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On World AIDS Day, it is certainly a poignant time to reflect on our progress and to reinvigorate our determination to halt this epidemic. We have encouraging news. The rates of HIV have fallen to the lowest levels since the peak of the epidemic, new HIV infections were reduced by 21% since 1997, and deaths from AIDS-related illnesses decreased by 21% since 2005 (UNAIDS, 2011).
While these are encouraging statistics, there are still parts of the world including our own country in which the epidemic rages on. The number of new HIV infections continues to rise in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Oceania, the Middle-East, and North Africa. Here in the US - we still see rises in certain urban centers (particularly among African Americans and men who have sex with men) and, overall, we see an increase in HIV infections in the South-east (particularly in poorest areas).
Poverty is still a major predictor of risk of HIV infection. The poor, disenfranchised, stigmatized, and marginalized bear the overall burden of disease and HIV remains a serious threat. Thus racial and sexual minorities are still very much at risk. Youth in these groups are particularly vulnerable.
While we need to address the serious issues of poverty, discrimination, prejudice, and the lack of basic sexual rights, we know that even the disenfranchised can be empowered through comprehensive sexuality education and access to preventative services. We need to put HIV prevention in the context of a comprehensive sexuality approach.
We can be encouraged by the fact that when youth are educated with comprehensive sexuality education, they are more likely to delay the onset of sexual intercourse and use condoms. We know that condoms are highly effective in preventing the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. While the effects of stigma and discrimination are still a powerful force, comprehensive sexuality education can lead to empowerment.
We need an HIV-prevention approach that is sex-positive recognizing that people have a basic instinct and drive to be sexual and that beyond the reproductive utility of sexual activity, people are motivated to experience pleasure and that sex is a fundamental form of communication and expressing intimacy. We have spent too much time on de-sexualizing HIV prevention, now it is time to promote what I have termed "sexualized HIV prevention." Let's bring positive sexuality back into HIV prevention - and let's focus on the marginalized populations and empower them to enjoy a fulfilling and pleasurable sexual life.
Eli Coleman, PhD
Director and Professor
Chair in Sexual Health
Back to PHS Newsletter
On World AIDS Day, it is certainly a poignant time to reflect on our progress and to reinvigorate our determination to halt this epidemic. We have encouraging news. The rates of HIV have fallen to the lowest levels since the peak of the epidemic, new HIV infections were reduced by 21% since 1997, and deaths from AIDS-related illnesses decreased by 21% since 2005 (UNAIDS, 2011). While these are encouraging statistics, there are still parts of the world including our own country in which the epidemic rages on. The number of new HIV infections continues to rise in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Oceania, the Middle-East, and North Africa. Here in the US - we still see rises in certain urban centers (particularly among African Americans and men who have sex with men) and, overall, we see an increase in HIV infections in the South-east (particularly in poorest areas).
Poverty is still a major predictor of risk of HIV infection. The poor, disenfranchised, stigmatized, and marginalized bear the overall burden of disease and HIV remains a serious threat. Thus racial and sexual minorities are still very much at risk. Youth in these groups are particularly vulnerable.
While we need to address the serious issues of poverty, discrimination, prejudice, and the lack of basic sexual rights, we know that even the disenfranchised can be empowered through comprehensive sexuality education and access to preventative services. We need to put HIV prevention in the context of a comprehensive sexuality approach.
We can be encouraged by the fact that when youth are educated with comprehensive sexuality education, they are more likely to delay the onset of sexual intercourse and use condoms. We know that condoms are highly effective in preventing the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. While the effects of stigma and discrimination are still a powerful force, comprehensive sexuality education can lead to empowerment.
We need an HIV-prevention approach that is sex-positive recognizing that people have a basic instinct and drive to be sexual and that beyond the reproductive utility of sexual activity, people are motivated to experience pleasure and that sex is a fundamental form of communication and expressing intimacy. We have spent too much time on de-sexualizing HIV prevention, now it is time to promote what I have termed "sexualized HIV prevention." Let's bring positive sexuality back into HIV prevention - and let's focus on the marginalized populations and empower them to enjoy a fulfilling and pleasurable sexual life.
Eli Coleman, PhD
Director and Professor
Chair in Sexual Health
Back to PHS Newsletter
The 
A study conducted at the Stanford School of Medicine confirms that a majority of American medical schools are lacking LGBT-related health curriculum in the classroom and in clinical training. The study findings were published on September 7, 2011, in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
On November 2, 2011, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced the Real Education for Healthy Youth Act (HR 3324), a new bill that lays out a comprehensive, age-appropriate, and holistic vision for sex education policy in the United States.
Walter Bockting, PhD, participated in International Partnership for Advancing Transgender Health seminar in Salzburg, Austria, on October 2 - 8, 2011.
October 20 - 22, 2011, Eli Coleman, PhD, and Joycelyn Elders, MD, presented at the VIII Congreso Nacional de Educación Sexual y Sexología organized by the 
August 1 - 5, 2011, Jae Sevelius, PhD, visited PHS to meet with one of her project advisors, Walter Bockting, PhD, and to learn about our transgender research and transgender health clinic.
In September Naek Tobing, PhD, returned to Minnesota and the Program in Human Sexuality from his home in Jakarta, Indonesia. 
On November 6, 2011, Bean Robinson, PhD, was named the national president of the 
Jordan Rullo, PhD, received her BA in psychology from Indiana University-Bloomington and her MS and PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her training has included completion of a psychology Honors Thesis at the Kinsey Institute for Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, as well as completing an APA-accredited internship at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, Ontario, with a specialization in the sexual behaviors and forensic track. She received an APA Division 44 Scholarship Award to conduct her dissertation research on the subjective and objective sexual arousal/interest of bisexually-identified men and women. Rullo's clinical interests include: compulsive sexual behavior/hypersexuality, gender identity and sexual orientation development, relationships and sexual functioning, and paraphilias. She employs interpersonal reconstructive and cognitive-behavioral treatment modalities in her clinical work in order to help clients learn to recognize their patterns and where they came from, as well as make a decision about which patterns to change and how to develop new and more adaptive patterns.
Cathy Strobel is the new project coordinator for the Compulsive Sexual Behavior and HIV risk study. She earned her Bachelor's degree from Winona State University and has taken MBA coursework including completion of the Mini MBA for Nonprofit Organizations from St. Thomas University. Strobel worked for the Minnesota AIDS Project for the past 10 years as the program manager for the agency's three HIV prevention programs that targeted gay and bisexual men and injecting drug users. Her programs routinely referred program participants to PHS counseling services and the Man2Man program. She also served on a community advisory committee for the Community PROMISE project where she met Bean Robinson, PhD. Before entering the HIV field, Strobel worked for nine years at the Minnesota State Legislature and was a steering committee member of the It's Time Minnesota, the statewide grassroots coalition that organized to add sexual orientation to the state Human Rights Act in 1993. 