Stories of teens taking and sending a naked picture of themselves with their phones have been all over the news media in recent years. The outcome? Shocking, according to reports which have suggested that…
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…
Would sex ed have changed anything?
Teenage pregancy via Photographee.eu/Shutterstock
Proposals to force all schools to teach a compulsory sex education curriculum from primary level up and to restrict the right of parents to opt-out their children are back on the parliamentary agenda…
Believing sex to be important is the strongest predictor of embodied sexual desire in older women.
Candida.Performa/Flickr
Research tells us that women’s sexual functioning declines after midlife, manifested by reductions in arousal and orgasm, and increases in sexual pain. This is linked to reports of reduced sexual activity…
Condom use appears to be declining across the Australian population.
Wade Kelly/Flickr
Reema Rattan, The Conversation and Emil Jeyaratnam, The Conversation
A fall in condom use across the population is driving strong growth in sexually-transmitted infections, according to one of the authors of an annual surveillance report released today. Syphilis diagnoses…
Testosterone is important for the physical changes that happen during male puberty, and features typical of adult men, such as facial and body hair.
Dave 77459/Flickr
Testosterone is blamed for violence in males, implicated in sport scandals, linked to sexual prowess, desired by gym devotees, and promoted as a tonic for ageing. But how many of us really understand what…
Familiar methods.
Banana and condom via bajinda/Shutterstock
Britain is not unique when it comes to debating how it should educate children and young people about sex. But the country approaches the subject with a particularly British sense of embarrassment and…
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…
In most developed countries, including Australia, gay and bisexual men dominate numbers of new HIV infections.
Aleksandar Stojkovic/Flickr
The number of new HIV diagnoses in Australia remains the highest in 20 years, according to data released today by UNSW’s Kirby Institute. While rates have remained stable over the past two years, the number…
Tongue tied now, chat later.
Kissing by Shutterstock
A recent TV programme on “the secret life of students” followed a group of students in their first undergraduate year at Leicester University, including 18-year-old Aiden who was informed on screen that…
Would a syphilitic Joyce really change the way we read him?
Shutterstock/Bepsy
According to Jacques Derrida, “nothing can be invented on the subject of Joyce”. Speaking in 1984, he had in mind the sheer comprehensive power of Joyce’s writing: from the capacity of Ulysses to draw…
Experts in sexual medicine from around the world have, for the first time, defined lifelong and acquired premature ejaculation, paving the way for clear medical recognition and the development of better…
If people are talking online, we need to be talking about HIV online too.
Jayel Aheram
Websites and apps such as Grindr and Scruff are booming as a new way for men to meet other men. But the people who seek to inform men about HIV and AIDS are finding they need to think on their feet to…
Today’s global HIV statistics reflect increasingly risky sexual practices.
Shutterstock
One of the most perplexing risks to public health is human nature. No matter how diligently public health campaigns lay out the facts, we continue to make seemingly illogical decisions. Just look at the…
Erection problems are common but they can be embarrassing for men to discuss with partners and doctors. The sales of erection drugs on the internet or billboard advertising are boosted by keeping erectile…
Pick me! Condoms remain an unpopular choice of contraception.
Frank Kovalchek
The proposal of an ultra-thin condom made from graphene and latex brings design of the contraceptive into the 21st century. We have yet to see a prototype, but the developers at the University of Manchester…
Black economy: regulating sex work is easier said than done.
Ian Britton
Both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are taking steps towards new regulations for the sex work industry, principally aimed at better protecting victims of coercion and trafficking. However…
Taking it to the streets: the law makes it hard for sex workers to protect their health.
PA
Lucy Platt, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
In the ongoing debate on the law’s response to sex work, it has not been forgotten that sex workers have pressing health needs. However, the debate is still very much focused on sexually transmitted infections…
Professor of Media and Communication and Associate Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making + Society, Swinburne University of Technology
Director, SPHERE NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health in Primary Care and Professor and Head of the Department of General Practice, Monash University