The purpose of this study was to assess community attitudes toward school-based abstinence-plus sexuality education. A dual sampling approach of landlines and cell phones resulted in 988 adults from two counties completing "The South Carolina Survey of Public Opinion on Pregnancy Prevention." Among respondents, 87.1% supported…

We examined whether sexual attitudes of adolescents were related to their self-reported sexual risk behavior by analyzing survey data from 1,052 boys and girls aged 14 to 17 years from a low income, urban community. Sexual behavior norms that may increase sexually transmitted infection/HIV risks in youth were sanctioned more by males and by…

Sexual health programs on college campuses are often directed toward single individuals with a focus on sexual risk. Using a sample of college students, this study examines how relationship status relates to sexual behaviors and may be a factor for sexual risk. Based on the study's results, expansion of sexual health programming on college…

University environments are fertile grounds for risky sexual behaviors. This study investigated students' risky sexual practices at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. Data were collected using quantitative and qualitative methods. A total of 1,405 questionnaires were administered, and 80 in-depth interviews and four…

While participation in the activities like bondage, domination, submission/sadism, masochism that fall under the umbrella term BDSM is widespread, stigma surrounding BDSM poses risks to practitioners who wish to disclose their interest. We examined risk factors involved with disclosure to posit how sex education might diffuse stigma and warn of…

The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of sexting among sixth through twelfth grade students and its correlations with other risk behaviors. The survey was conducted in 35 different schools in a midwestern state. Overall, 17% of students engaged in sexting, which varied significantly by age (3% of 12-year-olds to 32% of…

Sexuality education debates are layered with discourses based on markedly different constructions of sexuality. Rather than seeing these discourses as purely oppositional, this article frames them as complex and varied. It provides a new framework for understanding sexuality education which differentiates 28 discourses by orientation to education,…

Although the number of Hispanic women attending postsecondary institutions has significantly increased in the past decade, knowledge about their use of campus health services to address sexuality-related issues remains low. Increased information about this population is crucial given that sexual health indicators have shown Hispanic women in…

Sexual health education often focuses on prevention of sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancies, but the decision to engage in sexual activity is equally important. This cross-sectional study examined the decisions of college students (n = 422) to engage in oral sex, vaginal sex, and other sexual behaviors. Regression analyses…

To gain an understanding of how abstinence-only-until-marriage school-based sexuality education has been exclusionary, it is important to explore how heteronormativity has been endorsed, played out, and reproduced ever since school-based sexuality education has been offered in the United States. Such an exploration reveals glaring evidence that…

This article explores the potential for introducing harm reduction into sexuality education. When the goal of sexuality education is on prevention and focuses on risk and public health concerns, a discussion of pleasure is rendered problematic, as many pleasurable behaviors are inherently "unsafe" or "risky" when considered using a safe-sex lens.…

Many sexuality education interventions focusing on determinants such as attitudes, knowledge, and skills have shown meager impact on sexual behavior. In addition, these determinants have been developed and evaluated for mixed gender or female-only priority populations. More specifically, sexuality education interventions have not been designed…

This study investigated sexuality topics discussed by parents, sources of sexuality education, sexual risk behaviors, and attitudes about who should educate children about sexuality among a sample of 204 adult Latinas. Nearly half of sexually active women (having ever had sex) reported condom use and 36.7% reported discussing sexual history with…

Peer sexual health education programs are widespread on college campuses, but little research has assessed the effect of these programs on the peer educators. This study employed a repeated measures design to examine changes over the academic quarter in the knowledge, counseling self-efficacy, and sexual behavior of 70 college students enrolled in…

This investigation is a case study of peer educators in a community-based teen pregnancy prevention program. Research questions focused on identifying ways in which peer educators differed from other teens and exploring the perceptions of the peer educators about their experience in the program and the ways in which it has affected them. Data were…