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from Medical Issues
'Journal Of Sex Research'
Reviews Book On Lesbian Sexual Health
June 5, 2008 - The Journal of Sexual Research (Vol. 44, Issue 3, 2007) reviewed Lesbian Women and Sexual Health: The Social Construction of Risk and Susceptibility by K.A. Dolan.
Dolan recruited 162 self-identified lesbian women from a large southeastern city for her study. All of them filled out a 50-page survey. Seventy of them completed a 1-2 hour face-to-face interview. She defined lesbianism using the subject's own self-definition. She did not exclude women who had had sex with men in the past, present or future.
According to the reviewer, "This fits with data indicating that a minority of women who identify as lesbian have had sex exclusively with women (only 47% in Einhom & Polgar, 1994). In that study, sex with men was common; 21% had had vaginal sex with a man in the past year; and 15% had sex in the prior year with a man who might have had sex with another man, thus confirming results from Cochran and Mays (1996) that lesbian women may experiment with their gay male friends."
Dolan wanted to discover the extent to which lesbians are at risk for HIV or other Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs, formerly STDs).
A minority of these women said they always used protective barriers during sex. Thirty-eight percent said they used condoms during vaginal sex; 33% used condoms during anal sex. "One possible bright spot was the lesbian S&M community; respondents in this subgroup reported being well educated about sexual risk factors and regularly took protective actions."
The reviewer writes: "Dolan's conception of a cultural construction of immunity to HIV and other STIs among lesbians helps explain her findings that although the women in this study generally understood what actions could lead to transmission (they had a high level of risk awareness), they still frequently did not utilize protective actions. All too many viewed communication and partner screening as sufficient protective actions."
Dolan proposes that lesbian women and medical providers conduct more research on lesbian health; provide gay and lesbian sex information in sex education materials; and develop educational materials on woman-to-woman sex, "including some of the non-sex related risks brought up by the women in this study such as sharing razors or toothbrushes."
Additional Reading: Medical Issues
Updated: 6 June 2008
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