President Barack Obama has proposed an end to abstinence-only-until-marriage funding as Americans have known it for the better part of the last decade. This marks a significant change in direction, one that finally brings science and evidence back into government policy. His leadership on this new direction will be essential in the coming…

Most studies on sexual behavior have approached the relationship between AIDS knowledge and sexual behavior unidirectionally. This paper sets out to examine a reciprocal relationship between AIDS knowledge and sexual behavior, in which it is possible that adolescents who enter into sexuality may start to actively seek out information on sex.…

This paper describes the ways in which administrative structures of the state, techniques of self-government, and practices of social relations exist within HIV/AIDS curricular discourses, a critique enabled by a Foucauldian analytical frame. We argue that youth have been singled out as a particularly risky lot and are therefore prime candidates…

Condom use at last sex is a widely used indicator in sexual behavior research; however, there is little empirical research validating this indicator. This study examined whether a single-event recall period (the last time coitus occurred) was consistent with longer recall periods (14 days and 60 days) for a sample of African American adolescent…

The relationship between love styles and lifetime number of sexual partners was explored using survey data from 507 college students. Love styles significantly (p less than 0.001) contributed to the prediction of number of lifetime sex partners after controlling for demographic characteristics and attitudes toward sexually transmitted infections.…

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of Safe Thinking and Affect Regulation (STAR), a 14-session HIV-prevention program for adolescents at alternative/therapeutic schools. Because these youth frequently have difficulties with emotions and cognitions, it was designed to improve sexuality-specific affect management and cognitive monitoring, as…

The purpose of this study was to conduct a meta-analysis of computer-mediated interventions (CMIs) aimed at changing theoretical mediators of safer sex. Meta-analytic aggregation of effect sizes from k = 20 studies indicated that CMIs significantly improved HIV/AIDS knowledge, d = 0.276, p less than 0.001, k = 15, N = 6,625; sexual/condom…

Objective: To describe the development of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) evidence-based guidance on one-to-one interventions for prevention of STIs and under 18 conceptions, as a focus for an integrated approach to sexual health services. Method: Documentation of the process for developing NICE guidance that is…

Combining substance use and sex compounds the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. However, the association between substance use and sexual behaviors may vary by substance and sexual behavior. The current study sought to examine the relationship between alcohol and marijuana use frequency and specific sexual…

Objective: To examine sexual health disparities between blacks and whites in a national sample of US college students. Participants and Method Summary: Analyses utilized secondary data from 44,165 nonmarried undergraduates (aged 18-24; M = 20.1) responding to the Spring 2007 American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment;…

This essay critically engages challenges made against the federally mandated deferral policies which prohibit "men who have sex with other men" from donating blood. I argue that "passing" and "protest" are dialogically dependent on one another as two separate but related tactics of resistance. Drawing on interview materials from men who have both…

To better understand the relation of feminist identification to sexuality, we compared the attitudes of feminist, egalitarian, and nonfeminist undergraduate women (N= 342) in five domains: (a) erotophilia (one's positive affective or evaluative responses to sexual stimuli), (b) sexual assertiveness, (c) perceived self-efficacy for safer sex, (d)…

Background: The aim of the present study was to examine the impact of professional preparation and class structure on health content delivery and time spent delivering content among required health education classes in the United States. Methods: Data from the classroom-level file of the 2006 School Health Policies and Programs Study were…

Objectives: To outline the prevalence and disparities of teen pregnancy among school-aged urban minority youth, causal pathways through which nonmarital teen births adversely affects academic achievement, and proven or promising approaches for schools to address this problem. Methods: Literature review. Results: In 2006, the birth rate among 15-…

Using a representative national sample (N = 20,745), this article explores health and mental health needs, service use, and barriers to services among sexual minority youths (SMYs) and heterosexual peers. SMYs were defined by ever having a same-sex romantic attraction or having a recent same-sex romantic relationship or sexual partner. SMYs…