This year seems to have just flown by, and what a busy one it was for research and stories about sex. From philandering footballers to STI statistics we certainly got to hear a lot about relationships.

Here are some of the main stories I think made up the year in media, sex and science.

The year began with the launch of the Home Office’s report on Sexualisation of Young People a problematic review which received lots of media coverage but very little critical attention from the press. It sadly overshadowed a far more detailed and useful similar report that came out just beforehand on Sexualised Goods, Commissioned by the Scottish Parliament. (You can find discussions critiquing the Home Office review here and here with a history of sexualisation reviews from other countries and open access tools to evaluate them here)

January was also noteworthy for being the month all our G spots went missing. Who knew?

Did you know Facebook caused syphilis? No, well nor did I until in March the press went crazy for the ‘Facebook linked to a rise in syphilis’ story. This was based on some opinions from a public health practitioner who should have known better, but who press released speculations about sexual health and social media. Cue plenty of irresponsible media coverage.

It provided an opportunity for sex educators to challenge these claims and also to promote health advice about syphilis, STIs and safer sex. Worryingly many sexual health charities and public health organisations failed to engage with the story in a timely fashion, completely missing the opportunity to share information with the public. An account of how this story unfolded, the heroes and villains of the piece can be found here.

The BBC produced a groundbreaking and sensitive drama ‘Five Daughters’ in April, based on the tragic story of five women from Ipswich who were victims of a serial killer in 2006. It retold the stories of Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell, Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol and Annette Nicholls, plus the role of the police and support agencies. It was praised for its accuracy, respectful approach and depicting the female characters in a humane way, particularly focusing on their friendships and families. A discussion of why and how the series was made can be found here.

April also saw the bizarre case of Clitoraid unfold. What began as a request via twitter and facebook to ‘adopt a clitoris’ soon was a more complex case involving a cult, unclear activities in Burkina Faso, and the support of sex educators and a sex store. A summary of the story can be found here, hereand here. Many questions about Clitoraid still remain unanswered, and have caused rifts between sex educators, activists and health/development practitioners. This bad feeling was distressing, particularly since many involved were highly respected within the field of sex education and activism – and because basic respectful approaches to international practice were ignored.

What do you do if your girlfriend ditches you and goes out with someone else? Mope? Call up your mates and hit the town? Go visit your mum? Listen to sad music? Or cut your girlfriend’s face so nobody else would ever want to date her? If it’s the latter then you’ve clearly been taking your relationship advice from actor Danny Dyer and Zoo magazine. In May Dyer’s advice column contained this shocking suggestion, which was noticed by @sarahditum and quickly spread across twitter. Dyer blamed Zoo, Zoo blamed Dyer. Nobody took any responsibility for anything. But action did get taken, primarily when people stopped complaining to the magazine and editor and started targeting advertisers with the magazine. Dyer was sacked. Zoo was forced to write an apology and feature about domestic violence. The whole sorry saga is summarised here and here.

The same month saw Project Prevention gain notoriety in the UK with largely uncritical media reports like this. Through countless chat shows, broadcast and print news the organisation suggested drug/alcohol and reproductive health services (plus other support services) were failing to manage drug/alcohol users getting pregnant. And suggested cash incentivised sterilisation programmes were the answer. (Project Prevention are only focused on sterilisation or adoption of long acting hormonal contraception. They are not interested in supporting drug/alcohol users after this – in terms of sorting out any addiction, housing/family issues, or safer sex concerns. Moreover they fail to address repeat pregnancies can be a sign of domestic abuse. Their focus is solely on preventing drug/alcohol users getting pregnant).

The media provided no real discussion of what services already exist, what they offer, how they work, where they could be improved. Without this, discussions on Project Prevention were meaningless but this didn’t stop media approaching the issue of drug/alcohol abuse and incentivised sterilisation as though this were a necessary and beneficial option, required because of gaps in existing services. Since no services were seemingly assessed it would be difficult to draw these conclusions but it didn’t stop the media. Who also ignored the concerns of drug/alcohol charities, human rights groups, and healthcare practitioners.

Nor was much investigation carried out into Project Prevention, or their previous incarnation CRACK (Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity) despite numerous publications on them in health/legal journals (see here, here, here, here, here and here)

Blogger Stuart Sorensen emerged in this debate as a voice of sanity and tireless campaigner against Project Prevention. Inviting the UK representative of Project Prevention to explain their plans for the programme in the UK then creating resources for practitioners and the public around how to tackle the organisation (all his writing about Project Prevention can be found here and on twitter)

Despite some journalists and bloggers writing about Project Prevention as though it were an established and worthwhile UK organisation, in fact it is not. Ethically in the UK practitioners cannot sterilise people who’ve been financially incentivised or who are drug/alcohol dependent. They can, with the person’s consent, suggest long acting reversible contraception (LARC), although Project Prevention do not appear linked with any existing drug/alcohol or reproductive health services. Currently they are requesting monetary donations to fund getting people onto LARC which can already be freely offered via the NHS. But the media and uncritical bloggers haven’t really considered the ramifications of this at all. The project and messages behind it are popular with media and some quarters so it continues to require vocal opposition. Not least because its focus on the poor, vulnerable and socially excluded feels like eugenics to many people. Rather than giving Project Prevention a platform we would do better to explore complex cases around reproductive health and drug/alcohol abuse, and ways to ensure services can better support addicts and their families.

In the midst of this we had a general election. Labour lost. The conservatives and liberal democrats formed a coalition. Many long term labour supporters, myself included, had become disenchanted with many of the actions of the labour party. Particularly around its use and neglect of scientific evidence to inform policy and law. (I wrote about my direct experiences of this here). The Liberal Democrats were eager during electioneering to persuade scientists to focus on ‘geeking the vote’ and made many promises around healthcare, education, academic funding, university fees and supporting science. Perhaps unsurprisingly many working in academia and science were persuaded to vote for them on this basis (I certainly was, something I am still regretting – and you’ll understand exactly why when you read this – the most personal post I’ve ever shared on this blog). For some the subsequent backtracking and u-turns of the Liberal Democrats have come as no surprise, to others of us it has come as a dreadful shock. And a sad let down not only to see the behaviour of the Liberal Democrats since they became part of the coalition, but also to note many of those who so actively courted the academic and science vote have dropped contact with us. Leaving us feeling cheated on many levels. A truly depressing turn of events.

June saw the FDA reject the drug Flibanserin – the female ‘desire drug’ despite months of media hype about this being the next ‘female viagra’ (as the media consistently and incorrectly described it). Shortly after drug development was discontinued, while later in the year Ray Moynihan’s fantastic book Sex, Lies and Pharmaceuticals highlighted further the problem of medicalisation of female sexual functioning by the pharmaceutical industry.

Also over the summer we saw a scandal break around off label use of the drug dexamethasone given to pregnant women to prevent congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) in girls. CAH is a disorder that affects the adrenal glands, so a person will not make enough of the hormones aldosterone and cortisol, but will make too much androgen. One of the results of this can be girls with CAH having ‘ambiguous genitals’. Using dexamethasone to prevent CAH (and particularly to prevent girls developing male genitals) is a standard practice for some clinicians, as is offering genetic testing to parents with a history of CAH. Many endocrinologists and medics have argued prescribing dexamethasone should only happen within a controlled, supervised, trial programme (which is currently not the case). The real scandal around CAH came from a clinican who was prescribing ‘dex’ to not only prevent CAH but also to prevent lesbianism.

This case was broken by Alice Dreger and colleagues and quickly spread to the media who focused on the need for using dex to treat CAH and the circumstances under which it might be used (see here and here for examples). The media, while expressing dismay, were not as critical about the use of dex to ‘treat’ both gender and sexuality as bloggers were. The blogosphere (particularly writings from trans and intersex people) took a more politicised, critical and wide ranging approach to this story (see for example this post from Mark Simpson assisted by @quietriot_girl, which links to other discussions about dex, sexuality and CAH).

Around the same time, a separate story was broken by Dan Savage which also involved Alice Dreger and colleagues. This time alerting practitioners and the public to research being undertaken at Cornell University by Dr Dix Poppas. Poppas’ research focused on ‘treating’ young girls judged to have oversized clitorises by performing clitoral reduction surgery on them. And testing for post operative sensitivity with manual stimulation and the use of a vibrator. Unsuprisingly this led to an outcry, primarily from bloggers (rather than the mainstream media who didn’t give it as much attention). Bloggers and activists saw the research as child abuse and female genital mutilation/cutting (examples here, here and here). It also led to wider discussions around surgical interventions and intersexuality within forums and on twitter – some of which became pretty heated but were definitely of interest. Sadly even within these discussions some intersex people felt they were (as so often happens) being spoken for or spoken over. The CAH and particularly Cornell case showed us we still have a long way to go around open and respectful dialogues in this area.

While it was right to focus on both the CAH/dex/lesbianism and the Cornell /cutting stories, what proved interesting about both was they recieved far more attention and debate across the blogosphere than within the mainstream media. But both these cases still received masses more attention in both blogs and the mainstream media than the clitoraid case. Despite the Clitoraid case being equally troubling on many levels. Those of us involved in challenging Clitoraid were left wondering whether it was simply the case that when it came to the rights of African women the press and bloggers just weren’t as interested. Not a comfortable feeling.

The media tend to view the summer months as ‘silly season’ and they certainly didn’t disappoint in August, with a spectacular misunderstanding of public health data and wild claims that not only were dramatic numbers of 11 year olds on the pill, but the belief they were all using hormonal contraception because they were sexually active. In reflecting on the story health practitioners began to realise just how little journalists covering stories like this understand about young people, puberty and hormonal contraception. Or that very few young women are prescribed the pill – and if they are it’s usually for things like acne or heavy periods. A rundown of the story in its full ridiculous glory can be found here

Not to be outdone by the press, MP for Peterborough Stewart Jackson decided the best use of twitter was to insult his followers who questioned his anti sex education statements. By calling them ‘sex obsessed leftie weirdos’ and other choice insults. Accounts of which can be found here and here .

In the US a spate of suicides of teens bullied over their sexuality led to Dan Savage establishing the It Gets Better project aimed at providing messages to young LGBTI people that things can improve. Numerous celebrities, politicians, activists and members of the public have posted their stories to the project in an attempt to highlight for many young people suffering homo/transphobic bullying that life can change and is worth living. There are too many to share here but the notable and moving contributions (in my view) to discussing how ‘it gets better’ came from Councilman Joel Burns

and the staff at Pixar

This programme was unusual as it took a slightly different approach to the usual anti bullying approaches, by taking a positive and hopeful view. Perhaps unsurprisingly some critics felt it oversimplified problems, suggested that things always worked out okay, and that adulthood is an automatic escape from homo/transphobia. In particular the message that it was worth enduring hardship/distress now because a brighter future awaited proved problematic for many. (This is explored in more depth here). Debates began about whether the project was a good idea. Blogger Furrygirl robustly responded to feminist critics of the scheme. While thoughtful writer Tania Glyde took a different view, thinking around why sometimes things don’t get better – and why that happens. And how often this may not be under your control. Her amazing and moving post on this is here.

It Gets Better still requires discussion and evaluation – it would be interesting to see what a difference this grassroots project may make. But it also reminds us of the lessons many working in sexuality, sex and relationships health/education already know. Which is that we can’t give blanket messages. It is important to have positive goals, but telling people what to do rather than how to get there may not be enough. And that anti bullying messages based on oversimplistic ‘it’ll be okay’ or ‘it’s dreadful’ are unhelpful. Instead we need more tailored approaches to tackling homo/transphobia for young people, adults and families. Across schools, the legal system, media and beyond. It Gets Better may have its fans and critics, but it has reminded us many young people are at risk of bullying within the school or other spaces and we all need to take action to empower and safeguard them. Now and in the future.

During the year it became apparent that science funding and other provision for education were under threat and in October UCL scientist (and all round fabulous woman) Jenny Rohn decided to take a stand. She gathered together a merry band of scientists and practitioners and got them to back the Science is Vital campaign which resulted in a petition, plenty of blog posts on the topic, extensive media coverage, and defended science against the cuts. Oh and some really questionable singing

Oh, and this woman turned up too

November saw the 40th anniversary of Page Three – but was this a cause for celebration? Nobody seemed sure. It also marked the closure of the Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group (TPIAG) who had overseen the (then) government’s Teenage Pregnancy Strategy over the past decade. Their final report can be found here, with TPIAG warning that not taking action on teen pregnancy (and supporting teen parents) will cause problems in the future. While the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy was not without its critics (from various sources) it did commit to supporting teen mothers and identifying causes of teen pregnancy. What will happen under the Coalition in relation to support for young people, and particularly teenage parents, remains to be seen.

This month also saw the Geek Calendar project go into overdrive, with plenty of coverage, advanced orders and the opportunity to raise funds and awareness for libel reform. I was delighted to participate and hope many of you are now a proud owner of a Geek Calendar of your own!

At the close of the year the government have revisited the issue of prostitution, calling for a review into best practice in managing the issue, echoed by ACPO who have also called for a review of legal and health approaches to sex work. Media coverage on this so far has been positive, but focused more on women, not addressed male and trans workers.

The year has also ended on a similar note to how it began, with a return to reviewing sexualisation and commercialisation, this time led by Reg Bailey (chair of the Mothers’ Union) who will be looking at existing reviews in this area and deciding what else needs addressing for children and young people. Critics have already questioned why a ‘review of reviews’ need completing, and whether Bailey is the appropriate person to oversee this process.

Linked to this was the government suggestion that Internet Service Providers block access to porn which has had a mixed reception. However, debates about sexualisation continue to be a media favourite and are for the most part not based on sound research. Indeed much of it seems to just be speculation – like this claim that cheating footballers are normalising adultery. This sadly seems to be the way Bailey and others are trying to bring boys into this debate. Not exactly helpful.

During the year we’ve had to say goodbye to several people who’ve been trailblaizers in the areas of sex, education and health. Including
Claire Rayner
Professor Otto Wolff (a hero of mine who was the first and pretty much only senior health practitioner to recognise the work of agony aunts as having a relevant health role)
Actress and model Pamela Green
Cory Silverberg also pays respect to others who have passed during the year over at his blog.

Join me on New Year’s Eve when I’ll be looking back over my Sex and Relationships Predictions for 2010 and seeing how many of them came true, or where I was completely off track. And in the new year I’ll be giving you a new list of predictions for 2011.

Thanks to @bishtraining @mngreenall @SexEdUKation for their help with this blog – and checking I’d managed to remember all that’s happened this year! And for @quietriot_girl and many others who emailed me to remind me about things I’d forgotten and needed to add.

Today is International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. If you’ve not heard about it before it aims to highlight hate crimes committed against sex workers, show support for and among sex workers, and alert the public about the physical and emotional violence sex workers face – and the systems that maintain this. A good introduction to the aims and purpose of the day can be found in Annie Sprinkle’s essay Stopping the terror: a day to end violence against prostitutes.

In this essay Dr Sprinkle explains why sex worker violence remains a problem:
From working as a prostitute myself for two decades I know that violent crimes against sex workers often go unreported, unaddressed and unpunished. There are people who really don’t care when prostitutes are victims of hate crimes, beaten, raped and murdered. They will say:

No matter how people feel about sex workers and the politics surrounding them, sex workers are a part of our neighborhoods, communities and our families and always will be. Sex workers are women, trans people and men of all shapes, sizes, colors, ages, classes and backgrounds who are working in the sex industry for a wide range of reasons. Many of us are out and proud, and spend a lot of time trying to explain to the public that we freely choose our work and we are not “victims.” But the truth is, some of us have been, or will become, real victims of rape, robbery and horrendous crimes.

Across the world there will be a number of events marking the occasion which you may already be part of.

Coinciding with International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, are a number of excellent articles shared on the issue of violence and stigma over the last few days including:
Rosie Campbell and Shelly Stoops’ Treating Violence Against Sex Workers As A Hate Crime and Chi Mqbako’s Can We End Violence Against Sex Workers?

NSWP (Global Network of Sex Work Projects) are marking the event with the release of a special issue of the journal Research for Sex Work – Focusing on Violence and Sex Work (open access). Matt Greenall picks up on this theme with a wonderful example of a project around addressing violence and abuse in Madagascar. More resources for international projects and programmes on sex work can be found at the Paulo Longo Research Initiative. Clarisse Thorn discusses why ‘whore stigma’ makes no sense (this piece focuses more on cis women sex workers but still raises issues relvant to male and trans workers, gay or straight).

Meanwhile both Laura Agustin’s ‘Helping women who sell sex’ and Audacia Ray’s Things That Are Broken: Sex Worker Activism invite reflection on some of the core issues facing sex workers and their allies.

You may be unsure how you might mark this occasion, so this blog post from last year by Cory Silverberg discusses more about the day and includes 10 suggestions from Annie Sprinkle about how you can show your support. Audacia Ray outlines other related sex worker events running throughout December.

In sharing information about this day I’ve been asked, very reasonably, about the appropriateness of just one day to address such a major issue. And as with other events (like World AIDS Day) it is worth noting that for some people violence is a frequent part of their lives, not a one off event. It is for that reason, the high prevalence of abuse faced by sex workers (and the generally poor response to it), that such a day is needed. It reminds us of the problems that exist and encourages us to take action. That may be through campaigning for legal changes, improving education and research in this area, lobbying politicians, tackling the barriers to healthcare many sex workers face (an overview of some of these issues can be found here), learning how to be more of an ally for sex workers, or supporting one another (if you’re a current or ex sex worker).

Today is World AIDS Day with events taking place globally around the theme of Universal Access and Human Rights. You can follow discussions about the day with links to activities and organisations involved on twitter using the hashtags #WAD2010 and #PreventionRevolution

Access is an important but often overlooked issue within this area. Getting education to help people protect themselves from HIV or making care available for people with HIV/AIDS are both still major problems being faced worldwide. Particularly in resource poor communities. Women, children, sex workers, LGBT communities may find it more difficult to reach basic educational and health services, particularly in countries with gender inequalities or where homosexuality is illegal. A lack of critical reflection on the meanings of masculinity within research and care around HIV/AIDS can often mean mens’ health needs or problems can be overlooked or only focused on in negative terms.

Aside from funding and staffing issues, access to HIV services can center around transport and roads, availability of aid, poverty, housing, and education generally (particularly literacy programmes). Not to mention problems of rape and sexual violence, domestic abuse and availability of medication.

Access isn’t just about treatment services for those living with HIV/AIDS but also around prevention and treatment programmes. Which can often be blocked by moral or political opposition or apathy. Which is why access and human rights are interlinked. People deserve the right to have accurate information to help them protect themselves from HIV or gain appropriate care and support if they are positive.

The theme of access for the coming year is an important one and hopefully will be an opportunity for health care staff, educators and researchers to focus on a broader definition of the term. Access also applies to the education, training and support of staff working in health and social care in HIV/AIDS. We still have problems with a lack of open access for many academic journals covering issues staff need to be aware of and that should be something we all press for in the next twelve months.

Easily available and high quality education programmes for staff also need to be based on the specific needs of communities, encourage capacity building and are constructivist in nature – using the lived experiences and local contexts of staff to inform their teaching. Currently much teaching, while well intentioned, is delivered in a context-free, top down and short term fashion. Illustrated here with these wonderfully reflective pieces by Matt Greenall here and here. This can result in programmes that tell people what they ought to do, but not how to achieve this – and how to amend messages if they don’t fit people’s personal or local needs. A lack of sustainability and support within programmes can also often leave communities disempowered and distrustful of research, education or health initiatives.

There can also be a problem around applying what we know. All too often funding for HIV programmes can lead to people deciding to do more research (a survey or focus group) without consulting the existing evidence base on this area which could well inform practice and save time. This is not to say there’s no place for research in HIV/AIDS. Just for practitioners to think carefully about what they are doing and why they are doing it. Critical reflection on both our research and teaching in this area is essential if we wish to improve upon current care and outcomes for the communities we serve.

Health educators and researchers working in this area often struggle themselves with limitations of time, money and demands of funders and local/national politics. Not to mention barriers caused by internalising homophobic, sex negative and gender/class/tribal judgements. With a call to consider access it is important we focus more critically about the teaching we offer and how this work can have meaningful outcomes that include and work with communities.

A couple of examples of this in action can be found in the recent Distance Learning for Health conference which brought together health educators who shared examples of good practice and reflected on ways to improve their work internationally. A review of the event and access to presentations given can be found here. While Contestations provides space for practitioners, activists and educators to debate and think critically around topics related to healthcare that often are oversimplified or overlooked. And, as you can see from Matt Greenall’s posts above are crucial to reflect upon if we’re to improve our understanding of health and human rights.

Finding ways to share knowledge and educational resources can be a powerful approach to tackling HIV/AIDS, but equally importantly allows us to remember that HIV is not the only health problem the world is facing. Thinking about access to education and creative ways of providing this can also allow us to consider additional issues that are impacted upon by HIV but can also be ignored because of a focus on HIV/AIDS. Things like maternity services, mental health, disability, tackling poverty, or managing non communicable diseases, or infections such as TB or malaria.

I will share more on the blog about programmes I hear about in expanding access to education and prevention and would be keen to hear from bloggers, institutions or organisations who are finding creative ways to introduce empowering, critical and reflexive educational programmes with health care staff on HIV (and related issues).

In the meantime if you are thinking these are interesting issues but ones you cannot contribute to directly, here are 10 things you can do in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Over the past few months, geeks, scientists, writers and presenters have been mulling over how to raise more funds and awareness for libel reform. This follows a number of recent high profile libel cases in the UK which have been seen as attempts to silence debate – particularly in areas of health and science.

While the Libel Reform Campaign has been involved in a number of activities to boost awareness, those of the geekier persuasion wondered if there might be something they could also contribute. After some discussion a charity calendar was hit upon as a way of uniting and celebrating geekiness in all its guises – while celebrating a good cause.

A number of high profile scientists, writers, artists, performers and broadcasters were invited to take part – including Simon Singh, Gia Milinovich, Jonathan Ross, Brian Cox, Chris Addison, Ben Goldacre and Evan Harris.

I was particularly glad to see several of my favourite journalists, artists and performers featured including Aleks Krotoski, Hannah Devlin, Adam Rutherford, Mark Henderson, Ed Yong, and Matt Parker.

The calendar was put together by a team of enthusiastic volunteers including
Alice Bell, Louise Crane, Mun-Keat Looi with photographers Ben Gilbert and Greg Funnell. Each ‘geek’ had a photo depicting different aspects of their lives, work or hobbies. Everyone involved with the calendar gave up their time for free.

Given this stellar line up I was massively surprised and extremely flattered to be asked to feature in the calendar. Although I’d deny it if you asked me, it’s fair to say I am a geek. I’m fascinated with research methods, the whole process of research and how it works, and deconstructing how we study people in the health and social sciences. I’m obsessed with critical appraisal and applying evidence to practice and evaluating our health and educational activities. I’m driven to improve research practice internationally, along with increasing our understanding of research ethics, and the safety and wellbeing of researchers. Clearly when your interests are that dull you need to liven them up – and I do that through adding sex to the mix. You’d be amazed how much more understanding research governance becomes if you’re considering the ethics of studying our intimate lives.

Once I’d agreed to take part the dilemma of what we’d do for my photo shoot began. I was offered the choice of how I’d like to be photographed, with ideas from shoots already undertaken provided for inspiration. With that encouragement my first choice was to recreate this shot of Josephine Baker with her cheetah Chiquita*

Ms Baker is my hero and has been since I first saw a photo of her when I was six. I thought she was the most glamorous woman I’d ever seen. I still think that. Having a pet cheetah was the icing on the cake. In true geek style over the years I’ve been obsessed with La Baker, her career, her values, her trials and tribulations and her achievements. (If you’d like to know more about her this book is a great introduction).

However, I wasn’t sure my fandom of Baker would be clearly conveyed within the calendar, and anyway I couldn’t find a co-operative cheetah for love nor money. So that idea was out.

Because my research involves talking to people about sensitive issues photographing me actually doing any research or training introduced ethical problems around consent which made that kind of photo shoot inappropriate for a calendar.

Since sex research and education is so important to me I really wanted to have a photo shoot that captured that passion, as well as indicating how varied sexology is – and why it’s important.

So we eventually settled on a shoot at Crossbones Graveyard in Southwark. If you’ve never heard of it you wouldn’t be alone. It’s a pretty much forgotten part of London where ‘single women’ (aka prostitutes) were buried, along with paupers (male and female), and infants. Although it’s part of old, hidden London people clearly haven’t lost touch with their history as the gates of the old graveyard remain adorned with ribbons, mementos and messages to ancestors and those who have passed more recently.

I thought it would be an excellent choice of venue because history is vital to sex research – you can’t understand your present situation without understanding what has come before. Given the histories of the poor, the oppressed and particularly sex workers is so often airbrushed from our cultural memories, the idea of commemorating those who lie buried at Crossbones was a privilege. It also drew together for me the core aspects of sex research – understanding history, geography, anthropology, plus documenting and interrogating people’s lived experiences. I hoped including it in the calendar would encourage people to think more about those we often ignore and overlook, those whose sexualities or sexual lives differ from our own.

Knowing those buried there included sex workers, unmarried mothers, impoverished fathers and infants drew upon my commitment to researching and educating in sexual health. It reminded me why this work is so important – and how gender and health inequalities have harmed and oppressed in the past and continue to do so today in many parts of the world. The tributes to infants who’ve died that are still lovingly placed at the memorial also serve as a poignant reminder for any of those working in reproductive and maternal health (and more personally for those of us who have lost a baby through miscarriage, stillbirth or cot death).

As you can see I didn’t make this choice lightly. One of the core criticisms made by sex workers regarding how they’re represented by research revolves around being misrepresented, patronised, sidelined or spoken for. The frequently made criticism that (some) academics work ‘off the backs’ of sex workers and benefit (while workers may not) always needs remembering – even if those being represented in this case have long departed. In choosing Crossbones as a venue I didn’t want it to seem we were ignoring those who lay there, nor that we were glossing over or in any way making light of their histories.

This extended to how we’d photograph the gates of Crossbones. Among the ribbons and adornments include many messages, including names and personal details of people’s relatives – many of which are deeply moving. Some of which speak of very recent losses. All of those involved in the calendar felt it wasn’t appropriate focus on this identifying information and so we used the gates as a backdrop to avoid this.

Aside from the wish to link with sex worker history there were additional reasons for me wanting to be photographed south of the river. Apart from being proud of my South London roots (I was born in Lewisham), other members from my family on my father’s side come from Southwark. I have also worked with healthcare practitioners and young people across many South London boroughs, as well as conducting research (with colleagues) on modernising sexual health services there.

You can see an additional write up on the actual process of the photo shoot here and background photos here.

UK libel laws currently restrict our ability to raise questions about many social and health issues. The fear many journalists, bloggers, academics and activists have around being sued for asking questions or highlighting inequalities or poor practice has a potentially devastating chilling effect. We can all do our bit to challenge this problem but you can do something right now by ordering a calendar (you can buy one here).

And to give you a little more inspiration here’s a trailer of the calendar showing the geeks in all their glory….

* most accounts of Baker refer to her having a leopard although I’m told on good authority she actually owned a cheetah.

The e-journal Contestations is a cross cultural and cross disciplinary publication which tackles diverse issues around women’s health internationally. It seeks to create a platform to explore and discuss core issues around development, politics and health.

The current issue debates the statement ‘Sexual pleasure empowers women!’ and opens with an outline of core issues relating to women, development, health and empowerment in relation to sexual pleasure, written by the awesome Susie Jolly. Jolly provides a very helpful overview of sexual and reproductive health and human rights, highlighting how often well intentioned programmes to tackle women’s problems and gender inequality have either ignored the idea of pleasure, or only focused on sex negative or victim/pity models.

This opening essay is expanded upon with an interview with Hania Sholkamay who talks about her views on the concepts of sexual empowerment within a development context.

The remaining part of the issue includes short responses from key practitioners working within International Health and/or Sexual/Reproductive/Rights based programmes. Drawing on work, experience and practice from different cultural settings (and subject positions) these essays discuss and expand upon the ideas set out in Jolly’s original piece. These include essays from
Sylvia Tamale from Makerere University in Uganda
Li Yinhe from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Sonia Correa from ABIA AIDS and Sexuality Policy Watch in Brazil
Pinar llkkacaran from Women for Women’s Rights, Turkey
Shivananda Khan director of the Naz Foundation in India
Each contributor has a different interpretation on what pleasure means and how important the concept of sexual pleasure is within the wider arena of women’s health, human rights and international development.

I was proud to be asked to join the discussion, my contribution can be found here. It hinges around my acceptance of the importance of pleasure but my anxiety over how concepts like sexual pleasure and sex positivity may be understood and applied within an international health context, given my awareness of how critical and evidence based practices within this area are often absent or overlooked. I drew upon my experience as a Social Psychologist working within International Sex and Relationships health – both as an academic teaching and supervising healthcare professionals in their postgraduate studies, and as a practitioner educating healthcare and journalism colleagues worldwide to appraise and deliver sexual health programmes. I also wrote the piece during the Clitoraid debacle that took place earlier this year – which was divisive and unpleasant but served as a chilling reminder of how good intentions around sex positivity can often fail if introduced in a top down fashion in developing country settings.

Hopefully you’ll find all the essays provocative, interesting and useful. They will be particularly helpful to you if you work within sex research, education, development and health. While they take a global view the messages within this special issue are relevant to women in many country settings – not just in the Global South.

I’d particularly encourage the sharing of this open access resource to those working internationally within sexual and reproductive health where critical thinking and considering concepts like pleasure often doesn’t get talked about – not least because people aren’t sure where to begin. These essays give a great opportunity to begin dialogue about the importance and meaning of pleasure, as well as encouraging us to review existing research to inform better practice, and to evaluate activities we’re currently involved in.

Enjoy!

Debates on homosexuality have been dragging on for some while within Uganda, but politicians will vote today on the future of a bill that seeks to punish people on the basis of their sexuality. Legal threats to homosexuals includes life imprisonment, the death penalty, and up to three years imprisonment for those who know homosexuals but who don’t report them to the state.

It is likely any legal changes won’t come into force until the new year, and politicians from other countries (particularly the US) are urging Uganda to reconsider their draconian approach.

Within Uganda, those defending the bill argue that Uganda is different from other countries, and view countries that have more accepting approaches to homosexuality to be lax or immoral. Many opponents of homosexuality in Uganda (particularly faith leaders) have argued being gay is ‘unAfrican’. A powerful device that we’ve seen used in other African countries and by African leaders (including Mugabe) when justifying homophobic laws, state endorsed abuse of LBGT individuals or groups, or when restricting support for HIV/AIDS organisations that include gay or bi clients. This is a profoundly hurtful statement, and one designed to further alienate those who are lesbian, gay, bi or trans (you can read one heartfelt response to this from a GUG – gay Ugandan – here).

Alongside suggestions for imprisonment or death sentences, other suggestions have included forced ‘cures’ for homosexuality. Which, as we know, are popular among faith-based organisations, but for which there is no evidence that they ‘work’ (ie stop people being gay). These approaches seem to be being suggested by religious organisations (particularly those backed by US evangelical churches) as a more reasonable ‘solution’ to the homosexuality issue in Uganda.

But make no mistake, those endorsing forced cures within Uganda are still working alongside those who would see life imprisonment or the death sentence recommended as a solution for homosexuality.

And then there are those, like Pepsi, who think it’s fine to step into an already tense atmosphere and sponsor notoriously homophobic performer Beenie Man to perform in Kampala. Which he did last weekend, and included his famous Mi Nah Wallah song where he says how he’d like to cut the throats of gay men. Pepsi have since said they’re sorry. It’s not really enough though, is it?

Media coverage of this ongoing story and current political discussion has at least identified the core problems proposed by Ugandan politicians and religious leaders. However, the focus on the story hasn’t been anywhere near prominent enough, and weird attempts at ‘balance’ on this story have led to discussions like this one (courtesy of the BBC) discussing whether or not it’s okay for Uganda to consider the death sentence for homosexuality.

Unfortunately, rather than having more sensible discussions about why Uganda is promoting this idea, and why it’s acceptable to many of its citizens, the response from many has been to construct Uganda as a backward country. Indeed, there’s been some uncomfortably racist reports and comments on forums framing Uganda as ‘primitive’ and ‘savage’.

Racism as a response to homophobia. Hardly helpful when lives are at stake.

Those working within healthcare and education are fearful that any repressive legal changes in Uganda could well put the mental and physical health of lesbian, gay, bi and trans people at risk. There is good evidence that in countries that are particularly oppressive those who are LBGT are less likely to ask for help and support, but don’t stop having relationships. Increasing the risk for HIV transmission, physical violence, blackmail and other exploitation.

Uganda certainly needs to think carefully about its plans to tackle sexuality. While culturally homosexuality may be taboo, to call for life imprisonment or the death penalty is extreme – particularly when endorsed (and encouraged) by faith based groups. There are rumours that aid to Uganda will be withheld or withdrawn if these legal changes are enforced, although this threat seems to be doing little to dissuade those most keen to outlaw homosexuality.

Sadly we know if you live within a homophobic culture this influences many in positions of power and responsibility – so those who ought to be speaking out – particularly journalists, educators and healthcare staff – are unfortunately either saying nothing, or are supporting the proposed legal changes (often in quite vile ways – here’s an example of how one Ugandan media outlet has responded).

So what can you do about this issue? You can put pressure on your MP to oppose the legal changes in Uganda. You can support gay rights organisations within Uganda, and charities working with LBGT groups within the country. Talk to journalists in your country or within Uganda and try and persuade them to focus on the evidence here. In particular around the lack of evidence around ‘curing’ homosexuality, and how oppressive regimes increase the health risks around HIV and sexual abuse.

The gay press have been good at covering the story – as have many blogs addressing sexuality. Two very useful places you can get additional information about the Ugandan situation are Gay Rights Uganda and Box Turtle Bulletin.

I’ll update on any news as I hear it, and if you’re aware of any campaigns or activities to support LBGT individuals and groups within Uganda please let me know and I’ll share it on this blog.