Sexual Worries and Sexual and Risk Taking Behavior of Men in the Urban Slums of Bangladesh

The present paper attempts to understand sexual and risk taking behavior of men. Data for the study included, a representative sample survey of 1,004 men from slums of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and 72 in-depth interviews of men from the community.

The data shows high prevalence of pre marital sex (61 percent) usually beginning at16 years of age. Sixteen percent reported multiple sexual partners within one year prior to the survey. 23 percent reported ever having sex with a CSW, out of which only 40 percent used condoms. 65 percent of the respondents who did not use condom during sex with CSW believed that condom could protect them from getting HIV/STIs. Non-availability, price, dislike for condom, unplanned sex and belief that they can't acquire the disease, contributed to such risky decisions.

A substantial number of men in Bangladesh suffer from sexual worries. These relate to performance, sexual health and sexual physiology .Masturbation was largely disapproved as 98 percent believed that loss of semen due to masturbation could cause physical or sexual weakness. Many believed that "70 drops of blood make up a single drop of semen" . Although both frequent intercourse and masturbation were believed to cause deterioration of sexual and physical health and loss of semen, the concerns regarding shape and size of penis, were primarily in case of masturbation, and hence perhaps made CSWs appear as a safer bet. The data showed strong association (p „T 0.025) between sexual worries and risk behavior.