Pleasure promotes safe sex better – study
Safe-sex programs that also teach about how to achieve pleasure turn out to be more effective than those that only focus on the dangers of unprotected relations, World Health Organization (WHO) researchers have found.
“Incorporating sexual pleasure within SRHR (Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights) interventions can improve sexual health outcomes,” the WHO team said in a paper that came out in Plos One journal ahead of Valentine’s Day.
Pleasure is “a key reason why people have sex,” but this fact is being largely overlooked by the authors of safe-sex programs around the globe, despite billions of dollars being invested in them, the study pointed out.
The researchers browsed through a massive trove of specialized publications from 2005 to 2020, finding only 33 projects that incorporated the idea that making love is also about feeling good.
And those programs turned out to be more effective in increasing condom usage in risk groups than their counterparts that only warned about the risk of getting HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases through unprotected sex, according to the study.
Speaking to the WHO’s website, one of the co-authors of the paper, Dr. Lianne Gonsalves, expressed hope that its finding will “galvanize” the responsible agencies to “promote services that educate and equip users to engage in sex that is safe, consensual, and pleasurable.”
Another researcher who took part in the study, Anne Philpott, told the BBC that condoms should be marketed as pleasure tools in order to increase their sales and usage.
“Sex can be safe – and enjoyable. It's about having open conversations and giving people confidence,” Philpott, who founded The Pleasure Project, insisted.
