putting the sexy into safer sex
Building bridges between
the sex world and public health

Sexing up safer sex
Organisational goal & objectives
Ultimate goal: More people practice safer sex
Ultimate objectives:
• Shift perception and practice of sexuality education and sexual health
interventions:
– from bio-medical focus (disease/risk) >>
to pleasure/health/empowerment
• Pleasure/desire = quality markers for sex ed/sexual health interventions
worldwide, tailored to context/culture

We aim to please
Our approach
Sex and Public health
pleasure practice
industry
The
Pleasure
Project
Public health/
Research & development
academia sector
Building bridges, walking a thin line

Strange bedfellows
Stakeholders & communication methods
Academia &
public health Public health Mass media Sex/pleasure
decision/ practitioners & general world
policy public
makers
•Workshops and •Washington Post •Work with porn film
•Lancet
trainings directors & actors
•Guardian
•Reproductive Health •AIDS conferences
•The Times •Articles in erotic
Matters
•Sexy condom magazines (e.g.
•Sydney Morning Herald Forum)
•Development demos
•Cosmo etc
•Website •Sexual Freedom
•Royal Society of
•Website Coalition
Medicine •Correspondence
•Correspondence
•Nomination for Erotic
•Literature review
Oscar
•Sexy tips online

The ins and outs
Results chain analysis
The Global Mapping of Pleasure
Inputs unpaid time, money (£4,500), photo
Research (£300), photo shoot (all
volunteer), contacts/networking,
publicity; conference abstracts
Outputs publication; launch at AIDS
conference -- speakers drawn from
GM; postcards; banners; poster
presentation
Outcomes media coverage; blogs; more
awareness of the work of
practitioners profiled in the GM
worldwide; 15,000+ downloads from
web; email queries; enthusiastic
feedback
Impact plan to do impact assessment to
determine impact on practitioners’
work and on support/funding/work of
those profiled in the case studies

Was it good for you?
Examples of general indicators
• Noticeable increase in attention to pleasure at AIDS conferences
• See Pleasure assessment of Mexico IAC (IDS website)
• Media attention (Washington Post, DFID Insight Newsletter etc)
• Since 2004:
• More than 1,500 practitioners/decision makers exposed to
pleasure training techniques and concepts
• Many more at conferences and through media
• Increasing requests for training, articles and workshops
• Email queries: 3-4/month

Was it good for you?
Quantitative indicators: website
www.thepleasureprojectorg
usage statistics in 9 months
(Aug 2008 – Apr 2009)
• 24,000+ unique visitors
• half spent 1+ min on site
• avg. 2,500 unique visitors/month
• spikes after conference appearances
• 89,000 page views
• visitors from 25 countries
• Most common file download: Global Mapping of
Pleasure (15,000-18,000)

Was it good for you?
Qualitative indicators
General online survey + workshop evaluation (Share-Net)
Respondents said they were:
2. More comfortable talking about role of pleasure in sexual
health/safe sex
4. More knowledgeable about pleasure and safer sex/sexual health
6. Better able to articulate issues related to pleasure and safer sex

Was it good for you?
Qualitative indicators: feedback
From practitioners/educators/programmers
• “ … it helps us understand and come up with pragmatic
solutions for safer sex.”
• “I started to think more about how I can integrate fun and pleasure as a
guiding principle when planning or discussing HIV education.”
• “I've had positive feedback from taking a more fun/pleasure-focussed
approach -- people have commented that making things fun makes it
easier to talk about.”

Was it good for you?
Qualitative indicators
Practitioner (SE Asia)
“Saw Anne Philpott’s presentation at the 2004 HIV conference in Bangkok
while I was giving HIV education and prevention instruction in an
immigration detention centre (with detainees and immigration police
officers). I was already trying out a variety of activities to break down
negative associations with condoms … Her presentation … had a lasting
effect and … helped me seriously address some of my own negative
associations with condoms. I really needed to do this as a young gay
western man working in and around Thailand.”
Researcher – microbicides trials (UK)
“I think the value of the Pleasure Project for us rests … on how we write up
and present this data. The visibility of the Pleasure Project at international
conferences is particularly important in creating an environment where it
is not only legitimate but actually “in vogue” to discuss disease prevention
in terms of sexual pleasure.”

Climax
Conclusions
• Clear increase in awareness in public health/development sectors
• More receptive environment to discuss sexual pleasure in context of
prevention
• Need for more research in wider cultures and contexts
• TPP needs more consistent and systematic measurement of impact and
outcomes of our work (more funding would facilitate this process)
– Aim to distribute evaluations after every event/workshop/publication
launch
• Other aims:
– Funding proposal for improved website functionality, including mail
list sign up and other data capture
– Funding proposal for admin/communications hub

www.thepleasureproject.org