Day: January 25, 2009

Dangers Of Lesbian Sex

Lesbians are just as likely as heterosexual women to get sexually transmitted diseases such as hepatitis and genital herpes, Australian researchers said on Tuesday.

Women who have sex with other women were thought to have a small chance of acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs), but a study by scientists from the Sexual Health Unit in Alice Springs, Australia, showed their risk is just as high as other women.

“We demonstrated a higher prevalence of bacterial vaginosis (vaginal disease), Hepatitis C and HIV and Aids risk behaviours in women who have sex with other women compared with controls,” Dr Katherine Fethers said in a report in the journal, Sexually Transmitted Infections.

The researchers compared the medical histories and sexual behaviour of 1 408 lesbians and 1 423 heterosexual women who attended a sexual health clinic in Sydney between March 1991 and December 1998.

“All women with a history of sex with a woman were compared with women who denied ever having sex with another woman,” Fethers explained.

She and her colleagues said only seven percent of the women who had female sex partners said they had never had sex with a man. But they were more likely to have had a relationship with a gay or bisexual man and to have had more partners than the other women during their lifetime.

“These data argue strongly for increased measures to improve our understanding of the sexual health of women who have sex with women,” Fethers added.

She also called for more basic research into STIs, including the HIV virus that causes Aids, and targeted intervention strategies for women with female sex partners. – Reuters

Geez! Suck All The Fun Outta Sex!

While research shows that sex can indeed trigger heart attacks in some people, especially men, the odds of literally succumbing to passion are very low. Sexual activity is a contributing factor in less than 1 percent of heart attacks, according to a 1996 study by Harvard Medical School researchers.

Although heart attacks during sex are rare, no one wants to be among the unlucky few who die while getting lucky. So if you have cardiovascular disease (CVD), or even if it runs in your family, it’s important to ask your doctor what type of sexual activity is safe. If you’ve just had a heart attack, for instance, you should wait three to four weeks before having intercourse, according to current guidelines.

The physical danger posed by sexual activity is probably the least of your problems, however. There are plenty of other ways for heart disease to curtail your sex life. Everything from incision pain following bypass surgery to the emotional stress of living with a heart condition can get in the way of intimacy.

Sexual activity and heart conditions can interact in complicated ways, which can be difficult to tease apart. To make matters worse, heart patients (and their partners) are often uncomfortable discussing their sex lives with their doctors and vice versa.

The link between cardiovascular disease and sexual dysfunction is well established, at least in men. Researchers have known for years that erectile dysfunction (ED) is disproportionately common among men with CVD (and even among those with risk factors for CVD, such as diabetes and high blood pressure). While erectile dysfunction can result from a number of factors, including psychological ones, the majority of cases can be traced to vascular problems.

The shared mechanism linking ED and CVD is believed to originate in the endothelium, the thin layer of cells that lines blood vessels. Risk factors such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and cigarette smoking prevent cells in the endothelium from releasing nitric oxide. This compromises the ability of blood vessels to dilate, which can lead to both atherosclerosis and erectile dysfunction.

Atherosclerosis, the hardening and narrowing of the arteries that causes coronary heart disease, can affect the arteries that pump blood into the penis just as readily as those that surround the heart. But endothelial problems can also prevent the so-called smooth muscle in the penis from relaxing properly. In either case, erections become harder to sustain.

For a long time it was thought that ED was strictly a side effect of CVD and atherosclerosis, but experts now believe that ED may actually precede heart problems. A 2005 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association described ED as a “harbinger” of cardiovascular events.

The study, which analyzed more than 4,000 men without symptoms of CVD or ED, found that the men who subsequently experienced ED were nearly 50 percent more likely than those who did not to experience a cardiovascular event within seven years.

I say “screw it” if I gotta die at least I gonna die with a smile on my face.