Condoms + pleasure=safer sex? A missing addend in the safer sex message

Abstract

Since the emergence of HIV, sexual risk-reduction intervention and prevention programmes have promoted the ‘condoms equal safer sex’ message with a particular focus on the preventative aspects of condoms (i.e. disease or pregnancy prevention). Yet despite the pervasiveness of this message, research has found that most people fail to use condoms consistently. Using the thought-listing technique, we asked men who have sex with men (MSM) and heterosexuals to list thoughts that immediately came to mind when thinking about condoms. Results show that MSM have more sexual/sensory associations to condoms than heterosexuals, suggesting that interventions highlighting the sexual/sensory aspects of condoms might be an important component to increase condom use among MSM while a combined approach (i.e. messages that integrate preventative, interpersonal, and sexual/sensory components) might be more appealing to heterosexuals.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant to Kerry L. Marsh (R01MH62275) and facilitated by a grant to Blair T. Johnson (R01MH58563) from the National Institutes of Health. We thank Andrea Hahm, Sarah Lust, Rebecca McIlveen, Brad MacDougall, Jennifer O'Brien, Jenna Sokolich, and Nicole Warren for help with data collection, coding, and data entry and Jonathan W. Scott-Sheldon for website programming.