Overcoming truth telling as an obstacle to initiating safer sex: Clients and health practitioners planning deception during HIV test counseling

This article considers how deception, as a strategy for handling delicate i nterpersonal situations, is raised and responded to during HIV pretest coun seling sessions. Two cases are presented in which clients (CLs) formulate e xtrarelational sexual encounters as potential obstacles to initiating safer sex practices with long-term relational partners (because reinitiating saf er sex with such partners would entail admission of the extrarelational enc ounters). Close analysis of spoken interaction reveals that CLs display the ir resistance to initiating safer sex by animating, through hypothetical di alogue, their long-term partners' requests for explanation of the disruptio n in their usual intimate behaviors; health practitioners attempt to overco me this obstacle of "truth telling" by suggesting deception in its place. T his study extends current understandings of the formulation and planning of deceptive messages in the course of actual health promotion interactions. The implications of this investigation suggest that deception may pose a vi able, albeit controversial, option when promoting disease prevention behavi ors, especially in delicate interpersonal interactions such as not wanting to admit an extrarelational affair.