Safer Sex

Critiques

Moral critiques of “safer sex” approaches mainly come from organized religion representatives who question whether safe sex education promotes unsanc-tioned sexual activity outside of marriage or non-heterosexual relationships (such as homosexuality and bisexuality). Religious institutions (such as congregations and religious leaders) have redefined practices as safe only if they stress abstinence or monogamy.

Practices and History

Safer sex practices include barrier devices such as latex and polyurethane condoms (male and female), gloves and finger cots, dental dams, and a host of sexual practices that limit exposure to body fluids such as masturbation (solo and with a partner), erotic massage, singular use of sex toys, and abstinence. The idea of safer sex practices can be traced back to sanitary and public hygiene campaigns that were geared toward reducing rates of syphilis and gonorrhea in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Promotion of condoms was especially targeted toward male service personnel in times of war and occupation. Although safer sex practices are also promoted as forms of contraception by a variety of women's health and public health organizations, this emphasis has ebbed and flowed according to larger cultural debates about abortion and reproductive rights for women. Safer sex messages for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans-gender community can be traced to the early 1980s when a variety of nongovernmental organizations such as the Gay Men's Health Crisis and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, as well as federal public health organizations, began social marketing campaigns to encourage condom use among identified and non-identified gay men.

Gender and Sexuality Factors Affecting Safer Sex Rhetoric

As the AIDS epidemic became more diffuse in the populations that was affected and infected, safer sex messages became tailored toward additional populations such as lesbians, people of color, heterosexual women, injectable drug users and their partners, adolescents, and transgender populations. Currently in the United States, state-run “abstinence-only” programs are the primary “safer sex” messages promoted and supported for teenagers and young adults in their twenties.

Safer sex messages have been problematized by a variety of competing and often-contradicting ideas and messages about bodies, gender, and sexuality. For example, John Legone suggested in a 1985 Discover magazine article that HIV entered the bloodstream through vulnerable areas in the body, like the anus and the urethra, rather than through the vagina. At the time of the publication, this theory explained the disproportionate incidence of HIV-positive gay males versus females in the United States. Current studies indicate that females are more biologically susceptible to the disease because the virus easily penetrates vaginal mucus during intercourse.

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