{"id":2909,"date":"2006-11-12T14:59:45","date_gmt":"2006-11-12T21:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/11\/12\/major-international-study-on-sexual-behavior-challenges-myths\/"},"modified":"2006-11-12T14:59:45","modified_gmt":"2006-11-12T21:59:45","slug":"major-international-study-on-sexual-behavior-challenges-myths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2909","title":{"rendered":"Major International Study on Sexual Behavior Challenges Myths"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw this study a few week ago<\/a>, and at the time I didn’t have much time to write about it. The study has important ramifications for women’s rights and the prevention of sexually transmitted infections.<\/p>\n

The general findings indicate that at the national level (not the individual level) westerners have more sex partners and fewer sexually transmitted infections (STIs). This challenges some common myths about HIV in Africa, and it seems to me that this study furthers the case for condom distribution and comprehensive health care. Here is a quote:<\/p>\n

“We did have some of our preconceptions dashed,” she said, explaining that they had expected to find the most promiscuous behaviour in regions like Africa, with the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases.<\/p>\n

That was not the case, as multiple partners were more commonly reported in industrialised countries where the incidence of such diseases were relatively low.<\/p>\n

“There’s a misperception that there’s a great deal of promiscuity in Africa, which is one of the potential reasons for HIV\/AIDS spreading so rapidly,” said Dr Paul van Look, director of Reproductive Health and Research at the World Health Organisation, who was unconnected to the study. “But that view is not supported by the evidence.”<\/p>\n

Professor Wellings said that implied promiscuity may be less important than factors such as poverty and education \u2013 especially in the encouragement of condom use \u2013 in the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The study’s findings don’t bode well for people who advocate marriage as a way to lower STI transmission, and they show a connection between the status of women and the spread of STIs. Specifically they found that gender equality seems to be correlated with fewer STIs.<\/p>\n

Researchers also found that married people have the most sex, and that there has been a gradual shift to delay marriage. While that has meant a predictable rise in the rates of premarital sex, experts believe this doesn’t necessarily translate into more dangerous behaviour.<\/p>\n

In some instances, married women may be at more risk than single women.<\/p>\n

“A single woman is more able to negotiate safe sex in certain circumstances than a married woman,” said Dr van Look, who pointed out that married women in Africa and Asia are often threatened by unfaithful husbands who frequent prostitutes.<\/p>\n

There is much greater equality between women and men with regard to the number of sexual partners in rich countries than in poor countries, the study found.<\/p>\n

For example, men and women in Australia, Britain, France and the US tend to have an almost equal number of sexual partners.<\/p>\n

By contrast, in Cameroon, Haiti and Kenya, men tend to have multiple partners while women tend only to have one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So my sense is the more sexual freedom for women, the better the economic and education opportunities for everyone, and the better the health education system, the fewer STIs are spread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw this study a few week ago, and at the time I didn’t have much time to write about it. The study has important ramifications for women’s rights and the prevention of sexually transmitted infections. The general findings indicate … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion-reproductive-rights","category-class-poverty-labor-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}