Scholary vs Popular Media Focus on Sexuality Paper

Men who have sex with men at these sex parties are at greater risk of receiving HIV or an STI due to the fact there are other factors involved like alcohol, drugs, higher mean of anonymous partners, and unprotected sex(Migiaga, 2010). This study took place at the Fenway Health a health care and research facility. There were 40 preselected participants who completed an in depth, semi structured qualitative interview and an interviewer-administered comprehensive quantitative assessment series for a hour and a half.

The study/interviews were conducted by one of two trained interviewers. That asked questions like… How would you define a sex party? When did you begin hosting/attending sex parties? Describe the sex parties you attended/hosted? Are condoms and lube available at these parties? What kind of sexual behaviors do men engage in and what HIV and STI risk behavior do you see happening? Do you participate or organize these parties? Any rules involved in your parties?

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While asking these questions they also assessed psychosocial factors like depression, anxiety, problematic alcohol used and history of drug or alcohol abuse, and the trauma history (like childhood sexual abuse). Results/conclusion of the study suggested that the men who attended these parties are at great risk of acquiring or transmitting the HIV due to the reasons explained throughout the article(Migiaga, 2010). “Party, Play—And Pay” was an article recovered from the Newsweek Journal that was published in February of 2005.

This article gives a very detailed brief account of what a sex party full of men on crystal meth is like other wise known as “Party and Play”, or PnP for short. The authors describe the sex party scene as a room full of about 30 to 40 men paying 20 dollars a piece to the host of this party, they put all their belongs in hefty bags for safe keeping while they walk around in the nude having sex with multiple partners unprotected and using illegal drugs. The authors mention several factors that were putting these men at risk such as drug usage, multiple partners, and unprotected sex.

They talk about how one person on meth and having hundreds of unsafe sexual encounters could have been the result in a powerful drug-resistant strain of HIV. Leaving health officials and the community leaders to take a long look on how crystal methamphetamine is playing an enormous role in the spread of the AIDS Virus and HIV(Jefferson, Breslau, Darmen, Childress, & Juarez, 2005). The authors depict how crystal meth leaves its users with a euphoric and hypersexual feeling, leading in binges with multiple partners for several days.

In the article, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, men that are high on crystal meth are four times more likely to engage in unprotected sex than those who are not high. The article also reveals that many men pop Viagra to counter temporary impotence. This mix of drugs makes users more open to unsafe sex, thus leading to a greater risk of contracting HIV. They concluded the article with an interview on someone who has lived the life of the “Party, Play—And Pay” and how they lost everything! Both of these articles are referring to the great epidemic that is infecting the gay community-HIV. They talk about how behaviors like attendance of private sex parties, drug usage, sex with multiple partners, and use of unprotected sex are assisting in the growth of HIV amongst the gay community.

Even though these articles are providing a lot of the same information, they are very different. The scholarly article compared to the public media article is a lot more in depth and have factual numbers that were taken from the direct study. The authors of a scholarly article seem to leave “no stone unturned” and no question unasked. The scholarly article encompasses an abstract-giving a description on the whole study which then leads to the introduction, methods used for example the design and the setting where the study took place and they how data was collected, how the candidates were chosen to participate.

It also discussed how the qualitative interview was preformed and they questions that were asked, the article gave a quantitative assessment and the approach that was taken to retrieve the information, thus ending in results, conclusion and the discussion. The scholarly article provided information, numbers, percentages, and averages about the demographics, sexual behavior, and psychosocial characteristics of the men who were interviewed and surveyed in this study.

It is written in a very formal tone, in great detail, displayed the authors’ findings to be displayed for other experts and students in a specific field to study and review. All of the authors who wrote on the scholarly were experts with degrees. Most of the scholarly articles found consisted of more then just one or two pages and they have specific guidelines. The authors cite their sources though out the article and they also include a list of references at the very end. Graphs and data were included.

Once the study is completed and the article is written it goes through a “rigorous” peer review process (Unknown, 2009). The public media article gave an informal tone (Unknown, 2009) to the whole “HIV, drugs, gay men, and sex parties. They used information, facts, numbers, and percentages from different sources like the “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention” and other various resources instead of conducting their own control study, survey, or interviews researched amongst a trained research team.

Scholarly and popular media both provide a great amount of information, just presented differently. Scholarly articles seem to provide you with a more intellectual approach(Unknown , 2009) to the topic or what you are trying to learn and can be used perfectly in an academic environment, but unlike the popular media article its just numbers, demographics, facts taken from a research and its subjects. It lacks the real stories and visual pictures of human beings and how they are being affected by this epidemic.

Talking about how some people lost their jobs, homes, family, and life to the life-style that lead them to AIDS or HIV, as a result hitting a little closer to home and how it’s affecting today’s gay community and what they are doing to counter act these behaviors. Professors like to advertise scholarly and peer reviewed articles simply because it is an array of factual information written by the subject matter experts in a very formative way.

Sex is something that is not formally studied often and that’s why people have many different perceptions of what sex is really like. Sometimes these perceptions can lead to a lot of misleading information. Sex can be common to some but not so common to others due to the fact there are many aspects to sex like bisexuality, homosexuality, and heterosexuality. No one knows it all when it comes to sex and this is why you should leave it to the experts.

This is perhaps why scholarly articles are preferred and “hyped up” by professors. Scholarly and public media articles can be very reliable depending on the source and their credentials. Conducting this review of the differences of a scholarly/peer reviewed article and the public media had shown me the pros and cons to both types of articles. If you are looking for an article that is reliable academically and that has been reviewed by many of subject experts-scholarly articles are what you’re looking for.

If you are looking for informal information with very little statistics but reliable information on the subject matter you can read a public media article. In conclusion, if you really want to know more about the subject, look up both the scholarly and in public media articles just to gather a wide assortment of information from different variable resources.