Chapter 1: What does it mean to feel safe during sex?
You know, we've been talking open about sex and pleasure, but I don't want you to be thinking about disease. Right. I want you to be thinking about this is about to be the best three minutes and 12 seconds of your life.
Right.
That's what it's supposed to be about. But in order for it to be about that, you got to know what feels good for you.
It's a new year, so that means many of us are taking time to check in with ourselves and our health, from mental to dental. But I've been curious about how people are thinking about one particular kind of health, sexual health.
My producer, Corey Antonio Rose, walked around downtown Oakland to ask how people are thinking about safer sex in the new year, from the things they do to keep themselves and others safe to whether or not they knew about PrEP, a daily pill taken to prevent HIV.
Safe sex means for me being cautious of who you lay with and abstaining. It means for me to think five steps ahead before I get to sex. obviously using protection and I want to say also having consent and making sure that you guys both know that that's what you guys are about to do. For me it's about being choosy with who my sex partners are but definitely condoms. I don't want no kids.
And it also means like I want to be more protective about my own health as a woman in this day and age because you never know what people are carrying around. Getting tested before you have sex and being transparent about any and all test results that you have.
I'm going to ask anybody I'm dealing with, like, if me and them could go get tested together because there's all type of ways to fake documents and stuff like that. So I'm just, I'm really on the safe side. Yeah, I'm on the safe side.
You taking that Uber?
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Chapter 2: How do people define safer sex in the new year?
It's interesting that there's like a combination there of practical cut and dry sort of actionable things like using condoms and getting tested and knowing your partner's history and status. But also there's like a lot of sort of these intangibles like trust and comfort that are factoring in as well.
I wonder how did the people that you spoke with, Dr. Abrams, how did they consider trust or think about trust when making decisions about their sexual health?
This is such a great question. We saw trust permeated decision-making, sexual health decision-making almost completely. So thinking about establishing trust with a partner, that is what helped people experience comfort in a sexual relationship. That comfort then helped them to feel more comfortable with engaging in unprotected sex.
And then the other portion of that was that sex was also more pleasurable for them. So they spoke about how feeling trust with a partner, feeling comfort and connection with them was more pleasurable. And often that was sort of the pathway to unprotected sex. People also talked about trust like a gatekeeper in some ways like for partners in particular. So for the women who spoke about, you know,
You know, if I had ever told my husband I wanted to use a condom or if I'm in a relationship already and I mentioned bringing up condoms or even with newer partners wanting to use condoms, wanting to talk about sexual history, that was seen as a violation of trust.
I've experienced that. I've heard that. I've heard that before. Yeah. You don't trust me?
Exactly. You don't trust me? You want to talk about my sexual history or know if I've been tested or see my results? I'm telling you that I don't have anything. You don't trust me?
Yeah. That's something that came up time and time again for my producer, Corey Antonio, among the people that they talk to out in the field.
How did those conversations about testing go? They're usually uncomfortable, but they're also a pretty good litmus test on whether or not I should be with someone. If someone is uncomfortable about any of the conversations, it's an immediate red flag. I need you to log into your MyChart. We're not going to do the screenshot or anything. I need you to share your screen. I need to see your name.
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Chapter 3: What are the essential components of safer sex according to the community?
The trust cord is getting struck. The do you think I'm dirty cord is being struck. Do you think I'm gay cord is being struck? Do you think I'm irresponsible? I've already told you I don't have anything. You don't believe me. Wait, now are you cheating on me?
And even in our study, we saw that this was one of the reasons a lot of women had anxiety around these conversations because of how they thought their Black male partners might respond to them bringing it up. But one of the things that has happened in the past few years that for me was like, oh my goodness, I wish it could be like this, COVID happened.
When COVID happened, people spoke very openly. Have you been tested? When was your last test? What were your results? You might need to test again. Who did you get it from? Oh, well, maybe we need to do some social distancing. Like, it's cool. You can still come over, but you don't have to wear a mask.
But suddenly everybody was very attuned to kind of the rhythms of public health initiatives.
Yes.
And receptive to that knowledge and wanting to apply it immediately.
There was no... Icky stigma around you trying to protect yourself or your loved ones. And I was like, oh my gosh, I wish people could be like this with HIV. I wish it wasn't so much negative stigma around protecting yourself or the people that you care about.
Coming up.
I'm not even going to define it as safer. I'm going to define it as pleasurable.
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Chapter 4: How is trust related to sexual health decisions?
And to close this conversation very quickly, I'd love to hear from each of you. I personally believe that sex is an important part of life throughout, I think, an adult's entire lifespan. But as you mentioned, the kinds of structural supports and institutional supports to help people make health-promoting decisions about their sexual health are suffering to a certain degree right now.
So bearing that in mind, new year, new us, what, from your perspective as professionals, defines safer sex in 2026?
I'm not even going to define it as safer. I'm going to define it as pleasurable. And and that's what I'm going to center in 2026 and ensuring that anyone under the sound of my voice has a pathway to get to that pleasure. That pathway might be knowledge about PrEP and where they can access it.
That pathway may be information about DoxyPep, which is something we didn't talk a lot about, but a way of preventing bacterial sexually transmitted infections. So we talking about biomedical strategies that we can start checking off the list.
Like, okay, you told me something new just now.
Okay. Yeah. So we working on, you know, all these other tools, but it's also a pathway of ensuring that, you know, you are worth it. right? That whatever is available, that you are worth having access to it, honey, because you are something extraordinary and divinely made. And as public health officials, it's our job to give you all the tools that you need to go on with your best sexy self.
So for 2026, I would have to agree. I would love for people to be pleasure-centered, pleasure-focused, not just physically, right? In mind, body, and spirit, if you're on that vibe.
When we're thinking about mentally what it looks like, what it feels like to have pleasurable sexual experiences, for me and the people in my research, that looks like being able to have guilt-free sex, shame-free sex, That looks like being able to go into a situation and not be concerned for your safety or your well-being. And how do you do that?
You do that through conversation and communication. You do that through regular screening for yourself. Your partner is also getting screened. You do that through being knowledgeable of things. So one thing I want to name is is HIV is not the devil or a demon. It's a condition. We've seen people have decades long relationships where they are what we call serodiscordant.
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