5 myths about pulling out, busted
The withdrawal method, a.k.a. pulling out, sometimes gets a bad rap—some people don’t even consider it a “real” method of birth control, even though 60% of couples have used it at least once. Because pulling out is often dismissed as “better than nothing” by researchers, we don’t know as much about it as we do […]
Panic time? Chat or text for instant answers
The condom broke. You forgot your pill. There’s something going on down there that’s stressing you out. The clinic is closed. Who can help, pronto? Last year, Planned Parenthood launched a national service for online chat and text that has been answering questions just like these. The service is staffed by trained sexual health educators […]
Slacking on the HPV vaccine
The HPV vaccine protects against cervical cancer and genital warts. The national Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends that all girls and boys ages 11 and 12 get all three doses of the vaccine. (Ladies and gents ages 13-26 who haven’t had all three doses yet can get catch-up shots.) Yet national studies tell us […]
Better health services = better sexual health for students
New research from Minnesota showed that schools with more health services had students with healthier sex lives . Over 6,300 students from 28 Minnesota colleges were in the study. All the students were 18-24 years old, unmarried, had had sex in the last year, and attended a 2- or 4-year college. The study took into […]
There’s no place like home (to GYT)
We admit it—getting to your health care provider once a year can be tough, especially when juggling work, school, social and love lives. But that’s the current recommendation for sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing: once a year for all sexually active women under age 26. But what if you could GYT for two of the […]
It’s official: the HPV vaccine is making a difference
In an article last year , we said it was still too soon to tell whether Gardasil, a vaccine that protects against 4 common strains of HPV (human papillomavirus), would make a difference in HPV rates on a large scale. Just a year later, a new study has shown that among 14- to 19-year-old women, […]
IUDs, STIs, and PID: What’s the deal?
There’s a lot of conflicting information out there about the relationship between these three very important acronyms related to women’s health: intrauterine devices (IUDs) , sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and a serious infection called pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) . Some health care providers with out-of-date information refuse to give young women or women without children […]
4 STI myths that get in the way of a healthy sex life
Safer sex— comprehensive safer sex, that is —includes more than just using barriers consistently and correctly. You also need to talk about risk in advance of any sexual activity. That’s where most people get stuck. As soon as someone utters the letters S-T-I (short for sexually transmitted infection) in sequence, people run for the hills. […]
Um, can I get pregnant if…? Part 2!
We got so many questions about pregnancy scares in the comments of the original “Um, can I get pregnant if…?” that we decided it was time for part 2. Last time we talked about specific sex acts that could lead to pregnancy—this time we’re talking the chance of pregnancy in various circumstances. Can I get […]
Research finds sex is still good with condoms
We’ve heard some pretty colorful excuses for not using condoms (a.k.a. the only birth control method that protects against STIs ). Reducing sensitivity is definitely a big one. Fortunately, science is here to help put the rumors to rest and assure us that condoms may be a barrier to STI transmission, but they’re no barrier […]
