Sex Research

The results of a national sex research study were released today from Indiana University's Center for Sexual Health Promotion.  The findings are interesting, but not too shocking.  And phew! - it seems, I am, in fact, "normal."  The study was underwritten by Trojan, the condom company, and has the largest, most comprehensive sample size in almost 20 years, across a wide age range of 14 to 94 .  You can read it for yourself, but overall, it seems we're not doing so great on condom use (particularly among the 40+ age group), and we have a wide variety of sexual behaviors to keep ourselves and our partners happy.

I have always been interested in sex.  "Duh - who isn't?" you say.  But really, I am especially interested in sex - and not only from a personal pleasure point of view, but also from a sexual health perspective.  As a teenager, on Sunday nights, I'd listen to Dr Ruth (Westheimer) late into the night.  In high school, I bought the Shere Hite 500+ page report on female sexuality at a used bookstore.  In my early 20's, I was a Dr. Drew (Pinsky) fan on radio's Loveline, before he became famous on MTV.  And, as mentioned in a recent post, I am a savage fan of Savage Love by Dan Savage.  I stayed home one evening when I was 25, planning my night around a PBS documentary on Alfred Kinsey, underwritten by Hugh Hefner and the Ford Foundation :-).  The good people are My Heroes for being frank, direct role models and spokespeople for healthy, informed, consensual, positive, pleasurable, communicative sex.

I was a Planned Parenthood supporter, long before I had even been kissed.  In college, I was a family planning counselor.  In grad school, I studied public health, with a focus on Population and Family Health, now more commonly known and practiced as Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights. In my career, I've worked on family planning and reproductive health programs.  And not so long ago, I even had to discuss anal sex in a job interview.

My career has (sadly?) evolved a bit over 20 years - from child survival and maternal health, to family planning and reproductive health, to HIV prevention, to adolescent reproductive health, and then to broader youth development and child development.  These days, I'm in management, and think more about high-impact non-profits and metrics for evaluation of social programs.  But there was a time, not so long ago, where I considered doing a PhD in my chosen field.   I actually like quantitative and qualitative research, though I don't have the self-discipline to be a real researcher or complete a PhD.

I've already figured out my dissertation topic, studying the sexual initiation experience of young men and women (maybe aged 20 to 30) - or "the first time."  I envision a fairly in-depth and comprehensive survey with a fairly large sample size to get some excellent quant data on age of first sex; age differential of partner; "virgin" or "non-virgin" partner; planned or spontaneous; within the context of a committed relationship or not; coerced or negotiated; protected or unprotected; by which method;  level of communication before, during, after  sex; etc.  This would be coupled (pardon the pun) with qualitative case studies of people's first sex.  The beauty of the research is that most people's first time is a pretty salient memory, and if interviewed 5 to 10 years after, the data is likely still accurate, but there is nothing to hide, as most of the "baggage" and guilt is processed.  I think it could have great public health and social service program application for preparing teens and young adults for better, safer, informed, consensual first sex and beyond - to delay, defer,abstain, negotiate, protect, and communicate from the get-go.  Oh, and the best part, my dissertation, or the narrative case studies at least, can be turned into a best-selling, mainstream book - "Losing It" - where our natural voyeuristic tendencies can be satisfied in the pursuit of knowledge.  :-)

Sigh.  My life took other turns, and I'm not sure if I'll get around to my PhD, let alone a dissertation and best seller - but it's fun to think about, and in the meantime I'll live vicariously through those "researchers" at Indiana University.