Teaching people about achieving sexual pleasure can help sell safe-sex messages, say researchers from the World Health Organization.
Programmes using this approach improve condom use more than ones that focus only on the dangers of unprotected sex, their study has found.
They say enjoyment – rather than fear – is a healthy motivator.
Sex can be safe as well as enjoyable, according to one of the research project’s co-authors.
Billions of dollars are spent around the world each year on sexual and reproductive health and rights services, yet many programs do not address one of the fundamental reasons many people have sex – to feel good.
Anne Philpott, a public-health professional, set up The Pleasure Project – the group that worked with the WHO team – in 2004, as a result of the frustration of “endless Aids meetings where no one talked about people’s motivations for having sex”.
She said: “Pleasure is arguably the most powerful motivating factor for having sex and yet has been absent from sex education or sexual-health interventions.
“If you ask most people, ‘Did your sex education equip you for your relationships and sex lives?’ they will say, ‘No’.
Globally, a million sexually transmitted infections are acquired every day, the majority without symptoms.
Using a condom can protect against these, as well as prevent pregnancy.
Anne said condoms should be marketed as pleasure tools – as a way to enhance feeling and reassurance. -BBC
