Iloveclaude.com: pornographic vernacular in sexual health promotion for women

Abstract

While many sexual health promotion campaigns in Australia targeting gay men have utilized erotic imagery, this approach is rarely deployed by projects targeting other populations. This paper reflects on the development of an innovative project targeting sexually adventurous women, emphasizing sexual behaviour such as kink/multiple partner play rather than sexual identity. While the suite of resources include safer-sex and safer-piercing ‘play packs’, this paper focuses on the online resource and social media campaign associated with the project. The paper draws on participant observation and reflective interviews with the project reference group, including representatives of the funding organization and members of Sydney BDSM/fetish community. In doing so, it considers the opportunities and challenges inherent in the development of ‘edgy’ and explicit sexual health information within the digital space. In particular, it considers the challenges of linking sexual imagery and explicit sexual health information to target a female audience, for whom sex is more often framed as ‘risk’ than ‘pleasure’.