About Us
We’re funded by the National Institute of Mental Health to better understand how to address HIV-related stigma.
Our focus with The Anal Pleasure and Health Study is to learn how to enable health workers to talk about anal sex directly and helpfully with their clients, in an accurate, reliable and sex-positive fashion. We want people to feel at home when they access sexual health services and empowered to reach their full potential for health.
This website is freely available to our study participants — but also anyone who wants to access it. We hope that the content we share improves communication between health workers and their clients, and also educates the general public!
Core Research Team
We run the day-to-day of the study, including the design of this website. We also collect data and collaborate with one another to understand what’s working (and not working) for the project.
Bryan Kutner, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor
Principal Investigator: Anal Pleasure & Health Study
Einstein College of Medicine
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Bryan is a licensed clinical psychologist with training in epidemiology. Bryan has worked in the harm reduction movement since the late 1990s, primarily training HIV workers on best practices to serve marginalized clients. Bryan’s research is about understanding how to address HIV-related stigma. He started to work on the topic of anal pleasure and health after hearing his HIV testing clients repeatedly talk about their maltreatment in healthcare and myths about anal sex that needed an informed and accurate response. You can learn more about Bryan here.
Charlotte Rinnooy Kan, MD
Staff Scientist
Anal Pleasure & Health Study
Einstein College of Medicine
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Charlotte graduated from the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. With a longstanding interest in sexual health, she enjoys being part of the research team as a staff scientist. She is passionate about contributing to research that aims to break taboos and address stigmas, improving the dialogue around sexual health and pleasure while educating and empowering individuals.
Theo Sandfort, PhD
Professor
Primary Mentor: Anal Pleasure & Health Study
Columbia University
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Dr. Sandfort has been involved in numerous basic and applied empirical investigations in the field of sexuality and health. Dr. Sandfort has been on the Editorial Board of several academic journals, including AIDS Care, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Culture, Health and Sexuality, International Journal of Sexual Health, Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health, Sexualities, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, and Tijdschrift voor Seksuologie (Dutch Journal of Sexology).
Yvonne Hou, MPH
Research Coordinator
Anal Pleasure & Health Study
Einstein College of Medicine
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Yvonne completed her B.S. in pure mathematics and B.A. in English Literature at University of California, San Diego with honors, and MPH in epidemiology at Columbia University. She believes pleasure, as an essential human experience, irrefutably impacts our physical and mental health. As the study coordinator and part of the research team, her mission is to help explore science with all study participants and all users of this website.
Implementation Partners
The AIDS Education and Training Centers (AETCs) comprise a network of technical assistance providers that work with individual health care providers, teams and clinical sites to provide education, training and capacity building that improve service delivery across the HIV Continuum of Care.
For the Anal Pleasure & Health Project, we have partnered with the Southeast AETC (SE AETC) and the Northeast/Caribbean AETC (NECA AETC) to host 2-day in-person workshops and to facilitate coaching and technical assistance for healthcare workers and organizations to improve their service skills and capacity to address anal pleasure and health. Check out each AETC below to learn more!
Clinical Sites
Advisory Board
The Advisory Board guides our study by giving feedback and advice. They’re a wonderful group of activists, clinicians, researchers, public health workers and people with lived experience!
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Dr. Elopre believes that sexual health is health. She is enthusiastic and extremely passionate to decrease HIV health disparities in the South, understanding the importance in engaging community partners and stakeholder to improve HIV outcomes and uptake of prevention tools like PrEP among disenfranchised populations. She is so excited to be a part of this project that emphasizes the importance of discussing pleasure.
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As a healthcare provider Dr. Wharton encourages frank conversations about sexual activity and pleasure. Their research scholarship focuses on identifying asset based-modalities of HIV prevention and health maintenance in marginalized populations by examining the intersections of age, race, sexual identity and behaviors, and human rights. They are a firm believer that pleasure is an essential element to achieving and maintaining health and wellness.
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Since the mid-90's, Jim has been advocating globally in support of HIV prevention research and service delivery, with a focus on gay men's health, anal sex among all genders and sexualities, rectal microbicides and pleasure. While pleasure is a critical component of sexual health, it is too often overlooked or seen as somehow frivolous. He is delighted to be part of a project that is working to flip that script and give pleasure it's due!
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Bowen-Lasisi works within the rural LGBTQIA+ community in HIV prevention. She believes that sexual pleasure must be included in prevention and treatment conversations to empower clients to make the best choices for prevention methods. Talking about sexual pleasure is essential in reducing stigma related to HIV prevention and treatment including testing, PrEP initiation, and medication adherence. Suggestions to remove, or alter, sexual pleasure preferences to reduce risk are unrealistic and counterintuitive to comprehensive sexual health.
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Jonathan Baker PA-C (he/him) combines experience in Infectious Diseases and Anorectal Surgery in a unique clinical practice in anorectal health with a sex-positive, non-judgmental context which caters to a sexual and gender diverse population. Having served as President of the LBGT PA Caucus and New York State Society of PAs, he continues in various service and leadership positions. Jonathan believes that focusing on pleasure is essential to sexual health.
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Polyamorous bi-sexual pagan nudist
For several decades Daniel has participated in community building and personal growth and development at the grassroots level. He practices and shares both body positivity and sex positivity and is thrilled to be a contributor to this project. Daniel believes progress toward facilitating comfortable conversations about anal pleasure and health between patients and providers has the potential to enhance HIV Healthcare.
