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HIV/AIDS prevention work has been mainly designed by professionals and has reached mainly educationally and economically advantaged groups. This study involved men who have sex with men in working-class milieux, using life- history and action-research methods in two cities. Material drawn from twenty-one case studies is presented. The economic, domestic and educational relationships of working-class life shape sexual identity and practice. A muted and undifferentiated erotic milieu in childhood is the common starting point for very different trajectories into adult homosexual relationships, though 'beats' are generally important in making connections. A stronger network and sense of community appears in the provincial city than in the metropolis. Economic vulnerability and cultural constraint shape homosexual experience. Sex in long-term relationships is the most valued (though not the most common …