First National Sexual and Reproductive Health Conference, 20-21 Nov 2012: Call for Abstracts

The Public Health Association of Australia in partnership with Sexual Health and Family Planning Australia invite you to participate in the first Australian conference to bring together practitioners, policy makers, scholars, educators and others enthusiastic about improving the sexual and reproductive health of all Australians.

The conference will be an excellent opportunity to hear the most recent national and international research evidence and practitioner wisdom and to make your own contribution to implementation ideas foreshadowed in the new National Women’s and Men’s Health policies.

Click to read more ...

Porn is not a dirty word

About 82 per cent of porn users in Australia are male and 55 per cent married, a survey of 1000 users found.

Many men believe pornography is harmless and women should stop banging on about it.

'MY WIFE doesn't show much enthusiasm for sex. She will passively let me do things and this annoys me as it is a real turn on to have women really enthusiastic and getting off on giving you pleasure. So when she's asleep I turn to porn where all these young women appear to be totally enthusiastic about pleasing the man. I know it's all acting and they are only doing it for money and that it's not fair to expect my wife to be like these porn actresses, but in my fantasy world this is what I love and get off on. I'll do it for up to an hour, slowly, going from video to video on my laptop, while my wife is sound asleep. I can take as long as I want and get lost in my own world.''

Late at night in so many suburban homes there are men like this one, hunched over flickering computer screens looking at pornography. Often their partners aren't aware of what they are doing, assuming the poor dears are simply working late or catching up on a missed sports podcast. Most men keep these viewing habits to themselves - secret men's business - fearing discovery would mean a solid stint in the doghouse.

Click to read more ...

How are mood, stress and our sex lives related?

You’re feeling down or chronically stressed. Is your sex life suffering the consequences? Low mood, stress and our (waning) sex lives often are closely related, right? Maybe not for men; recent research has found that depression and anxiety symptoms may only be related to sexual difficulties for women. These intriguing results have sparked the interest of researchers at Macquarie University, who are now trying to get to the bottom of these complex and under-researched relationships.

Click to read more ...

Money, power...adultery? (Canada)

By Marina Adshade  | September 08, 2011

The standup comic Chris Rock famously said that a man is only as faithful as his options. Despite media portrayals to the contrary, a higher income doesn’t increase the likelihood of a man’s infidelity; men rich and poor cheat on their wives. Instead, the evidence suggests, that what really predicts infidelity isn’t money, but power. And if that’s not a completely new revelation, you might be surprised to learn that powerful women are just as likely to be unfaithful as powerful men.

Click to read more ...

Lust for life

Illustration: Jo Gay.

THE 71-year-old virgin was a surprising volunteer for the sexuality project. As he expected, he didn't have that much to contribute to my research on male sexuality, but his story was intriguing. Here was a man who hadn't planned to miss out on sex and marriage but so wanted his first experience to be special that he'd waited for years hoping to meet the right woman. Despite plenty of dating, she never showed up. Hence he'd ended up on his own, spending his whole life struggling with his strong sexual urges.

Yet he now wonders whether he has missed out on all that much. He wrote eloquently about watching his friends go through the pain of marriage break-up or struggling to cope without much sex in their marriages. ''I'm not complaining. I've had a good life. There are no arguments in my household,'' he said chirpily. Certainly no arguments about sex.

From the outside, life as a hot-blooded married heterosexual man doesn't look much fun. America's best-known sex guru, Dan Savage, reaches much the same conclusion. The wildly popular advice columnist is currently in the news as a result of a thoughtful profile published recently in The New York Times that focused largely on Savage's attack on America's obsession with fidelity.

Click to read more ...