Most people who take drugs and drink alcohol excessively do so for a number of reasons; some do it for a little comfort or to unwind, others do it for the confidence it seems to bring and still others do it just because it makes them feel good. A new study is now pointing to another reason young adults are doing drugs and drinking: to have better sexual relations.

According to findings from a study conducted in Europe, 33% of young males between the ages of 16 and 35 and approximately 25% of young females between those same ages are using alcohol to help jumpstart their sex lives. On the other hand, drugs like ecstasy and cocaine are being used by young adults to enhance those sexual encounters. The project studied over 1300 anonymous young adults who admitted to having an active social nightlife.  Almost every participant in the study had consumed alcohol at some point in their lives and most of the participants admitted that they consumed alcohol for the first time when they were around 15 years old. Around one-third of the participants stated they had experimented with cocaine and/or ecstasy while almost three-fourths stated they had tried cannabis. Results showed that these young adults used alcohol as a way to initiate sexual situations and used drugs in order to enhance those activities.

While many participants admitted to using drugs and alcohol to increase their likelihood of having sex, they also admitted that this was coupled with their taking unnecessary sexual risks (having multiple partners and/or having unprotected sex) and oftentimes feeling remorse about those sexual encounters. Whether the participant had used alcohol or drugs, those same troubling feelings were consistent. According to the lead researcher, Mark Bellis, a professor at Liverpool John Moores University, “Trends in recent decades have resulted in recreational drug use and binge drinking becoming routine features of European nightlife. Millions of young Europeans now take drugs and drink in ways which alter their sexual decisions and increase their chances of unsafe sex or sex that is later regretted. Yet despite the negative consequences, we found many are deliberately taking these substances to achieve quite specific sexual effects.”

Research demonstrates that young adults under the age of 16 who had drunk alcohol or who had used recreational drugs like ecstasy, cocaine or cannabis had an increased chance of having sex before that age. Unfortunately, young females are four times more likely than young males to exhibit this early sexual behavior as a result of drug or alcohol use. Amador Calafat, a co-author in this study, states, “Sexual activity accompanied by substance use is not just incidental, but often sexually motivated. Interventions addressing sexual health are often developed, managed and implemented independently from those addressing substance use, and vice versa. However, young people often see alcohol, drugs and sex all as part of the same social experience and addressing these issues requires an equally joined up approach. ”

HIV has been a widespread epidemic for over 30 years now; despite recent setbacks, researchers around the world are still heavily committed to developing a vaccine that will stop the virus in its tracks and help the millions of people who have yet to suffer its wrath. Now, some researchers are looking for answers to help fight the battle in a place where we might not have searched before: the human mind.

The Economic and Social Research Council recently funded a new study that shows human hope might be a very strong and overlooked tool to help in the war with AIDS. In a nutshell, the study determined that people who had goals and definitive plans for their futures (whether that involved careers, relationships, children or the like) were more likely to stay away from any situations that would give them a high risk of contracting a disease like AIDS; on the contrary, those people who did not have many high hopes for their own future were more likely to engage in actions that would put them at a higher risk. One example widely used in the study is of men who do not have any ambitious hopes or goals for their future – when engaging in sexual relations, they are less likely to wear a condom because the instant gratification and pleasure they feel when they do not wear a condom takes precedence over the future risk.

Tony Barnett, a professional from the London School of Economics, agrees with the study, “Current policies to tackle HIV/AIDS in Africa emphasize individual behavior such as the ABC approach to prevention: Abstain, Be faithful, Condomise. However, these measures require that people have hope for the future and goals to aim for. And if wider economic and social circumstances are so poor that people lack hope for the future, then these current policies will have limited success.” A prime example of this can be seen in the global fight against AIDS: while moderate success has been had in Western civilization, there has not been as great a degree of success in African nations. Consider the fact that in the country of Botswana, the life expectancy is 36 years for somebody with AIDS compared to 71 years for somebody who has not contracted the disease. Recent estimates have shown that within the next decade, the life expectancy may plummet even more to 30 years.

Studies like this one are demonstrating that in order to strengthen the fight against AIDS, researchers need to not only focus on a person’s behavior (as many research studies do), but their cultural, economic and social background as well. Researchers in the field of AIDS/HIV studies need to strongly consider that for most people, hope for things like a secure future, a successful adulthood and an ever-growing family tree have an enormous impact on the decisions an individual makes throughout his/her life. Having a disease like HIV/AIDS can literally destroy a person’s chances for any kind of hope which, in turn, can affect the entire society as infection rates soar. In Africa, for instance, where most people have little educational and financial support and, thus, bleak futures, young adults are more susceptible to contracting HIV at some point in their lives. Barnett states, “Hope is quite straightforward to measure via questionnaires and surveys can help to identify high risk environments. Although there is not a great deal of experience in developing programs to increase hope, policies such as cash support for children, microfinance for small businesses, women’s education, reduced discriminations against sexual minorities and health system reform will improve the wider environment. And with more to live for, interventions to encourage individuals to change their behavior are more likely to succeed.”

Embarking on a new relationship, there are so many doubts and questions to face; coupled with all the excitement and hope, it can make anybody anxious. One of those unspoken fears couples face when embarking on a new relationship is the fear of their partner’s past, both emotional and sexual. Now, an added fear for many couples across the nation is whether or not they might contract or give a sexually transmitted disease from/to their partner and if they/you could be liable for that.

One case that is currently taking place in a California courtroom has a woman suing her ex-husband for allegedly infecting her with HIV. This case, along with others, is capable of setting the precedent for future cases that may ask the same questions of being liable of transmitting a disease even though the defendant did not know he/she was infected. As the law stands, those people who know they are infected with a disease and yet act recklessly with others and transmit the disease are liable both civilly and, oftentimes, criminally.

More recently, there have been a growing number of lawsuits where the judicial system is faced with the question of whether or not people are liable if they had a sexually transmitted disease and passed it on but did not realize their STD status at the time. A decade ago a wife sued her husband, a notorious cheater, for allegedly infecting her with HPV (human papillomavirus); the Maine Supreme Judicial Court decided that she did not have a case since there was no proof that he could have known he was infected with HPV at the time. After all, it is very difficult to prove an HPV infection because it is a virus that often displays no symptoms in the patient. In fact, most people get exposed to the virus without ever knowing it. However, in more recent years, the precedent is changing. This year in Iowa, a woman won $1.5 million in a case against her ex-boyfriend dentist where she claims she contracted HPV from him. Her lawyer, Jeff Tronvold, states, “If 75 percent of people are exposed to HPV, then everybody should know they had it at one point.” But, if you tell a sexual partner that you have not been exposed, “you have already met, in my opinion, the civil burden [of proof] because you just lied. You should say, ‘I have no signs, but I cannot tell you I never had it.’ This could change the way we all date.” In this case, Tronvold was able to convince the jury that her ex-boyfriend was sexually promiscuous, was having an affair while dating his client and that the lesions his client had on her cervix did not show up until she began her relationship with her dentist boyfriend. On these facts alone, the jury felt the evidence was compelling enough to rule in his client’s favor.

In the earlier case of the woman suing her ex-husband for giving her HIV, the story goes that after the fairy-tale wedding and during the honeymoon, both husband and wife began feeling ill. When the wife went to the doctor, she was told she had HIV and that she was responsible for bringing it into the relationship and inflicting her husband with it. The wife was heartbroken and guilt-ridden until she found e-mails in her husband’s account that pointed to his other life: one where he would solicit unprotected homosexual sex online. After finding this out, the couple divorced and the wife sued.  While her attorneys may not be able to prove that her husband was aware he had HIV, they have made an impact on the law in California whereby one may be liable for transmitting an STD if they “reasonably should have known” they had one.