Imagine how easy life would be if you could produce offspring without a mate. Sexual reproduction is the most common mating system in the animal kingdom. But in many species, females do not require males…
When we consider society’s prevailing view of late-life sexuality, the convention has been that older people are not particularly sexually active or interested in intimate sexual relationships. These preconceptions…
Baby Boomer women are challenging ideas around what it means to grow old.
Cesar Vargas/Flickr
Older people, and particularly older women, are often thought of as being asexual or sexually undesirable. Although the particular age this is believed to happen varies somewhat in the popular imagination…
The sex ratio in your community may affect what you’re looking for in a relationship.
Hearts image via www.shutterstock.com.
When 56-year-old Madonna posed topless for Interview magazine this month the public reaction was a stifled yawn. Her erotic exposé was the latest in a recent swathe of celebrities stripping off. In November…
Parents can support young people to develop healthy, respectful and consensual sexual relationships.
Ed Yourdon/Flickr
Talking about sex, intimacy and risk-taking with adolescents is not as easy as busting out a Salt-N-Pepa classic. Catchy lyrics aside, parents may be grappling with a number of questions: Is my adolescent…
Sexual intercourse is getting on a bit. Not only has it been boosting the human population since we emerged from the primordial swamp, it’s more than half a century since Philip Larkin noted its arrival…
The legendary club Madame Jojo’s recently announced that its doors were closing, prompting many to mourn the death of Soho. But the area has been subject to various “clean-up” campaigns throughout its…
Our culture tells women there’s something wrong with them if they don’t orgasm.
Gustavo Gomes/Flickr
The recently published Italian study suggesting women can only have clitoral, rather than vaginal, orgasms raises important questions about the medicalisation of female sexuality and sexual dysfunction…
Unlocking the secrets of the chastity belt.
Science Museum / Science and Society Picture Library
“Undress your mind” shouts the promotional material for the Wellcome Trust’s latest exhibition, The Institute of Sexology. It’s an apt tagline, encapsulating how sexology – or the science of sex – has…
Most women are just happy to have an orgasm, any old way.
Ares Tavolazzi/Flickr
Controversy over vaginal versus clitoral orgasm is nothing new; it’s a debate that has consumed sexologists and psychoanalysts for the last 100 years. Now, new research has added fresh fuel to the controversy…
Australian couples had sex an average of 1.8 times a week in 2003, this has dropped to 1.4.
benik.at/Shutterstock
Australian couples are having sex less often than a decade ago, the latest national survey of sexual activity reveals. People in heterosexual relationships have sex an average of 1.4 times per week, down…
Technology has done away with the need to insert swabs into the male urethra and speculums into the vagina. Instead, blood and urine are tested.
In Tune/Shutterstock
Sexuality is a means of pleasure, fulfilment and intimate connection with other humans. But it can also be a source of anguish. So it’s perhaps no surprise that of all the areas in health care, the “STI…
The intimate act of copulation is old – very old. In fact, it first evolved in ancient armoured placoderm fishes called antiarchs 385 million years ago. Fossils of the antiarch Microbrachius dicki show…
Very little has been published on VivaGel in peer-reviewed literature.
Morgan/Flickr
Australian biotech company Starpharma has announced the imminent launch of a condom coated with an antimicrobial chemical known as VivaGel. While it might be marketed as a great leap forward for preventing…
New students at Cambridge must now take workshops in sexual consent.
caffinehit
Cambridge and Oxford announced the introduction of compulsory workshops on sexual consent for first-year students just a few weeks before the start of the new academic year. According to Cambridge, the…
Cicely Marston, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
We often talk about educating young people about consent but what does this mean? Does it simply boil down to teaching young men not to rape? And, if this is the case, it’s a depressingly low bar. Instead…
Airbnb’s new logo prompted a torrent of response as soon as it was unveiled. Everyone seemed to have a (not very original) opinion about the rebranding – yes, it looks like a vagina. And it doesn’t stop…
Who can forget “penis-beakergate”? That wonderful moment in October 2013 when a user of popular parenting site Mumsnet started a discussion thread to ask other women whether her partner’s behaviour was…
Russian model Irina Shayk is sure to turn heads off the pitch … but will boyfriend and Portuguese striker Cristiano Ronaldo be able to keep his mind on the game?
EPA/Walter Bieri
While watching their national teams play in the World Cup, spectators may have their attention drawn away from the “beautiful game” on the pitch to the beautiful people off the pitch – the footballers…
Professor of Media and Communication and Associate Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making + Society, Swinburne University of Technology