Abstract

SEXUALITY, BETWEEN SPEECH AND STAGES IN LIFE, OF HIV-INFECTED SUBJECTS AIDS, that union between death and sexuality, makes the latter non-representable and has deeply modified the world of sexual imagination. The article seeks to show how the emergence of HIV has re-defined the current norm within individuals’ sexuality and then goes on to analyse the different stages HIV positive subjects have to confront as they go through life, with the need to re-organise their sexuality ; it then evokes the transgressive aspect of sexuality for some sectors of the population and, finally, gives HIV positive women the opportunity to speak out on how they come to grips with their bodies in relation to partners – soiled bodies henceforth disentitled, deprived of pleasure. HIV infection has the effect of sowing confusion between the different registers such as death, life and sex, and causes in the subject feelings of shame and guilt : so many effects that the therapist has to take on board to render the feeling that they exist in full to the subject.