National Survey of Sexual Health & Behavior

Today, The Center for Sexual Health Promotion (where I do my research and am a PhD student) released our huge and highly anticipated special issue in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

The 9 papers published used a Nationally representative sample (the first of its kind in over a decade) allowing us to make generalizations that are normally not possible in the research we do. There are also 4 commentaries and a guest editorial discussing the research.

Also, it gives the public a sense of what is “normal” in the US population – something that they always seem to be looking for.

This special issue marks the first 9 of what will be many more papers to come out of this incredibly rich dataset.

Today, we had a meeting (and celebration, see cake above) about the media fury and any questions any of us had about the data. It is so interesting to myself and colleagues how the media spins research in such creative ways! For example, the focus of the study was certainly not faking orgasm like this article leads you to believe. It also wasn’t focused on oral sex being ‘enough for women’ like this article leads you to believe.

You can download a complimentary issue of this special issue of the Journal for Sexual Medicine here – something that is rarely available to the public, yet incredibly useful.

Have I mentioned how lucky I feel to be a part of such a monumental progression in sex research? If not, I’ll say it now. Damn, I’m lucky to be here and I love my job 🙂