What is Sexual Health?
Sexual Health is one's physical, emotional, mental, and social well-being in relation to sexuality (CDC, 2014). In order for sexual health to be positive, one must approach their sexuality and sexual relationship(s) respectfully and accordingly. Also, you must practice safe sex, have regular health check-ups, and having healthy eating habits. Many people also believe exercising plays a key in sexual health. However, when the act of sexual intercourse happening, do you think about your sexual health?
STDs/STIs
What are STDs/STIs?
STDs/STIs are sexual transmitted diseases or infections. The term STI is used more because it steers away from the stigma of diseases.
Knowing and understanding sexually transmitted diseases or infections is very imperative. When engaging in protected and unprotected sex, one should understand condoms are not very effective due to its protection rate of 97%. What about the other 3%? That still is a big risk. With all of this, it is of importance to know who you are engaging in sexual relations with, that is knowing their status, using condoms, and knowing of other effective ways to protect against STDs/STIs.
Safe sex practices among young adults:
I reviewed a study that surveyed young adults about the "Intentions to Practice Safe Sex". The study focus on sexually activate and non-sexually activate students and what they believe about sex practices. In one section, it focused on past sexual risk behavior, such as subjects who always used condoms were at a lower risk of getting an STD/STi compared to people who sometimes used condoms. In the same way, the researchers look at young adults who have stable or casual relationships with two or partners and sometimes used condoms were at a higher risk (Hardmeman, Pierro, & Mannetti, 1997).
The study concluded to show that young adults have the intention to practice safe sex. Young adults attitude is to avoid casual sex and unprotected, and to use condoms with knowing the benefits of them. Also many past risky sexual behaviors have deterred many young adults from engaging in unprotected sex.
Although the study is relatively dated it gives good insight on how many young adults think today. The source is still liable and has good evidence to support its case.
Sources:
Hardeman, W., Pierro, A., & Mannetti, L. (1997). Determinants of intentions to practice safe sex among 16–25 year- olds. Journal Of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 7(5), 345-360.
Hello Astoria! I really enjoyed reading your post and the insight that you gave. It almost seems like young adults in todays society are careless when it comes to practicing safe sex and I don't think that all young adults realize how dangerous unprotected sex really is to your body and health. I think that you chose an awesome topic for your blog and did an excellent job of making sure you defined everything. I also love how you made sure to provide statistics as well. If I had to make a suggestion for your next posting it would be to maybe discuss the different STDs and side effects that one may experience with it. But again, awesome post and thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThanks Astoria! This is such an important topic to tackle and I think you've done a great first post. Definitely poses the questions of why people are like this and what we can do to change this. I don't know what other topics you are planning on posting about but I hope that you can include some of your ideas for prevention. Good work and cute background!
ReplyDeleteI love this post and this topic because so many young people and college students don't realize the fact of sexual health. I love how you started out with a definition of sexual health, that it is emotional, physical AND mental, as opposed to it just being physical. I also didn't know STD was changed to STI to get rid of the stigma. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI like this topic because I can relate to it and I know other college student can relate to it? Before I didn't think about my sexual health. Until I was reading on what comes with not having safe sex. When I think about sexual health I think about my self and my panther because it important that you don't put your self or your panther in risk.Even though the study may be old I think it is still accurate because on what we see in today's sexual health.
ReplyDeleteI thought this post was really informational. I think others believe they know about STDs and STIs, but they really don't know much about it. I liked how you laid out all the information and had headings for each section. It was really easy to read and understand what you were trying to say. I liked how you started from the beginning and explained what sexual health was.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this post. Many young adults are sexually active and do understand the importance of condoms. I find it that condoms should protect a 100% but since they do not like you mentioned is is important to know who you are having sex with.
ReplyDeleteHi Astoria, thanks for sharing this information, i really enjoyed reading it. I liked how you pointed out the information about STDs and STIs because i don't think many people know what they actually are and don't really care to ask their sexual partner if they carry any.
ReplyDeleteAstoria, I really enjoy coming to your page because your topic seems like old news but there is so much information about sexual health that people do not realize. I believe a lot of young people believe their partners will never have an STI or they will never contract one. There is also a number of adults who are naïve about their sexual health.
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