The Elusive Goal Of Sexual Health

Question 1

How does the World Health Organization view sexual health?

Answer 1

“Sexual health is a state of physical, emotional, mental
and social well-being in relation to sexuality; it is not merely the absence of disease, dysfunction or infirmity.”

Question 2

Why does sexual health matter?

Answer 2

1. Because it touches many lives
   - statistics on HIV/STI cases increasing in Alberta
2. It can be pursued in different ways; discourse shapes self-understanding & behaviours
   - sex (+) practices (pleasure/consent-based)
   - sex (-) practices (risk-based)
   HEALTH EXPERTS = authority
3. Because different groups affected differently
   - sexual health initiatives benefit/harms not evenly
   distributed
   - part of a larger conversation about justice &
   inequity

Question 3

How many HIV cases were reported in Alberta in 2023?

Answer 3

Total of 26,285 STI/HIV cases

Question 4

Comparing 2023 to 2022, has there been an increase in HIV/STI cases?

Answer 4

Yes

Chlamydia: 17,625 cases, 4.9 % increase (n = 828)

Gonorrhea: 5,430 cases, 9.0 % increase (n = 448)

HIV: 507 cases, 73.0 % increase (n = 214)

Infectious syphilis: 2,723 cases, 17.9 % decrease (n =
-593)

Question 7

It is insufficient to approach sexual health from the avantage point of how our sexuality nowadays has been “____________”

Although this is important ^ claims about what it means to be ‘healthy’ doesn’t necessarily depend on it

Answer 7

Medicalized

Question 8

Views on sexual health, as already noted, may encompass ideas of rights, pleasures, and other notions that are “_________” the traditional purview of “__________”

Answer 8

Outside; biomedicine

Need to question HOW health has been sexualized:
=how health professionals increasingly are encouraged & trained to address sexual matters
=how sexual issues have been incorporated into medical concerns in ways that change understandings of what it means to be healthy or ill

Question 9

It is valuable to study sexual health from a “_________” standpoint

Why is this?

Answer 9

Sociological

Because sexual health projects affect different groups in society differently

The potential benefits & harms of sexual health initiatives are unevenly distributed and vary depending on a wide variety of characteristics, including race, ethnicity, social class, gender, sexual
identity, disability, citizenship status, nationality, and degree of interest in having sex

Question 10

What happened in the 19th and early 20th century in terms of sexual health?

Answer 10

Included marital and sex advice manuals

Led to a rise of a new field called SEXOLOGY

Also led to public health efforts to prevent sexually transmitted diseases that were undertaken
under the euphemistic label of “social hygiene”

Question 11

By the 1970’s, numerous social changes were taking place… along with the sexual revolution, the invention of “_____ _____” had put sex on the agenda as important to the human experience

Answer 11

The pill

Question 12

In the early to mid-1990s, sexual health seemed to “go viral”…

This was because of what?

Answer 12

Because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic

Functioned as a powerful relay to move the concept and term sexual health into broader circulation

The spread of AIDS – but also the political activism that emerged to confront it – has forced the institutions of biomedicine and public health to grapple with sexuality as something that fundamentally matters

Question 13

Activities launched under the sign of sexual health have wide-­ ranging effects on people’s lives and on the character of the society as a whole…

What are the 3 key aspects of the investment in sexual health?

Answer 13

1. Remaking medicine:
   - the growth of specialty areas such as sexual medicine, which focuses on sexual dysfunctions, has provided new niches which physicians are prepared and trained to tackle sexual topics
   - But mostly physicians have had limited training in regards to this
   - advocates of social change have pressed for even more inclusive forms of sexual history-taking that go beyond the gender binaries
2. Expanding expertise:
   - Until recently, popular experts about sexual health often used their credentials to mark their expertise, sometimes accompanied by their first name to signal their accessibility: “Dr.
   Ruth” Westheimer, “Dr. Laura” Schlessinger
   - sex advice is increasingly on offer from non-­ professional “social media influencers who share content specifically to break down the taboos surrounding sexual health”
   - Many community-based organizations have become authoritative voices on sexual health concerns
3. Optimizing the self:
   - refer to the desire or injunction to treat one’s life as a never-­ ending project of self-­ improvement, organized particularly around bodily enhancement
   - sexual wellness: laser vaginal rejuvenation surgery, offered by many cosmetic surgery clinics,
   promises to enhance vaginal muscle tone, and hence improve sexual gratification, and *penile enlargement by means of surgery, pumps, pills, creams, or exercises

Question 14

Sexual health is therefore a “_______” question – but one that is refracted through the broader politics of the society. In the end, sexual health calls attention to larger issues of “_______” & “________”

Answer 14

Political

Equality & justice