14.

Burris

Cameron

(2008) The case against criminalization of HIV transmission. Jama 300: 578–581.

15.

Cáceres

Konda

Salazar

, et al. (2008) New populations at high risk of HIV/STIs in low-income, urban coastal Peru. AIDS and Behavior 12: 544.

16.

Center for Hiv Law and Policy (2018) HIV/AIDS criminalization resource bank. Available at: http://www.hivlawandpolicy.org/issues/criminal-law (accessed 20 February 2018).

17.

Clarke

(1992) Cancer, heart disease, and AIDS: What do the media tell us about these diseases? Health Communication 4: 105–120.

18.

Colby

Cook

(1991) Epidemics and agendas: The politics of nightly news coverage of AIDS. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 16: 215–250.

19.

Collins

(1986) Learning from the outsider within: The sociological significance of Black feminist thought. Social Problems 33: s14–s32.

20.

Collins

(2005) Black Sexual Politics. New York: Routledge.

21.

Cooky

Wachs

Messner

et al. (2010) It’s not about the game: Don Imus, race, class, gender and sexuality in contemporary media. Sociology of Sport Journal 27: 139–159.

22.

Courtenay–Quirk

Wolitski

Parsons

, et al. (2006) Is HIV/AIDS stigma dividing the gay community? Perceptions of HIV–positive men who have sex with men. AIDS Education & Prevention 18: 56–67.

23.

Cullen

(2006) HIV/AIDS: 25 years of press coverage. Australian Studies in Journalism 12: 64–82.

24.

Davis

(2008) The ‘loss of community’ and other problems for sexual citizenship in recent HIV prevention. Sociology of Health & Illness 30: 182–196.

25.

De Alencar

JMN

Da Silva

Rodrigues

, et al. (2016) Analysis of the sexual exposure trends to human immunodeficiency virus-HIV in Teresina, Piauí state. Brazilian Journal of Sexually Transmitted Diseases 28: 56–60.

26.

Dedoose (2016) 7.0.23 ed. Los Angeles, CA: SocioCultural Research Consultants, LLC.

27.

Dennis

Merrill

(2006) Media Debates: Great Issues for the Digital Age. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co.

28.

Donovan

(1997) The problem with making AIDS comfortable: Federal policy making and the rhetoric of innocence. Journal of Homosexuality 32: 115–144.

29.

Dworkin

Wachs

(1998) “Disciplining the body”: HIV-positive male athletes, media surveillance, and the policing of sexuality. Sociology of Sport Journal 15: 1–20.

30.

Dworkin

Wachs

(2009) Body panic: Gender, health, and the selling of fitness. New york and London: NYU Press.

31.

Eisinger

Dieffenbach

Fauci

(2019) HIV viral load and transmissibility of HIV infection: Undetectable equals untransmittable. Jama 321: 451–452.

32.

Federman

Holmes

Tremblay

(2011) Reflecting on HIV disclosure laws in the context of unsafe sex and the harm-reduction strategy. Social Theory & Health 9: 224–243.

33.

Fiske

(1986) Television: Polysemy and popularity. Critical Studies in Media Communication 3: 391–408.

34.

Flavin

(2000) (MIS) Representing risk: Headline accounts of HIV-related assaults. American Journal of Criminal Justice 25: 119.

35.

Flint

Hewitt

(2015) Colonial tropes and HIV/AIDS in Africa: Sex, disease and race. Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 53: 294–314.

36.

Foucault

(1975) Discipline and Punish. Paris: Editions Gallimard.

37.

Gielen

Fogarty

O’campo

, et al. (2000) Women living with HIV: Disclosure, violence, and social support. Journal of Urban Health 77: 480–491.

38.

Gilmore

Somerville

(1994) Stigmatization, scapegoating and discrimination in sexually transmitted diseases: Overcoming ‘them’and ‘us’. Social Science & Medicine 39: 1339–1358.

39.

Grant

(2009) Rethinking risk: The relevance of condoms and viral load in HIV nondisclosure prosecutions. McGill Law Journal/Revue de droit de McGill 54: 389–404.

40.

Green

(2008) The social organization of desire: The sexual fields approach. Sociological Theory 26: 25–50.

41.

Gremore

(2015) Star college wrestler accused of “recklessly infecting” several men with HIV. Queerty.com, May 13.

42.

Grenoble

(2014) HIV-positive student secretly filmed self having unprotected sex with at least 31 people. Huffingtonpost.com, January 2.

43.

Guerra

(2013) Ex-indy wrestler accused of exposing men to HIV. Indy Star, 4 December 4.

44.

Hall

(2001) Encoding/decoding. In: Durham

Kellner

(eds) Media and cultural studies: Keyworks. UK: Blackwell Publishing.

45.

Harris

(2015) Gay wrestler intentionally infected partners with HIV. Uptown Magazine, 13 May.

46.

Heath

(2013) More potential victims of Lindenwood wrestler charged with spreading HIV step forward. KMOV.com, October 11.

47.

Hertog

Fan

(1995) The impact of press coverage on social beliefs: The case of HIV transmission. Communication Research 22: 545–574.

48.

Hess

Waller

(2013) News judgements: A critical examination of reporting non-convictions for minor crimes. Australian Journalism Review 35: 59.

49.

Holas

(2015) Outdated HIV laws treat every poz person like a criminal. Gay News Network, 15 July.

50.

Hong

Fang

, et al. (2011) Internet use among female sex workers in China: Implications for HIV/STI prevention. AIDS and Behavior 15: 273–282.

51.

Hooks

(2004) We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. London: Routledge.

52.

Hoppe

(2017) Punishing Disease: HIV and the Criminalization of Sickness. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

53.

Huebner

Kegeles

Rebchook

, et al. (2014) Social oppression, psychological vulnerability, and unprotected intercourse among young Black men who have sex with men. Health Psychology 33: 1568.

54.

Humprecht

Esser

(2018) Diversity in online news: On the importance of ownership types and media system types. Journalism Studies 19: 1825–1847.

55.

Hunter

(2010) All the gays are White and all the Blacks are straight: Black gay men, identity, and community. Sexuality Research and Social Policy 7: 81–92.

56.

Jenness

(2004) Explaining criminalization: From demography and status politics to globalization and modernization. Annual Review of Sociology 30: 147–171.

57.

Jewkes

(2004) Media and Crime. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

58.

Jürgens

Cohen

Cameron

, et al. (2009) Ten reasons to oppose the criminalization of HIV exposure or transmission. Reproductive Health Matters 17: 163–172.

59.

Juzwiak

(2014) Whose HIV is it, anyway?: Tiger Mandingo and viral responsibility. Gawker.com, July 8.

60.

Kagan

(2015) ‘Re-crisis’: Barebacking, sex panic and the logic of epidemic. Sexualities 18: 817–837.

61.

Lupton

(1999) Archetypes of infection: People with HIV/AIDS in the Australian press in the mid 1990s. Sociology of Health & Illness 21: 37–53.

62.

Mathen

Plaxton

(2011) HIV, consent and criminal wrongs. Crim. LQ 57: 464.

63.

Mcgarrell

Castellano

(1993) Social structure, crime, and politics: A conflict model of the criminal law formation process. In: Making Law: The State, the Law, and Structural Contradictions. Indiana University Press, pp. 347–378.

64.

Mcglynn

Rackley

(2017) Image-based sexual abuse. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 37: 534–561.

65.

Mcglynn

Rackley

Houghton

(2017) Beyond ‘revenge porn’: The continuum of image-based sexual abuse. Feminist Legal Studies 25: 25–46.

66.

Mckay

Thomas

Holland

, et al. (2011) “AIDS Assassins”: Australian media’s portrayal of HIV-positive refugees who deliberately infect others. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies 9: 20–37.

67.

Messner

Solomon

(1993) Outside the frame: Newspaper coverage of the Sugar Ray Leonard wife abuse story. Sociology of Sport Journal 10: 119–134.

68.

Miller

(2005) African immigrant damnation syndrome: The case of Charles Ssenyonga. Sexuality Research & Social Policy 2: 31.

69.

Millitzer

(2014) HIV infected wrestler may have videotaped more sex victims. Fox2Now.com, January 16.

70.

Molinet

(2015) Ex-college wrestler guilty of infecting, exposing gay sex partners to HIV and Missouri university. NY Daily News, 15 May.

71.

Murphy

(2015) Missouri wrestler infected gay sex partners with HIV after diagnosis: Prosecutor. NY Daily News, 12 May.

72.

Murphy

De Wit

Donohoe

, et al. (2015) The need to know: HIV status disclosure expectations and practices among non-HIV-positive gay and bisexual men in Australia. AIDS Care 27: 90–98.

73.

Mykhalovskiy

Hastings

Sanders

, et al. (2016) ‘Callous, cold and deliberately duplicitous’: Racialization, immigration and the representation of HIV criminalization in Canadian Mainstream Newspapers. Immigration and the Representation of HIV Criminalization in Canadian Mainstream Newspapers, 22 November.

74.

Mykhalovskiy

Sanders

Hastings

, et al. (2020) Explicitly racialised and extraordinarily over-represented: Black immigrant men in 25 years of news reports on HIV non-disclosure criminal cases in Canada. Culture, Health & Sexuality. Epub ahead of print 7 May 2020. DOI: 10.1080/13691058.2020.1733095.

75.

Myrick

(1998) AIDS discourse: A critical reading of mainstream press surveillance of marginal identity. Journal of homosexuality 35: 75–93.

76.

Newman

Persson

(2009) Fear, complacency and the spectacle of risk: The making of HIV as a public concern in Australia. Health 13: 7–23.

77.

Noelle-Neumann

(1993) The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion, Our Social Skin. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

78.

Owens

(2014) Barebacking HIV-positive college wrestler made 32 videos of his exploits. DailyCaller.com, 20 January.

79.

Persson

Newman

(2008) Making monsters: Heterosexuality, crime and race in recent western media coverage of HIV. Sociology of Health & Illness 30: 632–646.

80.

Petty

(2005) Social responses to HIV: Fearing the outlaw. Sexuality Research & Social Policy 2: 76.

81.

Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic Watkins

(1988) Report of the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic: Submitted to the President of the United States June 24, 1988. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.

82.

Ramallo

Kidder

Albritton

, et al. (2015) Exploring social networking technologies as tools for HIV prevention for men who have sex with men. AIDS Education and Prevention 27: 298–311.

83.

Rangel

Adam

(2014) Everyday moral reasoning in the governmentality of HIV risk. Sociology of Health & Illness 36: 60–74.

84.

Rawluk

(2013) HIV and shared responsibility: A critical evaluation of Mabior and DC. Dalhousie Journal of Legal Studies 22: 21.

85.

Rhodes

Hergenrather

Vissman

, et al. (2011) Boys must be men, and men must have sex with women: A qualitative CBPR study to explore sexual risk among African American, Latino, and white gay men and MSM. American Journal of Men’s Health 5: 140–151.

86.

Rutledge

(2009) Formation of personal HIV disclosure policies among HIV-positive men who have sex with men. AIDS Patient Care STDS 23: 531–543.

87.

Schlinkmann

(2013) More potential victims in Lindenwood U. Student HIV virus case. St. Louis Today, 10 October.

88.

Schlinkmann

(2015) Ex-college wrestler gets 30 years in HIV case in St. Charles county. St. Louis Dispatch, July 13.

89.

Shevory

(2004) Notorious HIV: The media Spectacle of Nushawn Williams. Minneapolis, MI: University of Minnesota Press.

90.

Smith

(2015) Op-ed: The justice system failed Michael Johnson. HIV Plus, July 20.

91.

Speakman

(2017) Constructing an “HIV-Killer”: HIV non-disclosure and the techniques of vilification. Deviant Behavior 38: 392–405.

92.

Thegrio (2015) Former college wrestler goes to trial for allegedly exposing partners to HIV. Thegrio.com, May 13.

93.

Thrasher

(2014) How college wrestling star “Tiger Mandingo” became an HIV Scapegoat. Buzzfeed.com, July 7.

94.

Thrasher

(2015) A black body on trial: The conviction of HIV-positive “Tiger Mandingo”. Buzzfeed.com, November 30.

95.

Toler

(2013) Lindenwood wrestler accused of spreading HIV parades sexy alter ego ‘Tiger Mandingo’. Riverfront Times, October 21.

96.

Warner

Gutmann

Sasse

, et al. (2018) Privacy unraveling around explicit HIV status disclosure fields in the online geosocial hookup app grindr. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 2: 181.

97.

Watkins-Hayes

(2014) Intersectionality and the sociology of HIV/AIDS: Past, present, and future research directions. Annual Review of Sociology 40: 431–457.

98.

Wee

(2015) Ex-college wrestler found guilty of ‘recklessly infecting’ man with HIV. Gaystarnews.com, May 14.

99.

Weich

(2014) Former Lindenwood wrestler may have exposed even more to HIV. St. Louis Today, January, 17.

100.

Weich

(2015) Trial begins for former Lindenwood student accused of infecting partners with HIV. StLouistoday.com, May 12.

101.

Wilson

Valera

Ventuneac

, et al. (2009) Race-based sexual stereotyping and sexual partnering among men who use the internet to identify other men for bareback sex. Journal of Sex Research 46: 399–413.

102.

Worth

(1995) AIDS and the other: Race, gender and social policy in the Peter Mwai affair. Social Policy Journal of New Zealand 4: 24–35.

103.

Zarrell

(2014) HIV-positive student allegedly filmed secret sex tapes with more than 30 unknowing partners. Buzzfeed.com, January 19.