When recreational therapist Lisa Freeman began working in the Dual Diagnosis Unit at Indiana’s Central State Hospital in 1986, she frequently encountered patients having sex in and around the unit.1 Central State was a long-term psychiatric hospital and the Dual Diagnosis Unit (DDU) served patients who had been diagnosed with both mental illness and intellectual… Read more →
Tag: Sexual Health
A Few Things I Need You To Know Before Getting Tested for HIV, As Told By Your HIV Tester
Welcome! Before getting tested for HIV, New York State requires me to go over a few things with you. First, testing is confidential but not anonymous. Second, testing is voluntary and can be stopped at any point. Third, I can and will stop a test if I feel you are a danger to yourself or… Read more →
Is Pop Culture Replacing Sex Education?
According to the documentary, “Lets Talk About Sex”, 10,000 teens catch a sexually transmitted disease, 2,400 teen girls get pregnant, and 55 young people are infected with HIV in the US every day. Meanwhile, despite these alarming statistics, our educational and political culture blurs, obscures, and shrouds discussions of sex with denial, systematically oppressing comprehensive… Read more →
What’s in Your Vulva?
Thirty years ago I went to the Berkeley Women’s Health Collective to get fitted for a cervical cap. “What is that?” some of you might be wondering. The cervical cap is a barrier form of birth control, which fell out of favor when easier hormonal methods became more popular and more effective. It worked by… Read more →
The Myth of the Vajazzled Orgasm
By Thomas A. Foster
As you may well be aware, there is a spa in New York City that sells vajazzling. The flash and style of adding sparkling, jewel-like plastic to denim can also be accomplished for the vagina. Is our current, historically unprecedented, public focus on the vagina finally succeeding in creating a female cultural counterpoint to the penis? Are we nearing total equality of the sexes? The popular emphasis on the vagina is certainly on the rise. The explosive popularity of the Vagina Monologues, now regularly performed on college campuses, made many more comfortable with the V word. Social critic Naomi Wolf has recently argued for the existence of the “mind-vagina”connection. Commercials coyly refer to the letter V for various feminine products and sitcoms and singers laud their own embrace of the vajayjay as a way of indicating equal sexual footing with men. “Designer” vaginas are also part of this new emphasis. Cosmetogynecology is one of the fastest growing types of cosmetic surgery.
HPV and the Importance of Planned Parenthood
By Tina M. Kibbe
While doing research for a new project, I was doing some reading about sexually transmitted infections and came across a couple of interesting articles about the HPV vaccine and Planned Parenthood. The article on the HPV vaccine deals with the concern over the vaccination increasing the sexual activity of young women. And the article on Planned Parenthood surrounds the controversy over whether or not the organization would remain part of the state-run Women’s Health Program in Texas. My interest in these articles stems from my research in the gendered aspects of healthcare, particularly in relation to sexual transmitted infections. Also, I am originally from Texas and I think it is inane to restrict access to affordable healthcare resources.