sexual health
The FDA gives the green light, but is it cost effective to give men Gardasil?
Should boys be vaccinated against HPV? This is the new hot button question after the Food and Drug Administration approved Gardasil use in men last week. The New York Times recently reported that advisory groups recommended boys between the ages of 9 and 25 soldier into doctor's offices and get injected with the costly, but effective, shot. Sex Does A Body Good
Gardasil, on the market since 2006, was previously just recommended for women as it protects against two strains of HPV that if undetected can lead to 90 percent of cervical cancer cases. While the shot prevents … Read More
Why these seven options are top picks for women ages 30-plus.
Often, a woman's birth control choice is based on word-of-mouth from friends (which pill relieved monster cramps; which procedure was covered by insurance), familiar routines unchanged since college (same old pink pill case) or even TV commercials (seen the ones that make taking birth control look like boarding a Caribbean cruise?).
But as women cross over into the years beyond 30, there are new doctor-recommended options that go beyond basic oral contraception and condoms and can offer unique benefits. A recent Health magazine article by Alicia Potter did the research for us and presented seven top birth … Read More
A new museum where visitors are encouraged to touch the displays.
We remember the class in college called "Human Sexuality" for which there was usually a long waiting list. For that, you received a simple textbook. Now there are museums. And talk about an interactive exhibit. The new "Amora Sex Academy" that opened its doors in Berlin Thursday encourages visitors to explore the male and female mannequins on display for hands-on (literally) lesson in human sexuality, reports Caroline Copley for Reuters.
The purpose of the museum is to educate visitors on everything sexual, from the location of the erogenous zones to how to perfect a striptease, oral … Read More
The documentary and book, "Still Doing It," seek to prove culture wrong.
As her sister edged toward her 40th year, Deidre Fishel noticed a panic slowly building and taking hold of her. She feared the dip in libido that comes along with age. Fishel wanted to see if there was real reason to fear, or if there were older women out there bucking the myth, that they were sexless, cranky old things.
She and Diana Holtzberg set to work creating a documentary and book called, "Still Doing It," that tells stories of older women who are enjoying fulfilling and adventurous love lives.
The two women looked for women in their 60s, 70s and … Read More
But there's a catch.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Wednesday that it had approved the first-ever generic form of the emergency contraceptive pill known as Plan B (levonorgestrel), manufactured by Watson Laboratories, Inc.
At the current time, however, the generic version of Plan B will be made available only to young women ages 17 and younger and will require a doctor's prescription.
First approved in 1999, Plan B emergency contraceptive (commonly referred to as the morning-after pill) can prevent pregnancy after unprotected sexual intercourse or suspected prophylactic failure. It's comprised of the … Read More
Paxil side effects worse than semi-erect penises.
For years, the biggest complaint people had about Prozac, Paxil, and other SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) was that they made sex awful. Men and women both complained of lowered libidos. Men who still had libidos frequently said they couldn't get it up. And of those men who could get it up, there were many who, despite their best efforts, couldn't ejaculate.
Still, some people on SSRIs managed to have sex. They even managed to get pregnant. But of those that did, some found out that there was another side effect they didn't know about: birth defects. Bad birth defects. … Read More
Researchers find a new treatment option for men with sexual dysfunction.
New help for men with sexual dysfunction may be on the way. In a new small study, researchers find that light therapy may cure certain sexual dysfunction in men, reports the UK's Press Association.
When researchers randomly divided men into two groups, either giving them a placebo light treatment or authentic light therapy for one half hour each morning during a two-week period, they found that the men receiving the authentic light therapy experienced an improvement in sexual function.
Study participants were suffering from sexual dysfunction including inability to reach orgasm, low desire and impotence. The light … Read More
His 1980 book "Thy Neighbor's Wife" threatened his career and marriage. Both survived.
Oh, what times they must have been. In the '70s writer Gay Talese was in the throes of research, working on a novel. This wasn't just any reporter's notepad, though.
His research involved scouting out massage parlors and trailing orgies with a crew of New York City couples. He set out to "write about sex and the changing definition of morality," he tells Jonathan Van Meter in a recent article for New York magazine. Thing is, he was married to publishing pro Nan Talese all the while. In 1980, Gay Talese's book, Thy Neighbor's … Read More
You'll find it back in some stores this week. Should you consider it? Here's what you need to know.
A new distributor is bringing the female contraceptive known as the sponge back to store shelves. The Today Sponge is expected to appear in thousands of CVS and Longs Drug Stores locations across the nation this week, and Walgreens this summer, reports Natasha Singer for the New York Times.
Since appearing in 1983, the sponge has been a here-again, gone-again female contraceptive. Factory compliance issues spotted by the FDA led to its 1995 disappearance; the sponge contraceptive re-emerged in 2005 with new owners and was later sold to still other owners who declared bankruptcy in … Read More
Twenty female contraception options to about two for men. Let's get this new trial started.
A trial is set to test a new hormonal contraceptive for men in 400 couples across the globe (60 in the UK and 340 in nine international locales). In the study, University of Manchester researchers will initially give male volunteers ages 18 to 45 up to four courses of injections of a combination of two hormones, testosterone undecanoate and norethisterone enantate, over six months. Both hormones have already been tested in trials for safety and were shown to cause only mild side effects in a small group of participants.
The couples will then be asked to rely on the hormonal method … Read More