Sexual health

The concept of sexual health seeks to create positive and fully informed intimacy as a way to encourage people to see sexual activity as a vital, even necessary element of their physical, emotional, and social well-being. Sexuality itself is a broad term—after all, perceptions of sexual activity can vary culture to culture; country to country; even person to person within a culture or country. There are those who celebrate sexuality openly and with uncompromising honesty; there are those who see sexuality largely as temptation, a sin, or a lapse in judgment. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for example, considers positive physical, emotional, and social well-being to be the pillars of maintaining good sexual heath, but also adds that a safe environment and absence of discrimination are key as well. For many years in the United States and around the world, sexuality was considered an improper or taboo topic, and the science and education necessary to allow individuals to maintain sexual health were not available. Sexual education and advocacy for safe sex practices have become fairly widespread, particularly with open access to online resources. This progress is not universal, however, and there are many places in the United States and worldwide where repressive attitudes are prevalent and access to contraceptives and adequate care for sexual health are limited or unavailable.

Background

There have always been health risks associated with sexual activity, though the risks and results were not always understood. People in ancient times thought sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) were punishment for blasphemous behavior and people in the Middle Ages thought a number of different sexually transmitted diseases were all variations of the same disease. By the early twentieth century doctors had a better understanding of sexually transmitted diseases.

Contraceptives are significant tools for maintaining sexual health—both in preventing the spread of STDs and unwanted or unhealthy pregnancy. Contraceptives have been used in various forms since the times of ancient Egypt. Various plants and other substances were used to form a pessary to be inserted into the vagina before sex. Condoms made from a variety of materials (linen or animal bladders) were used for centuries. By the late 1840s, condoms and cervical caps made of vulcanized rubber were being mass produced. Margaret Sanger fought for widespread access to birth control in the early twentieth century; in 1937, by her influence, the American Medical Association recognized birth control as part of a doctor’s practice.

By the mid-twentieth century, sexual health had advanced through improved science, but still comparatively little was known about the physiology of sexual intercourse. William Masters and Virginia Johnson in the 1950s and 1960s conducted landmark studies that unsettled conservative America. These studies, which for the first time approached sex clinically and studied it using actual data received from real people, revealed that the physiology of sex and sexuality itself were far more complicated than widely perceived. Researchers began to advocate a less judgmental approach to sexuality and to accept sexuality as a critical element of human experience. These early studies argued that society needed to drastically revise its dismissive approach to sex as inherently shameful—rather, sex should be approached respectfully, and intimacy was part of everyone’s mental and emotional balance. The sexual act was an expression of a complex of very complicated emotions including the need for love, trust, and honesty. Although scientists, these early investigators into sexual health did not ignore these less clinical, more abstract levels of sexual health. As part of this increased openness, the birth control pill was approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in May 1960 and its use became widespread.

Sexual health made a dramatic turn in the mid-1980s with the rise of the HIV/AIDS pandemic to checking the spread of a virus through unprotected sex. Although sexual health had always involved critical physical elements, with the AIDS retrovirus the sexual health community realized the much more difficult responsibility of promoting safe sexual practices in the face of opposition from the politically powerful conservative movement that argued for abstinence as the solution.

Sexual Health Today

The definition of sexual health has continued to expand, and several additional elements are considered components of sexual health: incidents of rape; masturbation; the role of violence and direct and indirect coercion in sexuality; sexual harassment in the workplace; consent; and the appropriate age of consent. Sexual health discussions also began to branch out into specific medical issues, such as menopause, infertility, erectile dysfunction, and vaginal discomfort. Indeed, in the twenty-first century, topics of sexual health are routinely treated on cable talk shows, infomercials, special topic magazines, support groups, sexual education classes and seminars, and on thousands of websites devoted to promoting sexual health. Given the sheer dimension of sexual health, finding common ground within the wide range of interests (and often conflicting political and religious elements) is not easy. Generally, advocates of sexual health agree that to define sexual health is first to divorce sexuality from its moral and ethical element and rather take it for what it is. This has always created significant tensions, particularly starting in the 1980s and continuing through to the 2010s as sexual health began to take into consideration the concerns and issues of those individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer.

One of the most significant controversies in sexual health in the last fifty years has been abortion. In Roe v. Wade (1973), the Supreme Court legalized abortion. Access to abortion can be vital for the health of a mother and child in risky situations. It is, and has been ever since, a contentious issue because of the ethics and religious morality surrounding the issue.

There are many approaches to maintaining sexual health, but the first is to stay informed and to consult a doctor regularly. For individuals, practicing safe sex by using contraceptives to prevent STD transmission, being open with a partner and discussing consent, and creating a safe environment are all important to maintain sexual health. For women who become pregnant, seeking medical assistance is important for maintaining the health of the woman and the unborn child, if she chooses to move forward with the pregnancy.

Bibliography

Danoff, D. The Ultimate Guide to Male Sexual Health: How to Stay Vital at Any Age. Chicago: Del Monaco, 2015. Print.

Gibson, Megan. ‘The Long, Strange History of Birth Control." Time. Time, 2 Feb. 2015. Web. 5 Aug. 2016.

Keesling, Barbara. Sexual Healing: The Complete Guide to Overcoming Common Sex Problems. Alameda: Hunter, 2006. Print.

Ogden, G. Explaining Desire and Intimacy. New York: Routledge, 2016. Print.

"Sexual Health." Centers for Disease Control. US Dept. of Health and Human Services, 2 Dec. 2014. Web. 5 Aug. 2016.

Wellings, K, and K. Mitchell. Sexual Health: A Public Health Perspective. New York: McGraw, 2012. Print.

Westheimer, Ruth. Sexually Speaking: What Every Woman Needs to Know about Sexual Health. Hoboken: Wiley, 2011. Print.