The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued a new recommendation statement on Monday regarding adults and HIV testing. The statement, which was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, asserted that all adults between the ages of 15 and 65 should be tested for HIV, regardless of whether or not they are considered high risk.
Finally!!
The argument that access to sexual health care or information causes promiscuity is offensive to women and has been proven false time and again. Yet it seems unlikely that it we will end anytime soon.
April is STD Awareness Month. All too often, conversations around health only happen when someone’s health is threatened by a disease or disorder. When discussing sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), it is important to take a more proactive approach. Why? Early conversations help shape healthy attitudes and knowledge about STDs and sexual health. That’s especially true for youth.
When it comes to helping youth develop healthy attitudes about sex, we as adults must first overcome our own fears and anxieties around the subject. All of us who interact with youth have a role to play in STD prevention.
How Do You End an Epidemic of STDs? It Takes a Country
While there is no easy answer or single reason “why” people contract an STD, research indicates that solutions must go beyond individual characteristics or behaviors. Educators, parents, youth advocates, HIV/AIDS organizations, physicians, legislators, health departments, and researchers, all have a role to play in reducing the impact of STDs.
The Science of Emergency Contraception
What happens when the condom breaks? Find out what’s behind “Plan B” – otherwise known as emergency contraception.
Expelled from college for distributing condoms? It’s more likely than you think*
Four years ago, 90% of students at Boston College (BC), a Catholic university, voted in favor of having access to sexual health-care education and resources, including contraceptives, on campus. The unofficial student group Boston College Students for Sexual Health (BCSSH) was formed.
Safe Sites is one of the programs they designed to meet students’ need for sexual health care. Administrators knew it existed and let it operate under the radar for years—until now.
*if you’re a student at Boston College
Kori asks:
I’m and 18 years old and have been having sex for a year and been on the pill for about a year. I take my birth control like a ritual at the same time every day (the combination pill). Sometime my boyfriend and I don’t use a condom in the beginning to get him hard then we always put one on. My question is, when on the pill do you absolutely have to use condoms? They say that every time you have sex you NEED to use a condom. I know it is the most effective way, but I thought that the one of the points of the pill is so you don’t need to use a condom.
Heather Corinna replies:
We get asked about this a lot; about whether once you have a more effective method of contraception than condoms, like a hormonal method or IUD, if they’re still needed to prevent pregnancy.
The only right answer to that question, no matter who asks it, is that it really depends on what you and your partner want and need.
Sexcereal: It’s What’s for Breakfast
Two things that don’t sound particularly sexy? Canada and breakfast cereal. Apparently, though, when you put them together you get a new product that’s supposed to ignite our sex drives, one bowl at a time.
The unfounded fear that young children will somehow become “impure” if they learn about a dirty subject like sex is deeply rooted in American culture. Our society assumes that human sexuality is dark, dangerous, and shameful — something we need to protect teens from, rather than teach them about. Teens consistently learn that it’s not okay to talk about sex because it’s supposed to be totally off-limits to them, constrained to the bounds of a traditional marriage. But this attitude has led to disastrous consequences: damaging women and LGBT Americans’ sense of sexual self-worth, fueling the STD epidemic, and creating a moral environment where rape culture has flourished. Americans desperately need to overhaul our outdated approach to sexuality, replacing our puritanism with an open, honest, nonjudgmental, sex-positive attitude that we work to instill in our kids from a young age.
