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	<title>Health &#38; FamilyCategory: Sex &#124; Health &#38; Family &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Health &#38; FamilyCategory: Sex &#124; Health &#38; Family &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Study: Porn May Not Be Such a Bad Influence on Sexual Behavior</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/25/suggestive-study-porn-may-be-less-terrible-for-young-people-than-previously-thought/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/25/suggestive-study-porn-may-be-less-terrible-for-young-people-than-previously-thought/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:45:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Katy Steinmetz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pornography]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sexual promiscuity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sexually explicit material porn]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=85571</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Studies have linked porn consumption to sexual aggression, problems with intimate relationships and losing one’s virginity at an earlier age. But the influence of sexually explicit material on some risky behaviors may be more modest than previously thought. In a new study published by the Journal of Sexual Medicine, four researchers argue that previous studies on the subject have been too narrowly focused when it comes to drawing a connection between X-rated materials and negative outcomes. Such research has often asked some form of the same question: whether what people see will affect what people do — and the results didn’t paint porn in a flattering light. The latest study found that the connection may be less significant than other studies have suggested, though the work still provided plenty of support for the antipornography contingent. University of Copenhagen’s Gert Martin Hald and colleagues conducted an online survey of 4,600 young people asking about a broad range of sexual acts, from threesomes to experience with one-night stands to prostitution. They found that among the 15-to-25-year-old participants, almost 90% of males and nearly half of females reported that they had used porn some time in the previous year, the vast majority of which was online. And there is some evidence that widespread access to the Internet, with its triple-X domains, may be pushing exposure up. In 1973, for example, a study found that 84% of men and 69% of adult women had seen pornography, the majority before the age of 21. Thirty-five years later, a 2008 survey in CyberPsychology &#38; Behavior revealed that 93% of boys and 62% of girls had encountered dirty material online before they hit age 18. (MORE: More Sex Partners Linked to Higher Risk of Drug Addiction, Alcoholism) Heightened exposure, Hald found, was associated with high-risk sexual practices like accepting some kind of payment for sex. He and his team also tied porn usage to “adventurous” behaviors, like having “real-life sex” with someone they met online, which some experts believe may lead to increased rates of sexually transmitted diseases.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=85571&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Sex</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/love-relationships/sex-love-relationships/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/157645183.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">White Pillows on a bed</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/05bfb17f05eff70efc8061bb1a213e86?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Katy Steinmetz</media:title>
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	</item>
		<item>
		<title>More Sex Partners Linked to Higher Risk of Drug Addiction, Alcoholism</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/25/more-sex-partners-linked-to-higher-risk-of-drug-addiction-alcoholism/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/25/more-sex-partners-linked-to-higher-risk-of-drug-addiction-alcoholism/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:30:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Addiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[alcoholism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drugs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[marijuana addiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[multiple sexual partners]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sex]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=80977</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[And the risk is especially great for women, according to new research. Researchers explored the relationship between addictions and risky sexual behavior in a report published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. They followed virtually all of the 1037 children born between 1972 and 1973 in Dunedin, New Zealand, and asked about their sexual partners as well as alcohol and other drug use. Women who had more than two to three sex partners when they were 18 years to 20 years old were nearly 10 times more likely than those who had none or one sexual partner to develop a drug problem, primarily involving alcohol or marijuana, at age 21. MORE: Study Supports Sex Addiction as Diagnosis-Worthy Disorder Having more than two to three partners from age 21 to age 25 increased addiction risk at age 26 by a factor of 7.  And at age 32, the risk was nearly 18 times greater for women who had more than two to three partners when they were aged 26 to 31 compared to those with one or no partners during that time. The risks for men were also increased, but not by as much.  More than one sex partner from age 18 to age 20 nearly tripled the risk of a serious substance use disorder at 21— and having more than two to three partners quadrupled that risk for men of that age. While the connection isn&#8217;t surprising, the implications could be profound. The CDC reports [PDF] that 24% of women aged 20 to 24 have had two or more partners in the past year; the number for men was 29%.  And women in particular may be likely to under-report this number. The results were adjusted to take into account the effect that mental illnesses may have on risky sexual behavior, including having multiple partners; the researchers also tried controlling for socioeconomic status but found that the strong relationship between multiple sex partners and drug addiction and alcoholism stayed the same. The authors also limited the study to heterosexual sex,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=80977&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/25/more-sex-partners-linked-to-higher-risk-of-drug-addiction-alcoholism/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Addiction</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/addiction/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/115618568.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">115618568</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/0a5ac57e99124922fa628492ad3db6b2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Study Supports Sex Addiction as a Diagnosis-Worthy Disorder</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/24/study-supports-sex-addiction-as-a-diagnosis-worthy-disorder/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/24/study-supports-sex-addiction-as-a-diagnosis-worthy-disorder/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Oct 2012 14:00:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Addiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Love & Relationships]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=72214</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Is sex addiction a real disorder— or just an excuse for bad behavior? The condition—now labeled &#8220;hypersexual disorder&#8221;— is up for consideration as a diagnosis to be included as a research topic in the next edition of psychiatry’s diagnostic manual, the DSM-5. A new study provides support for its inclusion. MORE: DSM-5 Debate: Committee Backs Off Some Changes, Re-Opens Comments In a paper published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine researchers studied 207 people who had visited outpatient clinics and reported problematic sexual behavior.  The clinics offered either specific counseling and treatment for sexual addiction or more general treatment for drug addiction or psychiatric problems. The participants were randomly selected among those seeking admission whose problems included at least some compulsive sexual behavior. The authors used the criteria proposed for DSM-5 to make the diagnosis.  So for at least six months, a person must suffer from a preoccupation with sex or sexual fantasies and repeatedly engage in related behaviors to the point where it risks causing harm and significantly impairs normal functioning in work and relationships. In addition, the behavior must occur not just while the person is drunk or high, and the potentially addicted person should have tried and failed repeatedly to change their behavior without success.  The compulsive behavior must also occur either in response to stress or negative emotional experiences or both. MORE: What Counts as Crazy? That rules out the average case of cheating, primarily because it isn&#8217;t associated with such repetitive, compulsive behavior. “[C]ommon behaviors such as brief sexual encounters with unfamiliar partners, multiple [adulterous] affairs or frequent pornography consumption do not satisfy the symptom criteria unless they are concurrently associated with a broader spectrum of pathological expression for a period of at least 6 months,” the authors write. In fact, only one of the 20 people who  sought help primarily for drug addiction also turned out to have hypersexual disorder — and only three of those who sought psychiatric care for disorders like anxiety or depression were also diagnosed with the condition.  Of those<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=72214&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/24/study-supports-sex-addiction-as-a-diagnosis-worthy-disorder/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Addiction</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/addiction/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/1500_sex_1024.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Study Supports Sex Addiction as a Diagnosis-Worthy Disorder</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>In a Rush to Mature: Study Finds Boys Hitting Puberty Earlier than Ever</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/22/in-a-rush-to-mature-study-finds-boys-hitting-puberty-earlier-than-ever/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/22/in-a-rush-to-mature-study-finds-boys-hitting-puberty-earlier-than-ever/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 18:00:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura Blue</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Child Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gender]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sexual Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sexuality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BPA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environmental estrogens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[estrogen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[first period]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[menarche]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[menses]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[puberty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sexual maturity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sexuality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[testosterone]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=72089</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Puberty usually hits boys later than girls, at an average age of 11. But according to new research published in the journal Pediatrics, U.S. boys are now experiencing the first signs of sexual maturation &#8212; genital growth, testicular enlargement, and the appearance of pubic hair &#8212; roughly 6 months to 2 years earlier than boys at similar ages just a few decades ago. Pediatricians now find that the earliest stage of male puberty occurs, on average, at age of 10.14 years among non-Hispanic whites, at 10.4 years among Hispanics, and at just 9.14 years among African Americans. &#8220;All parents need to know whether their sons are maturing within the contemporary age range, but, until now, this has not been known for U.S. boys,&#8221; pediatrics researcher and study author Richard Wasserman said in a statement. MORE: Girls, Interrupted This new research comes from the very same group that showed, almost 15 years ago, that girls in the U.S. are hitting puberty earlier than they used to as well. In a landmark paper in 1997, scholars and clinicians from the Pediatric Research in Office Settings program (PROS) showed that girls were reporting their first menstrual period and breast development 6 months to a year earlier than outdated clinical textbooks were listing as the average maturation age at the time. That trend toward earlier puberty in girls is now widely accepted. But, until now, it hasn&#8217;t been clear whether boys were part of the earlier sexual maturity as well. That&#8217;s because boys don&#8217;t have the same kind of clear, easily measured marker of puberty onset as the first period, or menarche.  For boys, the first signs of puberty appear more gradually, including those outcomes measured in this new Pediatrics study: testicle growth, penis growth, and the emergence of pubic hair. Testicular growth, for example, is much harder for the pediatrician to assess quickly by sight alone than, say, breast development is in girls. For these reasons, until now, researchers have simply had less data about puberty timing among males than among females, and researchers<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=72089&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Adolescence</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adolescence-mental-health/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/143176169.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Little boy shaving</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">Laura Blue</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Teen Sexting Linked to Real-World Risky Sexual Behavior</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/17/teen-sexting-linked-to-real-world-risky-sexual-behavior/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/17/teen-sexting-linked-to-real-world-risky-sexual-behavior/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:30:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alexandra Sifferlin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Love & Relationships]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[risky sexual behavior]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sexting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teens]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=69039</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Teens who send and receive sexually explicit texts or photos, colloquially known as &#8220;sexting,&#8221; are likely engaging in the same kinds of risky sexual behaviors offline, finds a new survey of Los Angeles high school students. The recent survey of about 1,800 mostly Hispanic L.A. students, ages 12 to 18, found that teens who said they had sexted were seven times more likely to be sexually active than their peers who had never sent a naughty text. About three-quarters of surveyed teens had cell phones they used regularly; 15% had sexted and 54% said they knew someone who had. Kids who said their friends were sexting were 17 times more likely to sext themselves. Although only a minority of teens engaged in sexting, those who did were not only more likely to be sexually active, but they also had higher chances of having unprotected sex during their last sexual encounter. (MORE: Kids Sexting May Not Be as Big a Problem as We Thought) The findings suggest that teens are not necessarily using sexting as a safer alternative to real sex, as some previous data has indicated, which raises public health concerns about the link between digital sexual behavior and real-world risks of sexually transmitted infection and other risks. &#8220;No one&#8217;s actually going to get a sexually transmitted disease because they&#8217;re sexting,&#8221; Eric Rice, the study&#8217;s lead researcher from the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, told Reuters Health. &#8220;What we really wanted to know is, Is there a link between sexting and taking risks with your body? And the answer is a pretty resounding &#8216;yes.&#8217;&#8221; Among the study&#8217;s participants, those most likely to sext were black teens and LGBT teens. The authors call on parents, doctors and educators to increase conversations about sexting with teens, but they highlight the importance of targeting these particularly higher-risk groups: Engaging in such a conversation is applicable for adolescents of all sexual orientations; however, it may be even more important with sexual minority adolescents (LGBTQ), as these individuals are more likely to be<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=69039&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Teens</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/family-parenting/teens-family-parenting/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/sexting-texting.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">sexting texting</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">asifferlin</media:title>
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		<title>Why Sex Doesn&#8217;t Gross You Out When You&#8217;re Aroused</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/14/why-sex-doesnt-gross-you-out-when-youre-aroused/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/14/why-sex-doesnt-gross-you-out-when-youre-aroused/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alexandra Sifferlin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Love & Relationships]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arousal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[disgust response]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sexual arousal]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=68874</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you think about it, sex is actually sort of disgusting, what with all the sweat, saliva, fluids and smells. So much so that a group of researchers from the Netherlands got to thinking, How do people enjoy sex at all? According to their small new study, people — at least women — may be able to get over the &#8220;ick&#8221; factor associated with sex by getting turned on. Sexual arousal overrides the natural disgust response, the researchers found, and allows women to willingly engage in behaviors that they might normally find repugnant. The study, conducted by scientists at the University of Groningen, involved 90 women who were randomly assigned to one of three groups. One group watched a &#8220;female friendly&#8221; erotic video; another watched a video of high-adrenaline sports like skydiving or rafting, designed to be arousing but not sexually so; and the third group watched a neutral video clip of a train. Afterward, all the women were asked to perform 16 tasks, most of them icky, like drinking from a cup with a bug in it (the bug was fake), wiping their hands with a used tissue, eating a cookie that was next to a live worm or putting their finger in a tray of used condoms. (MORE: The Ancient Sexual Revolution that May Have Spurred Human Monogamy) The researchers found that the women who watched the sexually arousing video rated the unpleasant tasks as less disgusting than did their counterparts who were not sexually aroused. They were also more likely to complete more of the tasks, suggesting that sexual arousal not only dampens the disgust response but also influences how much women are willing to do. That helps explain why so many people keep having sex, despite the inherent messiness of it, the researchers said. &#8220;The findings indicate that both the impact of heightened sexual arousal on subjective disgust and also on disgust-induced avoidance will act in a way to facilitate the engagement in pleasurable sex,&#8221; the authors wrote. Previous studies suggest that sexual arousal has the same<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=68874&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Sex</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/love-relationships/sex-love-relationships/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/97539829.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">97539829</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/dd9dc95ff828efb70c16a5a509a75150?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">asifferlin</media:title>
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		<title>Nearly 1 in 3 Teens Sext, Study Says. Is This Cause for Worry?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/02/nearly-1-in-3-teens-sext-study-says-is-this-cause-for-worry/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/02/nearly-1-in-3-teens-sext-study-says-is-this-cause-for-worry/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Jul 2012 21:01:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Love & Relationships]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sexuality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sext]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sexting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teen sexting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teen sexuality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teenagers]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=63146</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Nearly 1 in 3 teens has sent a nude picture of him or herself to someone else, and more than half have been asked to do so, according to new research on nearly 1,000 Texas teens. The study, published Monday in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, also found that teen “sexting” is strongly linked to actual sexual behavior. About 77% of girls aged 14 to 19 who had sent a sext reported having had intercourse, compared with 42% of those who hadn’t sexted. For boys, 82% of those who had sexted had had sex, while 46% of non-sexters had done so. The study included teens in the 10th and 11th grades, with an average age of about 16 (the overall age range spanned 14 to 19). The new research suggests that sexting is far more common than past data have indicated. For example, one previous national study of more than 1,500 youth, published in the journal Pediatrics, found that just 1% of children and teens had sent a sext and 7% had received one. The authors of the new study, led by Jeff Temple of the University of Texas Medical Branch, take issue with the sampling of that data, however, noting that it included mainly white teens from two-parent families and many with higher-than-average incomes. In contrast, the teens included in Temple&#8217;s study, recruited from seven public schools, were relatively evenly split between black, white and Hispanic students, with smaller percentages of Asians and mixed-race teens. But a co-author of the Pediatrics paper, David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, finds the sampling in the newer research problematic as well. “The [authors] don’t describe how the schools were chosen and there’s no analysis of nonresponse,” says Finkelhor, noting that since parental permission was required for participation in the current study, those whose parents said no and were excluded might have been less likely to sext. However, the new research does conform with earlier studies in another way, suggesting that sexts<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=63146&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/02/nearly-1-in-3-teens-sext-study-says-is-this-cause-for-worry/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Teens</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/family-parenting/teens-family-parenting/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/106062147a.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">106062147a</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/0a5ac57e99124922fa628492ad3db6b2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>The Ancient Sexual Revolution that May Have Spurred Human Monogamy</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/29/the-ancient-sexual-revolution-that-may-have-spurred-human-monogamy/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/29/the-ancient-sexual-revolution-that-may-have-spurred-human-monogamy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 29 May 2012 10:45:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Love & Relationships]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Romance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[evolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[love]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[monogamy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pair bonds]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[promiscuity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[romantic love]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sarah Hrdy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sergey Gavrilets]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=60514</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Monogamous, romantic love — or, more prosaically, pair-bonding — may have evolved in a sexual revolution that could have laid down the roots of the modern family, according to an intriguing new mathematical model. Researchers have long wondered why — unlike our sexually promiscuous chimpanzee-like ancestors — humans developed strong pair bonds with individual partners. It&#8217;s thought that at one time, human ancestors did engage in chimp-like habits of sex and child-rearing, in which strong alpha males mated freely with the females of their choice, and then left the child-raising duties to them. So, the question is, How did we got from there to the modern-day monogamous, two-parent family? “People have been discussing ways by which the transition from promiscuity to pair-bonding could have occurred and there are various different scenarios,” says study author Sergey Gavrilets, distinguished professor of ecology, evolutionary biology and mathematics at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. “What I’ve done is shown mathematically that some of these scenarios are more likely than others.” Gavrilets study suggests that a sexual revolution occurred, led by low-ranked males and faithful females. Low-ranked males, who had no hope of physically overcoming the dominant members of their groups, instead began providing extra food to certain females, to curry sexual favor. These females responded by remaining faithful to their breadwinning males. That change in behavior favored the reproductive success of these monogamous couples — pair-bonding offered a greater likelihood that their children, who took a lot of effort to raise, would survive — ultimately moving humanity away from a promiscuous mating system dominated by alpha and beta males. (MORE: What the U.S. Can Learn from the Dutch About Teen Sex) Gavrilets reasons that males in promiscuous hierarchical species face a dilemma because the alpha and beta males tend to get all the mating action. Lower-ranking guys have two choices: either compete their way to the top and win reproductive opportunities, or look for ways to beat the system. “They can put effort into achieving high-dominance status. If they do, they will have<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=60514&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Sex</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/love-relationships/sex-love-relationships/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/monogamy.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/monogamy.jpg?w=240" />
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			<media:title type="html">monogamy</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/0a5ac57e99124922fa628492ad3db6b2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
		</media:content>
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		<item>
		<title>Surgeon Claims to Have Found the &#8216;G-Spot&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/04/25/surgeon-claims-to-have-found-the-g-spot/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/04/25/surgeon-claims-to-have-found-the-g-spot/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:45:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Anne Harding/Health.com</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=58198</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Eureka! A retired professor of gynecology is claiming to have found anatomical proof of the existence of the &#8220;G-spot,&#8221; the quasi-mythical erogenous zone that is said to bring on vaginal orgasms in some women. In a paper published this week in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, Dr. Adam Ostrzenski describes a sac-like structure roughly one-eighth of an inch in diameter, located on the front wall of the vagina. Ostrzenski, the director of the Institute of Gynecology in St. Petersburg, Fla., identified the cluster of tissue during a layer-by-layer dissection of the vaginal wall of an 83-year-old Polish woman who had died 24 hours earlier. If confirmed in future research, this finding could shine a light on female sexual function and even open the door to surgical enhancement of the G-spot, Ostrzenski says. Next month, he&#8217;s planning to travel back to Poland to conduct additional dissections and study the tissues in more detail. The structure may look different in younger individuals, and its location and size is likely to vary from woman to woman, he says. (Health.com: Top 10 Myths About Safe Sex and Sexual Health) Experts not involved in the research are skeptical that this is a notable or relevant discovery, however. The structure Ostrzenski describes may well be a network of blood vessels that contributes to sexual arousal, but it almost certainly does not explain the entire G-spot phenomenon, says Dr. Emmanuele Jannini, a professor of endocrinology and sexology at the University of L&#8217;Aquila, in Italy. &#8220;The G-spot is not just a spot; it&#8217;s something much more complex,&#8221; says Jannini, who has used ultrasound to search for the G-spot in his own research. &#8220;Something is there. We may call it a G-spot or not — it doesn&#8217;t matter.&#8221; Ostrzenski&#8217;s paper, moreover, does not contain any information on the deceased woman&#8217;s medical history or sexual function, so it&#8217;s impossible to know whether she experienced the vaginal orgasms associated with the G-spot, says Dr. Amichai Kilchevsky, a urologist at the Yale School of Medicine, in New Haven, Conn. &#8220;I&#8217;m not sure<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=58198&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Sex</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/love-relationships/sex-love-relationships/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/g-spot.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/g-spot.jpg?w=240" />
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			<media:title type="html">g spot</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/2bb250e13874b7277d8461b22175b47d?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">annehardingtime</media:title>
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		<title>Could the &#8216;Cuddle Chemical&#8217; Oxytocin Improve Male Sexual Function?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/04/09/could-the-cuddle-chemical-oxytocin-improve-male-sexual-function/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/04/09/could-the-cuddle-chemical-oxytocin-improve-male-sexual-function/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:16:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[asperger's syndrome]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[oxytocin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sexual dysfunction]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=56985</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Watch out, Viagra! The hormone oxytocin may also improve sexual function — at least in men with Asperger’s syndrome — according to a published case report. Doctors at the San Diego Medical Center discovered this side effect of the so-called love hormone while treating a 32-year-old father of three who had been diagnosed with ADHD and fit the criteria for Asperger’s, a high-functioning form of autism. The patient, a successful businessman, was married but otherwise mostly unsocial, with what the researchers described as an “innate aversion to social relationships.” He told them he knew “he should mix more.” Medication for the ADHD and treatment with antidepressants for his social anxiety had failed, the latter resulting mainly in sexual dysfunction that was not relieved by medications. Since some research suggests that oxytocin can improve social functioning, the patient agreed to an “off label” trial of the drug, which can be administered as a nasal spray. Neither the doctor nor the patient was expecting a change in sexual function. Oxytocin, a naturally occurring hormone, is thought to be critical in helping form the bonds that unite monogamous mammals — both humans and animals — and parents and their offspring. In humans, it has been shown to increase trust and the ability to read social signals, and it is currently being tested for the treatment of depression, schizophrenia and Asperger’s. Oxytocin isn’t all about love and cuddles, however: some research also shows that it can increase people&#8217;s feelings of prejudice toward outsiders and may exacerbate negative feelings in those who grew up without nurturing parents. MORE: ‘Love Hormone’ Oxytocin Enhances Men’s Memories of Mom — Good or Bad In the current case study, published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, the drug produced small but noticeable improvements in the patient&#8217;s social behavior that were remarked upon both by colleagues at work and by the man’s wife. She reported that “he wants to be closer,” which led to more intimacy. The biggest change, however, was seen in the bedroom. The man experienced a 46%<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=56985&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Sex</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/love-relationships/sex-love-relationships/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/103219372.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/103219372.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/103219372.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">103219372</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/0a5ac57e99124922fa628492ad3db6b2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
		</media:content>
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		<item>
		<title>Moms Gone Wild for Fifty Shades of Grey</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/04/02/moms-gone-wild-for-fifty-shades-trilogy/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/04/02/moms-gone-wild-for-fifty-shades-trilogy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Apr 2012 19:30:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>TIME.com</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[e.l. james]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fifty shades of grey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mommy porn]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=56583</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Swooning fans of the erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey — critics call it &#8220;mommy porn&#8221; — meet author E.L. James and explain why, as one woman put it, you can have &#8220;an orgasm just from reading the book.&#8221; Watch the video, above, and read TIME&#8217;s story about James here.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=56583&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Sex</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/love-relationships/sex-love-relationships/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/44310a1af940f994952d1e4db73096cd?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">TIME.com</media:title>
		</media:content>
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		<title>How a Fertile Woman Affects the Way Men Talk</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/16/how-a-fertile-woman-affects-the-way-men-talk/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/16/how-a-fertile-woman-affects-the-way-men-talk/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Mar 2012 10:45:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bonnie Rochman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Men & Women]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Romance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sexuality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fertility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[linguistic matching]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[men]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ovulation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sentence structure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[women]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=55323</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Women can be a powerful force, capable of making smitten men do all sorts of things, including adjust the way they talk to more closely match a woman’s speech patterns. Conversation partners aligning the way they speak is often thought to indicate affiliation between two people. Have a chat with someone who curses liberally, for example, and the likelihood is good that you’ll drop a swear word too. While matching linguistic styles is a documented phenomenon, what’s particularly interesting is that new research shows that higher levels of female fertility are linked to lower levels of linguistic matching from male conversation partners. According to a study published last month in the journal PLoS ONE, researchers interpret this to mean that men are trying to distinguish themselves in the mating process by being unconventional. What’s more, they don’t seem to even realize they ‘re doing it. MORE: Is He Gay? Ovulating Women Can Tell Jacqueline Coyle, an adjunct professor of human factors and systems at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, followed 123 male undergraduate students who interacted with five female undergraduate students at various points throughout the women’s menstrual cycles. The women, whose menstrual cycles were tracked, weren’t relying on hormonal contraception. In the study, a man and woman alternated describing a picture to one another. The woman used a script in order to help researchers more clearly see how men’s sentence structure correlated with women’s. Where a woman was in her monthly menstrual was also noted. The closer to ovulation a woman was in her cycle, the less likely a man was to mimic her sentence structure. “This finding demonstrates that men may use creative or non-conforming language as a means of attracting a potential romantic partner,” says Coyle. In another study, Coyle flip-flopped the approach and repeated the experiment using 47 female undergraduate students. Women behaved more conventionally: their fertility level did not appear to affect the degree to which they matched their conversation partner&#8217;s sentence structure. In other words, the effect seems specific to men. MORE: The Crying Game: Women’s Tears Dial Down<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=55323&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Men &amp; Women</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/love-relationships/men-women/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/360_hl_whisper_1031.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">360_hl_whisper_1031</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/ccc18529897902c0767bf2d7d088828e?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">brochman</media:title>
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		<title>Teen Sex Ed: Instead of Promoting Promiscuity, It Delays First Sex</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/09/sex-ed-instead-of-promoting-promiscuity-it-encourages-teens-to-delay-first-sex/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/09/sex-ed-instead-of-promoting-promiscuity-it-encourages-teens-to-delay-first-sex/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Mar 2012 13:30:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bonnie Rochman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[abstinence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[contraception]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[first sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Guttmacher]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sex ed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sexual education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[virginity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=55004</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The relationship between abstinence, contraception, sex and teens is nothing if not complicated. On Tuesday, it got even more tangled as Utah lawmakers gave a nod to what could become the nation’s most restrictive sex-education policy if it passes: no talk of contraception and no mention of homosexuality. No mention of much, in fact, besides an emphasis on abstinence before marriage, if that. Then on Thursday, the Guttmacher Institute, which conducts reproductive health research, came out with a study that suggests censoring sex ed won’t actually lead to teens safeguarding their virginity until they slip on a wedding ring. But sex ed classes, even the really G-rated ones, get teens to wait longer before they start having sex. Sex ed leads teens and young adults to delay sexual intercourse, according to the research, which relied on data from the National Center for Health Statistics on about 4,691 women and men between the ages of 15 and 24. “There is an incorrect belief that talking to teens about sex promotes sex,” says study author Laura Lindberg, a senior research associate at Guttmacher. MORE: Am I Pretty or Ugly? Why Teen Girls Are Asking YouTube for Validation Among those who hadn’t received sex-ed instruction before first sex, 86% of girls and 88% of boys had intercourse before they turned 20. Compare that to 78% of boys and 77% of girls who’d received sex ed. The difference may not be huge but it is significant, especially considering that the national average age of first sex is about 17 or so. These kids aren’t yet voting or legally drinking, but they are potentially making babies. “It’s not just the delay in first sex that’s important,” says Lindberg. “It’s that being older at first sex in and of itself is related to more positive sexual behaviors such as being more likely to use birth control and less likely to get pregnant. The fact that sex ed can delay sex a little still has big influences down the road.” According to the study, 24% of boys didn’t receive any<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=55004&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Sex</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/love-relationships/sex-love-relationships/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/condom.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">condom</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">brochman</media:title>
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		<title>QR Codes on Condoms: ‘Check-Ins’ Let You Share Your Safe Sex</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/01/qr-coded-condom-check-ins-let-you-share-your-safe-sex/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/01/qr-coded-condom-check-ins-let-you-share-your-safe-sex/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:45:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alexandra Sifferlin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[condoms]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sexual health]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=54334</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you’re a social media junkie, you likely share plenty of your personal life online already. But are you &#8220;checking in&#8221; when you have sex? A new site, launched by Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest (PPGNW), allows you to share with the world where you&#8217;re doing the deed. You can even check in while you&#8217;re doing it — if you&#8217;ve got a smartphone and the right kind of condom. In honor of National Condom Week last week, PPGNW recently distributed 55,000 condoms with QR codes — scannable barcodes — to colleges, universities and Planned Parenthood locations in Washington State. Users can scan the QR code on the condom wrapper with their smartphone and report their location to wheredidyouwearit.com — it&#8217;s &#8220;like Foursquare for people who don’t want a sexually transmitted infection,&#8221; said PPGNW — where an interactive map pinpoints exactly where (down to the city and state at least) people are safely getting frisky. (LIST: Eco-Friendly Sex Aids) According to PPGNW, the new safe-sex campaign has taken off: people have already checked in from 48 states and six continents. (You can check in directly on the site, even if you don&#8217;t have a QR-coded condom.) You can also rate the quality of your latest sexual escapade on a five-point scale from &#8220;Things can only improve from here&#8221; to &#8220;Ah-maz-ing — Rainbows exploded and mountains trembled.” The site is searchable by gender, orientation, age, location and other filters, in case you&#8217;re curious about what your neighbors have been up to. But the real goal of &#8220;Where Did You Wear It&#8221; is, of course, to promote safe sex and to normalize condom use by showing how common it is. “Condoms are an essential tool in preventing unintended pregnancy and stopping the spread of sexually transmitted infections including HIV,” said Nathan Engebretson, PPGNW&#8217;s new media coordinator, in a statement. “We hope the site promotes discussions within relationships about condoms and helps to remove perceived stigmas that some people may have about condom use.” (MORE: L.A. Mayor Signs Law Requiring Condoms in Porn Films) The<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=54334&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/01/qr-coded-condom-check-ins-let-you-share-your-safe-sex/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
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	<primary_category>Sex</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/love-relationships/sex-love-relationships/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/condoms.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">condoms</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">asifferlin</media:title>
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		<title>Why France Pays for Postpartum Women to &#8220;Re-Educate&#8221; their Vagina</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/22/why-france-pays-for-postpartum-women-to-re-educate-their-vagina/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/22/why-france-pays-for-postpartum-women-to-re-educate-their-vagina/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:15:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bonnie Rochman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pregnancy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bringing Up Bebe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[childbirth]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Claire Lundberg]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[French]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kegel exercises]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[la rééducation périnéale]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pamela Druckerman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Slate]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=53840</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[France has been in the parenting headlines a good bit lately. First there was the release of Bringing Up Bébé, a treatise on why French kids are better eaters and sleepers, more well-mannered and less prone to meltdowns than American children. Author Pamela Druckerman built the case that France knows a thing or two about raising children that U.S. parents have yet to grasp. Now Claire Lundberg puts in another plug for the Gallic people, sharing on Slate, in unblushing detail, how the French government foots the bill for la rééducation périnéale for new moms — up to 20 sessions of physical therapy intended to firm and tone the postnatal pelvic floor. “Two months after our daughter was born,” she writes, “I summoned the courage to teach my vagina some new tricks.” MORE: Dad Raps About Wife’s Labor Contractions: Can Humor Ease the Pain of Delivery? Perhaps the most captivating part of Lundberg&#8217;s essay is her clever use of euphemisms for the female sex organ. Hearing the word vagina over and over can &#8220;can make people a little squeamish,&#8221; she notes, which is why Lundberg offers up some creative options: wuzza, vajinga and shnush, to name a few. Nearly as captivating is the explanation of why Francophile ladies have, since 1985, been the recipients of government-subsidized manual and biofeedback therapy for their nether regions: “It being France, everyone wants you to be able to have sex with your husband again as soon as possible. (You’ve gotta get that area back in shape before he gets fed up with your recovery and finds a mistress!) On the other hand, the government also wants to make sure you can easily and safely have another child; thanks in part to official encouragement, the French birthrate is now the second-highest in EU, at 2.1.” Lundberg, at first incredulous over this French tradition, winds up extolling its physiological virtues. Yes, it’s embarrassing to have what amounts to a personal trainer for your vagina, but, she says, it actually works: There haven’t been extensive studies done,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=53840&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Pregnancy</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/family-parenting/pregnancy/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/200229372-001-resize.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">brochman</media:title>
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		<title>&#8216;Sonicated&#8217; Sperm: Could Ultrasound Be the Next Male Contraceptive?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/31/sonic-sperm-could-ultrasound-be-the-next-male-contraceptive/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/31/sonic-sperm-could-ultrasound-be-the-next-male-contraceptive/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:00:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alice Park</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Infertility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reproductive Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[contraception]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[infertility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[male contraception]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sperm count]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ultrasound]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=52666</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Condoms aren&#8217;t foolproof, and vasectomies may be too much so. Now researchers say they&#8217;re working on another contraceptive option for men that offers them more flexibility and control over their fertility. It’s based on ultrasound. Using sound waves in medicine isn’t new — obstetricians rely on them to take noninvasive pictures of a developing fetus, and cancer doctors use them to image tumors hidden deep in the body. Physical therapists employ ultrasound to heal damaged muscles. Now new data on rats shows that exposing testes to ultrasound can shut down sperm production — which could lead to an effective contraceptive. James Tsuruta, an assistant professor of pediatrics at University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and his colleagues report in the journal Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology that commonly used doses of ultrasound can lower rats’ sperm concentrations to 3 million per milliliter of semen; experts define low sperm counts in men as anything less than 20 million sperm per milliliter of semen. MORE: Male Contraception May Be a Reality Sooner than We Think “When we treated the rats in the study, it only took two weeks to shut down a process that is essential to the survival of any species,” says Tsuruta. “Males produce millions of sperm every day. So it’s a very, very robust system. To be able to turn that off — we are really excited to learn how this actually works.” Ultrasound generates heat by physically vibrating tissues with sound waves — similar to the way that microwave energy shakes up water molecules to heat up food. But the sound waves may also be working at a deeper level to change the tissues they affect; Tsuruta says when he compared rat testes exposed to ultrasound to testes heated to the same temperature without ultrasound, the ultrasound-treated testes showed a 10 times greater drop in sperm concentration. Research by other scientists suggests that ultrasound may disrupt the proteins in cells and even their gene expression, leading to alterations in the way these cells work. “Ultrasound can definitely change<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=52666&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Sex</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/love-relationships/sex-love-relationships/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/sperm.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">apark7</media:title>
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		<title>L.A. Mayor Signs Law Requiring Condoms in Porn Films</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/25/l-a-mayor-signs-law-requiring-condoms-in-porn-films/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/25/l-a-mayor-signs-law-requiring-condoms-in-porn-films/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:45:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Madison Gray</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[AIDS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sexual Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Adult Films]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[condoms]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[HIV]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Los Angeles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[porn]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=52174</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed into law this week an ordinance requiring porn actors to wear condoms while performing. The law will take effect 41 days after it is posted by the city clerk, which could happen before the end of the week, the Associated Press reports. Porn producers say the regulation may prompt them to leave L.A., which is regarded as the porn capital of the nation. As many as 90% of all porn films produced in the U.S. are made in L.A., mostly in the city&#8217;s San Fernando Valley. But porn producers, who insist that films with performers wearing condoms don&#8217;t sell as well as those without them, are threatening to move their productions outside of city limits. The L.A.-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation helped write the new law and has advocated for the regulation for many years. The group says condom requirements are crucial for protecting the health of porn actors — a cause that was bolstered by a recent moratorium on production after an L.A. adult-film actor tested positive for HIV. Production across the industry has been halted several times over the last decade because of concerns over HIV, the Los Angeles Times reports. Two porn performers who were infected with HIV have since become vocal advocates for mandatory condom use. The industry already requires porn actors to be tested for HIV every 30 days, and many film producers believe that is sufficient to protect health. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is now seeking to establish a similar condom requirement in L.A. County. The group is hoping to get the issue on the ballot for L.A. County voters to consider in the November election, or convince the County Board of Supervisors to pass its own law. Yet to be determined: how the new law will be enforced. The law will require porn filmmakers to pay a fee, which will then be used to pay for surprise inspections on sets. The AIDS group&#8217;s president Michael Weinstein told the AP that spot checks may be done by nurses or other<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=52174&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>AIDS</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/aids/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/newsfeed_adult_film_012412.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Adult film actress Carmen Luvana</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">joetimemag</media:title>
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		<title>&#8216;The Pregnancy Project&#8217;: Why One Girl Decided to Fake Her Baby Bump</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/25/why-one-girl-decided-to-fake-her-baby-bump-and-take-a-stand-on-teen-pregnancy/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/25/why-one-girl-decided-to-fake-her-baby-bump-and-take-a-stand-on-teen-pregnancy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:00:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bonnie Rochman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Childhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pregnancy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gaby Rodriguez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lifetime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pregnant]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teen pregnancy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Pregnancy Project]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toppenish High School]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=52107</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Last year, high school senior Gaby Rodriguez tucked a faux baby bump under her shirt and went to class. She attracted stares and the usual mean-spirited gossipy comments, all of which she jotted down. She then took her notes and parlayed them into a book, The Pregnancy Project, and a Lifetime movie of the same name that premieres on Jan. 28. What’s so epic about teen pregnancy that it warrants the one-two punch of a book-and-movie deal? Well, Rodriguez, from Toppenish, Wash., wasn’t really pregnant. It was all — surprise! — part of an academic exercise to examine stereotypes about teen pregnancy. Rodriguez&#8217;s charade angered some, who felt she was being disingenuous by lying to friends and family about her situation (her mother, boyfriend and principal knew about the deception). Others lauded her for calling attention to the U.S. teen pregnancy rate, which is the highest in the developed world. In her book, Rodriguez shares for the first time why she did what she did, and the explanation is a doozy: her mother Juana got pregnant at 14. Fourteen-year-olds are in eighth grade, for the most part. That’s not even high school age. Long before she could secure a learner’s permit, Rodriguez’s mother was preparing to raise a child. MORE: Half of Teen Moms Don’t Use Birth Control — Why That’s No Surprise &#8220;I wanted to do something that would impact my school and my community, and decided to start with something small, to bring an awareness of teen pregnancy,&#8221; Rodriguez told Publisher’s Weekly. &#8220;At a time in their lives when teens are becoming sexually active, they need to realize how the decisions they make now will ultimately affect their lives. And those teens who do become pregnant need to know that it’s not the end of the road. They can find support for themselves and their child, and can move forward.&#8221; Rodriguez is speaking from experience. Her mother married the 16-year-old father of her first baby and went on to have seven kids. Their three daughters (Rodriguez was born to<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=52107&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Pregnancy</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/family-parenting/pregnancy/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/pregnancyproject.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">pregnancyproject</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">brochman</media:title>
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		<title>Gingrich and the &#8216;Open Marriage&#8217; Question: How Newt Can Spin Things to His Advantage</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/20/gingrich-and-the-open-marriage-question-how-newt-can-spin-things-to-his-advantage/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/20/gingrich-and-the-open-marriage-question-how-newt-can-spin-things-to-his-advantage/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:45:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Belinda Luscombe</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Divorce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Relationships]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[affair]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Callista Bisek]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[campaign]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[infidelity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marianne Gingrich]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mitt romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[newt gingrich]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[open marriage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=51897</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Did the Speaker of the House really suggest to his second wife Marianne that they break their conjugal gridlock using a Newt-sharing program? Only two people know for sure: Marianne, who says her former husband did, in the death throes of their marriage, float the idea of opening the union to other trading partners, and Gingrich, who says that&#8217;s bunkum, that all their friends from that time will agree with him, and that to even ask him about it in a presidential debate &#8220;is as close to despicable as anything [he] can imagine.&#8221; But, honestly, how would these friends even know? Did the Gingriches mention it in their 1999 annual newsletter? &#8220;Considered open marriage. Decided against it. Merry Christmas!&#8221; Did Gingrich discuss it with buddies at the GOPAC? &#8220;Oh man, did my new initiative ever fail to make it through the house&#8230;&#8221; Can either of them even be relied on to retain an accurate memory of things that were said in as fraught a time as the end of a marriage? Marianne Gingrich appears to believe that her husband offered to stay married to her if she let him play house with then-congressional aide Callista Bisek, who is now his third wife. If that&#8217;s not what he had wanted, then he was either not on message or offering a straw man. Either way, it&#8217;s a mistake for Gingrich to act all huffy now about being asked about his ex-wife&#8217;s claims, which she is not, after all, making for the first time. You can say a lot of things about your spouse of 18 years, but you can&#8217;t pretend her opinion of you is ill-informed. When asked about the claims in the South Carolina debate, which was happening as Marianne&#8217;s interview aired on ABC on Thursday night, candidates Rick Santorum and Ron Paul talked vaguely about forgiveness and slipped in a reference to their own robust marriages, while Mitt Romney declined to weigh in, saying we needed to get back to the real issues. (Hello, Mr. Romney? If we&#8217;re thinking of<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=51897&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Sex</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/love-relationships/sex-love-relationships/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/gingrich.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">gingrich</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">blandnotblond</media:title>
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		<title>Drinking Encourages Unsafe Sex (Science Shows It!)</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/13/drinking-encourages-unsafe-sex-science-shows-it/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/13/drinking-encourages-unsafe-sex-science-shows-it/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:30:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Sora Song</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=48886</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Science confirms it: drinking alcohol makes people want to have unsafe sex. Drunkenness and unwise choices have always gone hand-in-hand, but scientists in Canada wanted to know which came first — the drinking or the propensity for chancy behavior. They analyzed the results of 12 experiments in which people were randomly assigned to drink or not to drink and then probed about their willingness to have sex without a condom. The more people drank, the researchers found, the worse their decisions — an increase in blood alcohol level of 0.1 mg/mL led to a 5% increase in the likelihood of unprotected sex. The legal blood alcohol limit in the U.S. is 0.8 mg/mL. The authors&#8217; larger goal was to figure out how big a role drinking may play in risky sex that leads to HIV infection. Although unsafe sex is a well-known risk factor for HIV, and despite safe-sex campaigns for the prevention of HIV/AIDS, rates of infection haven&#8217;t budged in high-income countries over the past decade, the authors noted. &#8220;Drinking has a causal effect on the likelihood to engage in unsafe sex, and thus should be included as a major factor in preventive efforts for HIV,&#8221; said principal investigator Juergen Rehm of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, in a statement. &#8220;This result also helps explain why people at risk often show this behavior despite better knowledge: alcohol is influencing their decision processes.&#8221; The study appears in the journal Addiction.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=48886&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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			<media:title type="html">drinking alcohol sex</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">Sora Song</media:title>
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