The practical and symbolic purpose of dental dams in lesbian safer sex promotion

Lesbian and bisexual women's sexual healthcare experiences

“…). We concur with the argument for risk reduction education for LBW (Cox & McNair , Richters & Clayton ). Risk reduction involves practices such as not having sex if a partner has active herpes simplex virus, having short fingernails if performing digital penetration, human papilloma virus vaccination and having regular STI screening (Cox & McNair , Richters & Clayton ).…”

Navigating unintelligibility: Queer Australian young women’s negotiations of safe sex and risk

“…Importantly, findings reveal that medicalised, heteronormative approaches to safe sex result in reduced health literacy among LBQ young Australian women which appears to limit their ability to actively negotiate safe sex with female partners. Therefore, in line with Richters and Clayton (2010: 104), we argue for greater awareness and promotion of non-latex sexual risk reduction strategies for LBQ women (e.g. discussion of consent and health status between sexual partners, hand hygiene, toy care, and routine sexual health screening).…”

“…Participants’ ambivalence or aversion to latex-based safer sex practices for women arguably stems from their lack of integration into established queer sexual scripts (see Cox and McNair, 2009: 16; Power et al, 2009). While dental dams have been portrayed as ‘the lesbian answer to the condom’, no studies have provided empirical evidence for their effectiveness in preventing STI transmission or the prevalence of their use (see Richters and Clayton, 2010; Richters et al, 2010). Furthermore, despite lesbian sex being positioned as ‘safe’, dams and gloves are paradoxically never recommended for the same sexual practices between men and women.…”

“…Furthermore, despite lesbian sex being positioned as ‘safe’, dams and gloves are paradoxically never recommended for the same sexual practices between men and women. In light of this, MacBride-Stewart (2004) argues that dominant understandings of ‘healthy sex’ largely exclude LBQ women, with dental dams acting merely as a symbolic mechanism for containing the lesbian body (see also Richters and Clayton, 2010: 104). This suggests that sexual health promotion targeting LBQ women would be more effective if it was to engage with women’s lived experiences and negotiations of risk reduction rather than focusing on the medicalised, heterosexist symbolism of latex barriers.…”

Sexual behaviour and risk reduction strategies among a multinational sample of women who have sex with women

“…In the same way that sexual safety recommendations for WSW are modified from those designed for WSM, women who choose to use a latex barrier to reduce the risk of STI transmission during genital scissoring or toy use with another woman are limited to products that require modification from their original Food and Drug Administration-approved purpose (penile–vaginal intercourse) 32. As a result, women who choose to use a latex barrier during genital scissoring have to modify a condom or seek out and lubricate a dental dam.…”