Quick Hits

U.S. health officials have released a draft of federal guidelines pertaining to circumcision, saying medical evidence supports the procedure and health insurers should pay for it. These are the first federal guidelines on circumcision, a brief medical procedure that involves cutting away the foreskin around the tip of the penis. Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say the procedure can lower a male's risk of sexually-transmitted diseases, penile cancer, and even urinary tract infections.

In an amendment to the 2003 Communications Act, the Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2014 requires that video-on-demand (VoD) online porn produced in the U.K. adhere to the same guidelines laid out by the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) for DVD sex shop-type porn. What this means is that a long list of sex acts, many of which are typically associated with female pleasure, can no longer appear in adult films.

Bianca Jarvis, MPH, is a sex educator based in Chicago, Illinois. But she doesn't spend all of her time developing sexuality curricula and presenting workshops. Jarvis is also an artist who—as her Etsy profile explains—creates penis, vulva, and skeleton art "to encourage everyone to love their bodies & cherish their sacred sexuality."

Those behind both the Australian Study of Health and Relationships (ASHR) and the British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (NATSAL) recently released their findings, providing an illustration of the sexual practices of today's adults.

This past May, a lawsuit was filed with Beijing's Haidian District Court by 30-year-old Beijing resident Xiao Zhen, accusing a psychiatric clinic in Chongqing of exceeding the limits of its license by offering a program to "cure" homosexuality.

According to a range of international studies, more kids—and at ever younger ages—are accessing pornography online. How does this affect the sexual outlook of children? On November 17, in Winnipeg, a children's advocacy group called Beyond Borders hosted a symposium to address this topic entitled "Generation XXX, the pornification of our children."

A new national survey, conducted by Kelton in collaboration with Men's Health Network, the American Sexual Health Association, HealthyWomen, and Pfizer, shows that people routinely fail to address their sexual health concerns despite acknowledging the importance of sexual health.

Researchers at the Université du Québec and the Philippe-Pinel Institute of Montreal recently conducted a study on sexual fantasies. Conducting interviews with more than 1,500 adults, researchers compared the commonality (or rarity) of a wide range of sexual fantasies.

At this point, you would think that the effectiveness of comprehensive sex education would be apparent to everyone. But schools continue to be forced to choose between sex education and funding, and those researchers behind studies like the one recently published in the Journal of School Health continue to fight the good fight.

A new law aimed at college campuses has redefined the concept of sexual violence, expanding its definition to include dating violence, stalking, and same-sex assaults. According to an article that ran just last week on NPR's website, John Kelly, a senior at Tufts University in Medford, MA, was part of the impetus behind these new rules.