Recent focus groups suggest that young people have high levels of knowledge about safe sex, but do not always put this into action. One reason is a lack of confidence in talking about sex with partners. Learning from entertainment media, this project aimed to make talking about safe sex ‘sexy’ rather than ‘scientific’ (which is how safe sex knowledge is usually conveyed by schools and public health campaigns), by using a ‘Yes, no, maybe’ list.
100 university students were given a list of 62 sex acts to discuss with partners. 12 weeks later 126 students were surveyed.
The list included ‘unprotected sex’ as one possible option. Of the 126 students surveyed 12 weeks after the distribution of the list, 35% had seen the list. Of those who had seen the list and had sex with at least one new sexual partner, 69% had discussed condom use with all new partners. Of those who had not seen the list and had sex with at least one new sexual partner, only 46% had discussed condom use with all sexual partners. Of those who saw the list and had sex with a new partner, 54% had sex without a condom, with 29% regretting it. Of those who did not see the list and had sex with a new partner, 62.5% had sex without a condom, and 49% regretted it.
The idea of the list was to create a fun or ‘sexy’ environment where unprotected sex might be discussed and Health Protective Sexual Communication fostered. In the future, further data collection with a larger sample size would be beneficial.
