Sexual Health

• Sexual health


  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
• Sexual health requires a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, as well as the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence
• For sexual health to be attained and maintained, the sexual rights of all persons must be respected, protected and fulfilled
• The WHO working definition of sexual health is widely disseminated but not officially endorsed by the organization
• WHO working definition of sexual health

  • Ranges from the physical to the emotional to the mental to the social
  • Aligns with contemporary emphases on promoting health and wellness
  • Goes beyond the usual connotations of "health" to include pleasure, safety, freedom, and rights
• The WHO working definition of sexual health is far more expansive and goes well beyond biomedical concerns
• Since the 1970s, there has been an increased embrace of the quest for something called sexual health
• Conjoining "sexual" with "health" changes both terms: It alters how we conceive of sexuality, but it also transforms what it means to be healthy and prompts new expectations of what science and medicine can provide
• It is insufficient to approach sexual health from the vantage point of how our sexuality nowadays has been medicalized
• Claims about what it means to be healthy do not necessarily depend on biomedical definitions and views on sexual health may encompass ideas of rights, pleasures, and other notions that are outside the traditional purview of biomedicine
• If we focus too much on the question of how sexuality has been medicalized, we may miss the corresponding question of how health has been sexualized
• Sexual health touches on many people's lives, with over one million cases of STIs reported each day around the world and nearly two million people becoming newly infected with HIV each year
• The global market in "sexual wellness" products was estimated at nearly $75 billion in 2019
• Sex positive


  Emphasizes the place of pleasure in people's lives
• Sex negative


  Construes sexuality as a domain of risks to be averted
• Sexual health discourses may encourage us to leave it up to the experts to draw conclusions about how our lives should be lived and to tell us what is "normal", or they may expand the boundaries of who counts as an expert and may redefine normality in the process
• The potential benefits and harms of sexual health initiatives are unevenly distributed and vary depending on characteristics like race, ethnicity, social class, gender, sexual identity, disability, citizenship status, nationality, and degree of interest in having sex
• The idea of achieving sexual health builds on a longer history of linking sexuality and disease, and it draws on different traditions in different societies
• The term "sexual health" began to circulate more widely after 1974, when the WHO convened a panel of experts to discuss how to better educate medical professionals about sexual matters
• The global HIV/AIDS epidemic was a key impetus that moved the concept and term sexual health into broader circulation in the early to mid-1990s
• By the 1990s, a remarkably diverse set of speakers was giving voice to sexual health matters, including scientists, doctors, public health officials, pharmaceutical companies, foundations, religious organizations, sex toy manufacturers, activists, and advocacy groups across the political spectrum
• The label "sexual health" proved especially useful because of the precarious status of sexuality in so many societies, as the compound term sanitizes sexuality from stigma and cleanses its supposed dirtiness and messiness
• Sexual health


  Proposed solution to various social problems, including: addressing failures of sexual functioning, controlling population growth, promoting autonomy over reproductive decisions, solving injustices linked to lack of sexual rights, containing threats of "irresponsible" sexual behavior, and promoting sexual self-expression
• The phrase "sexual health" took on qualities of a buzzword, with its ambiguous nature and flexibility permitting the term and concept to spread across domains, as well as to mobilize attention and resources
• Sexual health


  Sanitizes the word sexuality, from stigma and cleanses its supposed dirtiness and messiness
• Campaigns to prevent HIV infection (often undertaken from within the communities positioned at risk)


  Have been tied to projects of empowerment and challenges to structural inequalities
• Specific groups - such as Black and Latino men who have sex with both men and women


  Have been deemed threats to the social body that necessitate strategies of containment
• Family planning campaigns in countries like the United States

  Sometimes presume that higher rates of pregnancy among young, unmarried women of color is a consequence of supposed lifestyle choices shaped by "deficient cultural values" and an "underdeveloped ethic of responsibility", or a desire to "game the system" and reap reward for excess procreation
• Proponents of sexual health for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities complain that far too many approaches to the sexual education of such individuals begin with an implicit assumption: "You shouldn't be doing this anyway, so therefore we're not going to teach you about it"
• Remaking medicine


  Significant percentages of people around the world experience what they perceive to be sexuality-related medical problems, yet many do not seek medical care or are not asked about their sexual health by doctors
• Expanding expertise


  The kinds of people who make claims about how we should be sexually healthy range very far afield, from nutritionists to massage therapists to practitioners of kink to porn stars
• Optimizing the self


  The desire or injunction to treat one's life as a never-ending project of self-improvement, organized particularly around bodily enhancement, including in the domain of sexual wellness
• Christian conservatives have deployed the term "sexual health" to develop a moral critique of modernity and defend traditional family forms, while valorizing certain forms of sexual expression
• For those on the left in the era of #MeToo feminism, sexual health provides a language to intervene in debates about sexual assault and consent while elaborating a progressive vision of gender relations
• Under President Donald Trump, the State Department sought to ban the phrase "sexual and reproductive health" from international health policy documents
• Sexual health


  The elusive goal that has been pursued in many different ways, with varying definitions and perspectives
• The goal of sexual health reflects broader conceptions of what it means to be healthy and which expressions of sexuality are valorized
• Sexual health discourses and practices have contradictory effects, turning sexuality and health into scientific concerns while also diversifying the kinds of experts who might weigh in
• Sexual health projects emphasize sexual risks but also create new possibilities to imagine pleasures
• Sexual health is a political question refracted through the broader politics of society, calling attention to issues of equality and justice