This summer, Dr. Héctor Carrillo joins the 2009 Summer Institute as featured faculty.

The majority of research that discusses HIV risk, sexuality, and race seems to follow a linear formula that connects one’s sexuality and race to risky behaviors and subsequent vulnerability to HIV. Dr. Héctor Carrillo’s research however, adds an understanding of cultural context with regards to sexuality in Mexico that complicates the idea of what labels like ‘gay’ or ‘risk’ mean in different environments. What happens when men who have sex with other men, and because they are not gay or bisexual, do not believe themselves to be at risk for HIV because they do not claim a gay identity? One of Dr. Carrillo’s recent studies ‘Trayectos’, which means trajectory or path, follows the ever-changing context of sexuality as individuals move across the Mexican-US border in what he and others call...

Part of my work at the NSRC yesterday involved answering some questions from the Golden Gate Xpress, the student newspaper at SFSU.

I was intimidated at first with the idea of actually having to answer someone's questions about sex, but as Chris (my NSRC boss) explained, this was part of the future that I wanted working in sexuality. The piece for the newspaper was on the benefits for a college student to have a healthy/active sex life. With all the work I've done in the MA program so far, of course my first thoughts turn to, what students? Are we talking about the middle class majority able to afford college? Are we talking about students that are sexual minorities? Are we talking about the ablebodied definitions surrounding what it means to be active and healthy?

I didn't have the answers to these questions so, I tried to apply the holistic sexual literacy message I embrace here at the NSRC. I tried to the answer the questions with a sense of humor, figuring the audience would appreciate a laugh. However, upon receiving feedback, I was hit with a reality check which I greatly appreciated. It seems I have a thing for exclamation points. Guilty as charged. 

I'm not the one writing the column, the journalist is. He came asking questions, looking for expert opinions, and I was meant to supply that. I was essentially doing the job for him, writing up a cute little college sex column, when all he wanted were answers to his questions...