In the Dominican Republic, PEER results fed into the development of an HIV awareness raising soap opera, Amor de Bateyes, which was screened on TV and in community settings. The soap opera took many key themes from the PEER findings:

• The study highlighted the difference between norms of behaviour for men and women (stated standards of accepted behaviour) and actual behaviour. As everywhere in the world, the standards which people agree on as normal and acceptable in the public sphere differ from actual lived behaviour.
• The picture is complex with two competing norms to which men aspire. These are expressed in male identities of an hombre serio (serious man) and a chulo (macho man). The hombre serio, a ‘respectable’ man with few partners who economically supports his family, contrasts with the chulo, who is attractive to women and has many partners. Men aspire to be hombre serio in the eyes of other men, and chulo in relation to women.
• Normative standards of behaviour for women are that they must be seen to be faithful to one partner. A respectable woman is a mujer de la casa (woman of the house): a faithful married woman.
• The study explained how these identities relate to lived behaviour. In reality, it is considered essential by both men and women for a man to have many partners to prove his masculinity. Women reinforce this behaviour, stating that ‘no woman would be interested in a man with only one partner.’ 
• Similarly, it is accepted by men and women that men have more than one family. Multiple families are a social resource for men. A man may have four to five regular partners and any number of additional short-term sexual encounters. 
• Women consider it economically essential to have at least two to three partners for financial support. No woman can be economically maintained by one man in the context of limited sources of income, although these relationships must remain clandestine.
• Crucially, HIV risk is perceived to be related to having many partners who are non-trusted. However, trust is not related to fidelity – a trusted partner may have other partners. Trust is related to familiarity, emotion and financial commitment.  A non-trusted partner is usually a one-time encounter. A relationship may become trusted after a second or third encounter.
• Modes of transmission of HIV are well understood, and AIDS cases are perceived to be prevalent in the bateyes. Men and women attempt to manage this risk by only having sex with trusted partners (perceived as safe), and by using condoms with non-trusted partners, a category largely reserved for ‘other peoples’' relationships.
• Thus condoms are identified with non trusted partnerships, largely with ‘women of the street’. Women will insist their partner use condoms with women of the street, but no woman defines herself in those terms. Suggesting condom use implies suspicion on the part of the man and is seen as an insult to the woman.
  

Health prevention messages which reinforce that condoms are used to protect a person from HIV infection do not reinforce condom use. Rather, the health prevention messages appear to stigmatise men and women who use condoms and ultimately serve to reinforce non-use.

Link to full report.