• 
• 

Speaking at a " Gender, Sexual Health and Healthy Well-being " conference yesterday, Dr Wichai Chokeviwat of the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, said in 2000, housewives were seen as the  community members most at risk from sexual disease. Next year he expected it would be  male sex workers topping the danger list, mostly from HIV/Aids infection.

" This trend has stemmed from changes in behaviour and society," Wichai said. "There are many things luring  people to have unsafe sex -while the attitude about sex among Thai people is not to promote  good sexual health."

Researcher Yannatorn Jianrattanakul studied questions about sex in the media, to find topics most hit on in question and answer columns in two newspapers, two magazines, and two websites.

In the four years between 2003 - 2007 she collected 4,4406 questions. She found women have more queries about sex than men- 25 per cent were about sexual affairs, 18 per cent about reproductive health, 18 per cent about sexual organs, 16 percent about beauty, 5 per cent about sexually transmitted disease.

She said the top five questions most asked by women were about the vagina, reproductive health, beauty, sexual intercourse, and society and culture. Men wanted information about sexual intercourse, the penis's size, sexual transmitted disease, and masturbation.

Yannatorn added that a sexual questionnaire appearing in the printed media showed many people do not understand how to protect themselves from sexually transmitted disease and unwanted pregnancy.

"Society has to find out the appropriate way to disseminate this information to build understanding and knowledge on this issue. This would help prevent and resolve the problems," she said