Sexual Health and HIV

Introduction Maintaining and promoting good sexual health is not only important for preventing sexually acquired infections and unintended pregnancies, but also for the prevention of transmission and acquisition of resistant strains of HIV, hepatitis C, preventable infertility and anogenital cancers [1]. Sexual health, although having been in the spotlight for a long time [2], has primarily focused on sexual infection and disease prevention [3]; however, this focus is now shifting to become more inclusive of other aspects of human sexuality. It now encompasses the broad spectrum from sex education in schools [4] to sexual function, in part because of the HIV epidemic and its associated research. Poor sexual health disproportionately affects men who have sex with men (MSM) and women [1], and in the UK the focus is now on developing a sexually healthy society, with a large number of government initiatives and standards set by health organisations [5-8].