Individual and focus group interviews with a total of 40 gay and bisexual men, as well as with 23 community and/or professional key informants, highlighted that sexual coercion is an important, yet under-recognized, barrier to the practice of safer sex among men who have sex with men. In this article we discuss how the dynamics of sexual coercion, including subtle forms, can operate to compromise men's ability to practise safer sex, leading men to have sex that is both unsafe and unwanted.