The aim of this study was to examine the influence of gender on exposure to gender-tailored HIV-prevention brochures. During an unobtrusive observation of participants' reading of brochures, both men and women were likely to avoid gender-mismatched brochures. However, women were more likely to selectively approach gender-matched brochures over gender-neutral brochures than were men. Furthermore, exposure to the female-targeted brochure predicted accepting an HIV-prevention video. This pattern was only the case for females and not for males or for the male-targeted brochure. This finding implies that the gender-tailored brochures are more useful for women than for men, and may open the door to other materials designed with preventive objectives.