This survey of sexual practices in the United States has been combed by the media for items of interest to the public: monogamous sex is much more widespread in this country than has been thought; infidelity is less frequent than presumed; vaginal intercourse is the defining experience of heterosexual behavior; watching one's partner undress is stimulating to many people; married couples have more sex than single people (unmarried, cohabiting couples have the most sex of all); the majority of couples experience sex twice a week to several times a month; 2.8% of men identify themselves as homosexual and 1.4% of women do so, but a higher percentage of people consider a same-gender experience to have some appeal; 75% of men always experience orgasm compared with 28.6% of women, but more nearly equal numbers of men and women declare themselves satisfied with their sexual experiences. The book is, in fact, a

The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States

R. W. Connell’s path-breaking notion of multiple masculinities (Connell, 1995) and hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1987, 1995) have been taken up as central constructs in the sociology of gender. Although there has been a great deal of empirical research and theory published that has built upon and utilized Connell’s concepts, an adequate conceptualization of hegemonic femininity and multiple femininities has not yet been developed. To redress this, the author presents a theoretical framework that builds upon the insights of Connell and others, offers a definition of hegemonic masculinity and hegemonic femininity that allows for multiple configurations within each, and that can be used empirically across settings and groups. The author also outlines how hegemonic masculinity and hegemonic femininity are implicated in and intersect with other systems of inequality such as class, race, and ethnicity.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4501776.pdf

Recovering the feminine other: masculinity, femininity, and gender hegemony

https://sti.bmj.com/content/sextrans/70/5/364.1.full.pdf

Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles

This first international review of the evidence that needle syringe programs reduce HIV infection among injecting drug users found that conservative interpretation of the published data fulfills six of the nine Bradford Hill criteria (strength of association, replication of findings, temporal sequence, biological plausibility, coherence of evidence, and reasoning by analogy) and all six additional criteria (cost-effectiveness, absence of negative consequences, feasibility of implementation, expansion and coverage, unanticipated benefits, and application to special populations). The Bradford Hill criteria are often used to evaluate public health interventions. The principal finding of this review was that there is compelling evidence of effectiveness, safety, and cost-effectiveness, consistent with seven previous reviews conducted by or on behalf of U.S. government agencies. Authorities in countries affected or threatened by HIV infection among injecting drug users should carefully consider this convincing evidence now available for needle syringe programs with a view to establishing or expanding needle syringe programs to scale.

Do Needle Syringe Programs Reduce HIV Infection Among Injecting Drug Users: A Comprehensive Review of the International Evidence

/pdf/preventing-hiv-aids-in-young-people-a-systematic-review-of-2otzf37263.pdf

Preventing HIV/AIDS in young people: a systematic review of the evidence from developing countries

This paper investigates the relationship between school‐based sex education policies and sexual health‐related statistics of young1 people in four developed countries: the Netherlands, France, Australia, and the United States of America. Drawing upon literature searches in relevant CD‐ROM databases, Internet websites, government reports and libraries, school‐based sex education policies and a range of sexual health indicators for young people are described for each country. While the average age of first intercourse is approximately the same for each country, the analysis indicates that those countries with pragmatic and sex positive government policies (France, Australia and especially the Netherlands) have better sexual health‐related statistics than the one country with a primarily sexual abstinence‐based policy (the United States). The findings suggest that abstinence‐based policies do not necessarily result in improved sexual health outcomes for young people. Furthermore, liberal policies do not nece...

School‐based sex education policies and indicators of sexual health among young people: a comparison of the Netherlands, France, Australia and the United States

Anal intercourse between men is discussed using various texts, primarily interview narratives. The focus is upon the way men talk about and experience anal intercourse as a relation of power between men. Drawing upon the work of Foucault, a distinction is made between power as domination and power as negotiated between people. The latter opens up the possibility of intimacy and mutual pleasure within fantasies of domination and submission. Some of the men's narratives embraced the idea that the anally insertive partner dominated the receptive partner. Others resisted such an understanding by drawing upon the concepts of `versatility', `getting on top', `sex is not about power' and `active passivity'. It is argued in the article that such resistant practices redistribute power from the insertor to the insertee rather than eliminate power in sex, and this argument is supported through Norbert Elias's concept of power chances. The idea that the receptive partner in anal intercourse is `vulnerable' is discuss...

Anal Intercourse and Power in Sex Between Men

This paper describes findings from a recent UNAIDS-funded study of how education systems in selected countries in East Asia, South East Asia and the Pacific are responding to HIV/AIDS-related education. Data were collected by means of postal questionnaire and key informant interviews in Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and Vietnam. Sources of information varied but included ministries, non-governmental organisations and other interested bodies. Findings suggest that the education provided is largely information-based, but with a developing emphasis on life-skills such as assertiveness and negotiation. Specific sexual practices are rarely discussed in the region's schools, except in a somewhat mechanistic way, focusing mainly on human reproduction and anatomy. However, those countries most affected by the epidemic are beginning to re-think their approaches. An increasing openness about sexual and drug injecting practices, and how t...

Gary Smith

Papers

School‐based sex education policies and indicators of sexual health among young people: a comparison of the Netherlands, France, Australia and the United States

Anal Intercourse and Power in Sex Between Men

HIV/AIDS School-based Education in Selected Asia-Pacific Countries