Barbie again??

Not only has Barbie been exposed as a terrible role model for young girls to aspire to. Barbie is now also being held responsible for deforrestation of rainforrests. What has this got to do with sexual health? Well....according to the Tropical Infectious and Parasitic Diseases Unit, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, James Cook University, Townsville Qld 4811, Australia. Deforrestation results in

• Changes in human demography with increases in local population.


• Overtaxing of food, water, and hygiene resources.


• Dislocation of cultural frameworks and social order.


• Downgrading of social values and increase in lawlessness

These are all social impacts that have the risk of increasing lack of opportuniuty, STis, mens violence against women etc etc.

Now have a look at what Ken says to Barbie when he finds out her link to deforrestation.

SHineSA library and resource centre

This is just a plug for SHines brilliant library and resource centre. This place has everything. Books, dvds,current journals, games, anatomically correct puppets. You name it and they probably have it. The library ( which is free to join) has information on such subjects as:

• ATSIC sexual health


• Adolescent sexuality


• contraception


• STIs


• disability and sexuality


• sexuality counselling


• mens health


• sexcual assault and child abuse


• sex education


• womens health


• and so on and so on.

Click here to see what more the library has to offer you

Talking to a partner about sex

This is a tough issue, but one that comes up quite often. Whether it is a person wanting to ask their partner to change something, or even a young person wanting to broach the subject for the first time with another person, or a young person asking a worker for advice.

Several things may help though:

• The only way to know if your partner wants to have sex is to ask


• You and your partners/s can make up your own sex rules together


• Communication really is one of the keys to having your own needs met and meeting your partners needs.

Sexual communication is a skill: Like many skills it needs practice. It also depends on the subject: There are many ways and many things to talk about such as:

• New activites


• Difference in sex drive


• Talking about concerns


• Dysfunctions


• Revealing a fetish


• Wanting to talk dirty


• your illness and your sexuality

When a young person wants to talk to a worker about sex it really is important to find out exactly what they are wanting. Dont shut them down and dont turn away.

Opportunistic Sexual History Taking

Teenage girls are almost four times more likely to be tested for sexually transmitted infections (STI) when doctors ask patients with abdominal symptoms about their sexual history during visits to a pediatric emergency department, according to a study by The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Go here to read more

Good question

Recently I was working with some young women. We spoke of many things around sexuality and diversity. I was explaining that orgasm doesnt have to be the number one - be all end all- to sex play. As we were discussing why we have been conditioned to believe this , one of the young women asked " Well how can I tell if Ive had an orgasm, I enjoy sex but I dont know if I have ever had an orgasm"

I won't go into our discussion here but suffice it to say that if this question was asked of her friends the reponse would probably be something like " If you've had one you would know". This response is not true and is a sure way of shutting down the conversation.

Below is a response by one of my favourite bloggers ( Cory Silverberg) to the same question he received. What do you think?

If you only do one thing for your sex life, try and stop yourself whenever you are comparing your sex life to someone else’s. It’s not easy, but in the long run I promise you’ll be much happier, and think of all the time you’ll save by getting rid of all those anxious moments. Also, you never know if someone is describing something accurately, and, regardless, it doesn’t matter. Your sex life is all that matters, and possibly the sex life of the people you’re having sex with.

If you do two things for your sex life, you should make the second thing an effort to masturbate more. Sex educators don’t refer to masturbation as the “cornerstone of sexual health” for nothing. The best way to explore your sexual response, including what orgasms feel like, is to do it on your own first, before you get one or more than one person involved.

As for how to tell if you’ve had an orgasm or not, there isn’t a test you can take. After all, orgasm is not just a physical experience, it happens in your body, your mind, possibly even your spirit. And there is no single definition of orgasm. So what would the test measure? However, there are some tell tale signs of what we could call an orgasmic response:

• Increased heart rate and blood pressure
• Increased muscle tension
• A flush of your skin
• A release of tension followed sometimes by a feeling of deep relaxation

But you might experience one or several of these things and not “feel” like you had an orgasm.

So how can you tell if you’ve had an orgasm? Most people would probably respond by saying “you’ll know when you’ve had one”. This always sounds a little condescending to me though, and if you’ve never had one, how could you know?

Instead I would just ask you whether or not the sex play you’re having is pleasurable. Does it feel good? Does it feel like something you want to do more? Are there times during sex when you want to say or do something but you hold yourself back? Holding back is one way you might be reducing the pleasure you’re feeling, including orgasms.

Trying to figure out if you’ve had an orgasm can also be a dead end, because if you’ve had one, does that mean you stop exploring other ways of feeling good or having orgasms? It’s a cliché, but a true one, that sex is about the journey not the destination. Focusing on orgasm is like driving down a one way street that stops at the river. If you focus instead on sexual pleasure, on how you respond and what you can feel, you don’t have to stop at the river bank; you get to jump in the river and float with the current, and you never know where you’ll end up.

FRESH comes to Mt Gambier

Not long now till the the FRESH course comes to Mt Gambier. We had a lot of interest from the folks there but we still have quite a few spaces left in the course.

Click on the picture for more details.

Men, Power, Hypersexuality

"What the media, and subsequently consumers, often misunderstand - and how could they know? - is that men with the triple threat of good looks, money, and power can often have a sordid history of sexually acting out. We seem to be shocked when a prominent figure gets caught in a less than desirable circumstance, but if we look deeper we begin to see an explicit pattern of compulsive and addictive sexual behavior that is only fuelled over time as their power and influence increase."

Sound interesting? Go here to read more of whats happening in this area.

SHine recruiting Y@

Dare to tell it like

it is?

Aged 14 - 23?

SHine SA is now recruiting for our Youth Action Team (Y@).

Apply to be a Sexual Health Peer Educator!

Training for new Y@s scheduled for July 19 and 20!

Becoming a Y@ Team member can be a challenging and rewarding experience:

• help to promote sexual health at Community events and programs.




• receive free sexual health and leadership training that can count towards your studies.




• Y@ members have had the opportunity to present at international conferences and forums.

For more information visit www.shinesa.org.au

Christies Beach - (08) 8186 8600 Davoren Park - (08) 8256 0700 Woodville (08) 8300 5300