Despite some recent innovations in the arsenal against HIV, such as PEP and PrEP, the virus remains a formidable threat, even in the United States. Monitoring the virus globally is essential for identifying intervention priorities, assessing public health care needs, and evaluating the impact of prevention programming. Yet those most vulnerable to contracting the virus […]

Last week, researchers from Johns Hopkins University and Makerere University working in Uganda released a new study about male circumcision and sexually transmitted infection transmission. Specifically, the study showed that there was a decreased risk of getting HPV and herpes if the male was circumcised. Studies about male circumcision and STI prevention have gone back […]

How much time have you spent thinking about the “hook-up culture” among college undergraduates? I think about it a lot. Hooking up is a red flag for a college sex educator like me, since it can lead to STI transmission and unintended pregnancy, not to mention emotional distress, relationship dysfunction, and sexual assault. But how […]

A recent press release touts a new vaginal injection known as the “O-Shot.” Because women’s bodies are apparently insufficient without surgery. The procedure, which uses growth factors derived from “a woman’s own blood,” appears to be the spiritual offspring of the “Vampire Facelift” (also pioneered by a member of the O-Shot team) and the G-Shot […]

Until the mid 20th Century, Syphilis was one of the most common diseases in Europe and North America. Since the discovery of Penicillin syphilis has dropped from the public eye, and until recently, the public consciousness. Unfortunately, Syphilis is back and many people aren’t getting tested for it. When I brought up the need for […]

An incredibly interesting study has recently been published by Dr. Barry Komisaruk and colleagues in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. The paper, titled “Women’s clitoris, vagina, and cervix mapped out on the sensory cortex: fMRI evidence”, sought to elucidate the neural systems under women’s sexual response using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This is the […]

As a sex researcher, I get a lot of questions from friends, students, and random people I meet at cocktail parties. A lot of questions. Well, I’ve decided to compile a list of these questions and talk about them here. Because if friends, students, and randoms are all asking about it – you’ve likely wondered […]

This Friday June 18, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will be considering an application from Boehringer Ingelheim (B-I), a pharmaceutical company, for its drug filbanserin. What’s flibanserin? It’s a drug that B-I first developed as an anti-depressant but when it didn’t work as one, they explored other uses for it. Some time later, […]