A new report from Health and Social Care Information (HSCIC) shows that of the 17,000 girls under 15 who went to NHS contraceptive clinics in the year to 31 March 2013, 6,600 of them already used the Contraceptive pill to prevent birth control, while 6,900 used condoms (40%, down from 46% just last year). The use of the Pill has increased in the last few years, and this means that these girls may be putting themselves at risk of a Sexually Transmitted Infection if they have multiple partners.
The total number of people attending clinics has fallen by 8% since last years, which shows that more people are seeking an alternative to NHS contraception clinics for their contraception and Sexual Health advice.
The report also shows that condom use was more popular in the West Midlands and Yorkshire where 1 in 4 women used the condom, but only 1 in 7 in Wales.
AIDS is one of the most destructive pandemics in history and, every year on the 1st December, World AIDS Day aims to raise awareness about this global issue. It presents the world with a chance to unite and stand up to this vicious disease. To show support for those living with HIV and AIDS and to remember those who have died, people are encouraged to wear a red ribbon in support.
In 1988, World AIDS Day became the first ever internationally recognised health day and was conceived to raise awareness about the growing AIDS pandemic that was first clinically observed in the US in 1981.
World AIDS Day has been on 1 December since 1988, and was set up to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS. It is promoted by the United Nations, and Governments and Charities across the world, including in the UK. The red ribbon is the globally recognised symbol of World AIDS Day.
AIDS has killed over 25 million people in the last 30 years, with more than that number currently living with the virus. The HIV virus is no longer considered life threatening thanks to medical advancements in drugs and treatment, although most people will be on medication for life, and they may find it takes longer to recover from other illnesses such as the common cold.
The current NHS policy on HPV vaccinations is to only provide vaccinations for girls, usually given at the age of 14 to 15 at school. Better2Know supports vaccinations for everyone to prevent HPV spreading. Although it is responsible for the majority of cases of cervical cancer, there are other cancers which HPV can cause in both men and women, plus if men are vaccinated then they cannot transmit the virus on to new partners.
In a recent poll, three times as many people supported giving boys the HPV vaccination as opposed the option. The same survey also found out that there is a lot of misconception about the virus, with 21% of people thinking it was transmitted the same was a cold.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is offering a $100,000 (£65,000) investment for an inventor who is able to create the “Next Generation Condom”. The foundation is looking for a design “that significantly preserves or enhances pleasure, in order to improve uptake and regular use.”
New research has suggested that the high levels of estradiol (a compound found in estrogen) that occur prior to ovulation results in decreased immune system effectiveness, meaning greater vulnerability to infection.
The “dip” in women’s immunity at this point in their ovulation cycle is believed to allow spermatozoa a better chance to reach and fertilise an egg without threat of an immune response. One researcher on the project, Miguel Relloso, said: “This could be an explanation why during ovulation females have more risk of being infected with sexual transmitted diseases like HIV or HPV.”
Whilst unable to replace the bedroom as the firm favourite, a recent survey has revealed that the shower is the second most popular destination for sex.
40% of British people have claimed to have had sex in the bathroom, and of these people the majority said the shower was their preferred bathroom location. The popularity of the shower was followed by sex in the bath, over the toilet (hopefully separate to other toilet related activities!), over the sink and on the bathroom floor. Outside the bathroom and bedroom, people like having sex on locations such as the sofa and kitchen table.
So what is the appeal of the shower? Some cited the excitement of the change in location, whilst others enjoyed the warm water and cleanliness of the shower.
Rectal STIs greatly increased risk of subsequent HIV infection, according to a paper published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. The authors compared the HIV incidence in people diagnosed with rectal Gonorrhoea (GC) and/or rectal Chlamydia (CT), with control patients who did not have GC or CT. All participants had a baseline clinic visit between 2008 and 2010, and over two thirds of both groups reported unprotected anal sex.
Follow-ups with both groups showed that of the men with rectal STIs diagnosed on the initial clinical visit, the annual incident rate of HIV diagnosis was 11%. The control group without rectal STIs had a HIV rate of 3%.
The authors comment: “Our results demonstrate that rectal CT/GC infections are objective markers for identifying persons at an exceptionally high risk for HIV.”
A study based in London involving men with HIV and Hepatitis C (HCV) co-infection has shown that, despite clearing their primary infection either spontaneously or with treatment, one quarter of participants was reinfected with HCV. In some cases reinfection occurred up to three times. Retrospective research conducted in the Netherlands has confirmed very high rates of HCV reinfection among gay men who are HIV positive.
The results, also presented at the 7th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention (IAS 2013) in Malaysia, call for better education for HIV positive men who have sex with other men (MSM).
Whilst people rarely lie about other gender-related behaviours, a recent study in the journal Sex Roles has suggested that men and women lie about their sexual behaviour to better fit into the cultural norm.
Whilst happy to admit to “male-type” and “female-type” activities regardless of gender, when it comes to sexual activities people prefer to be seen as either “real men” with a lot of sexual experience or less sexual experience for women.
Terri Fisher, the author of the study which spoke to 293 college students aged 18 to 25, said: “There is something unique about sexuality that led people to care more about matching the stereotypes for their gender. Sexuality seemed to be the one area where people felt some concern if they didn’t meet the stereotypes of a typical man or a typical woman.”
The participants filled out the questionnaire on different activities, and some were connected to what they thought was a working lie detector (it actually did not work). This alteration only made the participants’ answers about sexual behaviour change. Fisher carried the same experiment in 2003 with similar results, bar one aspect. When hooked up to a lie detector the women of the more recent study admitted to more sexual partners than the men, whilst in 2003 women were more even to the male figures.
October is one of the most popular months of the year for getting an STI test at Better2Know followed by August, November and January. Explanations vary but remember that you need to wait between 10 and 28 days to get tested, so people are coming back after their summer holiday or Christmas party and getting tested then.
Professor Barry Komisaruk, a neuroscientist, has claimed that having an orgasm is a superior workout for the brain than crossword puzzles or Sudoku. He points to the fact that orgasms increase brain activity throughout the organ, as opposed to the relatively localised regions which puzzles stimulate.
University of Oxford scientists, in a study with Cancer Research, have recently published a paper which suggests that certain types of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) not only significantly increase the risk of oropharyngeal cancer, but may also account for a third of the throat cancer cases.
Edinburgh police have issued proposals to ban condoms from Edinburgh licensed saunas. Clearly the thought behind this idea is that some patrons might be put off going to saunas by people having sex in them, but banning condoms is not going to prevent people having sex, it is just going to increase the associated risks, and particularly increase the risk of HIV transmission in MSM.
There are five licensed saunas in Edinburgh, and police want any item of a sexual nature banned from them, in a bid to stop sex. However charities say this will put prostitutes and clients on to the streets where they are subject to greater threats and dangers.
Cereal entrepreneur Peter Ehrlich has created the world’s very first gender-based cereal geared towards improving your performance in the bedroom. First envisioned in July 2011, the Canadian cereal is spreading its roots and now boasts retailers in the USA and across the world.
Australian biotechnology company Coridon has just entered the early stage of clinical trials, to test a vaccine that would both prevent and cure Herpes Simplex 2 (HSV-2).
You have a right to make decisions for your own body, so the choice of whether or not to get a genital piercing is entirely up to you. However, the best decisions are made with full information about what risks are involved with such procedures and how you can mitigate any consequences. You may have heard that genital piercings carry the potential risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections, however, you can minimise this risk through a correctly carried out procedure and good aftercare.
If you want to start a new relationship in the best way possible, you should both have an STI test. Not only will your relationship be healthier for it, but your health will be too. Better2Know can get you confidential, accurate and fast results so you can get back to enjoying your new romance as soon as possible. Watch our short clip “New relationships…”
New HIV diagnoses in the gay male community of London have risen by at least 21% from 2011 to 2012, whereas the rest of England has seen a 4% drop. Medical research has cited the binge drug-taking behaviour in the capital’s gay scene as one cause fuelling the surge in infections, however confining this problem to homosexual men is to deny a wider problem in society and could stigmatise a group.
The authors of an article published in the Lancet medical journal, Tony Kirkby and Michelle Thornber-Dunwell, found that participants often have unprotected sex with multiple partners as well as sharing needles:
“London’s 24-hour gay scene is world famous, with clubbing that goes on all weekend and beyond… Many of London’s drug-using men who have sex with men (MSM)… often congregate at post-club parties known as chill-outs where drug-taking continues until drugs, money, energy, or all three run out.”
“HIV, it’s three letters and that’s how everyone likes to think about it. But if we step back for a second and remember that the first word is actually ‘Human’, and we have human rights.”
Condoms have offered a form of contraceptive for centuries; however they have also long been used as protection against sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
How far back the first condom was used is a matter of intense debate and has produced an array of answers. However ancient Greek writer Antoninus Liberalis appears to write of a female condom in 150 AD, with the purpose of protecting against harmful semen as opposed to reducing the risk of pregnancy. In the tale, King Minos of Crete solves his curse (his semen was supposedly filled with snakes and scorpions) through using a goat bladder inserted into his lover.
30 year old Somen Debnath has had an extremely eventful nine years travelling around the world on his bicycle to spread awareness about AIDS, and will not complete his epic odyssey until 2020.
In Afghanistan, Debnath was a captive of the Taliban for 24 days, he narrowly avoided bomb blasts in Iraq and in several countries he was mugged. Originally from India, his trials and tribulations have not deterred him from trying to visit 191 countries by 2020 – clocking 200,000 kilometres – and he is currently in the Middle East nearing his 80th country.
Debnath was only 14 when he read an article about a HIV positive villager cast out to die near his hometown of Kolkata; when subsequent questioning of his school teachers could not provide him answers about the virus, he went to the West Bengal State AIDS Control Society and at 16 he was educating his teachers.
The cupcakes were sold at St Bartholomew’s Hospital Pathology Museum in London, for their three day Eat Your Heart Out 2012 Event. These vanilla and chocolate sponge cupcakes are decorated by ‘anatomically correct’ icing which shows the effects of STIs such as herpes and syphilis.
‘Douching’, which means to wash or soak in French, usually refers to cleaning out the vagina with a fluid such as water mixed with vinegar, iodine or baking soda. Whilst douching in the UK is less popular than in the USA, where an estimated 20 to 40% of American women douche regularly, there are still people out there who douche due to a misplaced belief that it removes the risk of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs).
It may not be the white wedding most people dream of, but Shoalhaven City Council in South East Australia was very happy to display their wedding dress made out of condoms.
Invented in the 1800s to cure women of “hysteria”, the history of the vibrator is a weird and wonderful one, and if you were to have suggested to the original inventors that they were creating a device that would give millions of women sexual pleasure, they would have thought you absurd.
In the nineteenth century, overwhelmed by the steady stream of women needing to be cured of “hysteria” by method of handjobs, doctors began inventing the vibrator to save time and spare their fatigued hands. “Hysteria” – from the Greek for uterus – covered a range of women’s ailments that doctors could not diagnose, but commonly the cause was sexual frustration. As the concept of women even having sexual pleasure or desires was not accepted in Europe and America until the 20th century, it is of little surprise women were sexually frustrated, prone to “symptoms” such as irritability, erotic fantasies and wetness between the legs.
The most effective treatment developed required doctors or midwives to use their fingers to “massage” the woman’s genitals, which would cause orgasms. The hysteria symptoms would suddenly be relieved. Doctors named these climaxes “paroxysms”, as clearly without sexual feelings a woman could not experience orgasm…
Comments Off on Let’s talk about pubic hair and shaving | Tags: Sexual Health, STIs
If you are doing the responsible thing and like to know what risks your lifestyle choices have on your sexual health, then you may be a little confused about what to do with your pubic hair.
Sexual health experts are backing a bid to vaccinate young gay men against HPV. As a recent editorial published in Sexually Transmitted Infections discussed, a number of UK sexual health experts have agreed that young gay men should receive the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccination, as they are more likely to develop HPV-related cancers such as anal cancer than heterosexual men.
Comments Off on A brief history of the contraceptive pill | Tags: Sexual Health, STIs
All kinds of weird and wonderful methods of birth control have been used throughout the centuries. Whilst some were more effective than others, and the mercury drank by ancient Chinese women would have made unwanted pregnancy the least of their problems, the development of a reliable, effective birth control pill is a very recent one.
As Gonorrhoea becomes increasingly resistant to antibiotic treatment, physicians have created more antibiotic combinations to fight this sexually transmitted infection.
