The Context of HIV Risk Among Drug Users and Their Sexual Partners

esponsibilities in perspective. Such assumption of responsibility is not
unique for these women. Economic responsibility for women is not new
and not solely attributable to current high levels of drug use and high
levels of unemployment among men. These women rose to the occasion
and responded much like the women in previous generations, pitching in
and helping economically-patterns they, particularly African-American
women, were taught as children.
Corby and colleagues (1991) conducted interviews with 137 female sex
partners of male IDUs. Sixty-seven percent of these women were current
users of noninjecting drugs. Forty-seven percent of the women used
marijuana, 45 percent used crack cocaine, 19 percent used cocaine, and
14 percent used tranquilizers. Fifty-eight percent of African-American
women and 52 percent of white women had smoked marijuana in the past
6 months, compared to 16 percent of Hispanic women, African-
American women (61.5 percent) more frequently reported crack cocaine
use than white women (30 percent) or Hispanic women (16 percent).
Also, African-American women (32 percent) were more likely to report
drinking 2 or more days per week than white women (4 percent) or
Hispanic women (3 percent).
These investigators reported that a larger proportion of African-American
women (42.3 percent) reported having multiple sex partners during the
past 6 months compared to whites (26 percent) or Hispanics (16 percent).
No women reported exchanging sex exclusively for drugs. All who had
traded sex for drugs had also done so for money. A larger proportion of
African-American women acknowledged having engaged in prostitution,
and all but two prostitutes (92.9 percent) reported using crack cocaine. In
addition, women who engaged in prostitution also were more likely to
report daily drinking.
Almost all of the women across all ethnic groups reported engaging in
unprotected vaginal intercourse. However, these investigators found no
relationship between condom use, ethnicity, and use of crack cocaine or
daily drinking. Among the 95 percent of women who reported no use or
inconsistent use of condoms, the most frequently stated reasons were
dislike of condoms by their partners. Once again, relationship issues and
the feelings of those around them are very important to these women.
The women, in a sense, were unable to get beyond the barrier of needing
to be loved and avoid an intense level of anxiety in the relationship. As
Bowen (1978) states, their feeling or emotional system keeps them from
making choices governed by thinking, and such processes and patterns
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