UK agony aunts bed-in to make sexual health a priority

Some of the nation’s best loved agony aunts – Gill Cox, Tracey Cox, Jenni Trent Hughes, Emma Marlin, Susan Quilliam, Denise Robertson, Deidre Sanders, Dr Pam Spurr and Zelda West-Meads – have come together to support sexual health charities Brook, FPA (Family Planning Association), Terrence Higgins Trust, and MedFASH in their call to protect vital sexual health services.

The agony aunts and charities are calling for the Government and decision-makers to maintain their commitment to the nation’s sexual health to prevent it going into a sharp decline.

Despite considerable progress, the UK still has a worrying sexual health record with some of the worst sexually transmitted infection rates in Western Europe. There’s been a steady increase between 2008 and 2010 in chlamydia, gonorrhoea and herpes diagnoses and HIV is still one of the fastest growing serious health conditions in the UK.

Unplanned pregnancy also continues to be a major issue, with an increase of eight per cent since 2000. And although at its lowest for 30 years, teenage pregnancy in the UK is also the highest in Western Europe.

Charities Brook, FPA, Terrence Higgins Trust, and MedFASH support the sexual health needs of thousands of people in the UK, every day, with wide-ranging, personalised services focused on contraception, pregnancy choices and sexually transmitted infection prevention and testing as well as information, care and support.

All of these charities have recently lost services integral to local communities’ needs, including Brook’s young people’s sexual health services in Stockton, Terrence Higgins Trust’s HIV prevention services in Wales and the FPA Speakeasy parenting, sex and relationships education programme in England. Other charitable and NHS services are facing an uncertain future.

In light of these cuts, the coalition of agony aunts and charities are calling for sexual health services to be improved and expanded rather than cut or reduced.

A statement from the group says:
“During economic uncertainty, sexual health services are often seen as easy targets – they’re more likely to go first or lose more of their funding compared to others. Good sexual health is essential to physical and mental health as well as positive relationships, self-esteem and self-identity and personal responsibility. We’re here to remind decision makers that sexual health services must be protected.”

Agony aunts are photographed at the Millennium Hotel London Mayfair.

The Sexual Health Coalition of Agony Aunts and charities consists of:

Julie Bentley (CEO FPA)
Simon Blake (CEO Brook)
Gill Cox, agony aunt, Bella
Tracey Cox, author and presenter
Ruth Lowbery (Chief Executive MedFASH)
Emma Marlin, agony aunt, Woman’s Own
Sir Nick Partridge (CEO THT)
Susan Quilliam, agony aunt, LBC
Denise Robertson, agony aunt, This Morning and Candis
Deidre Sanders, agony aunt, The Sun
Dr Pam Spurr, psychologist and broadcaster
Jenni Trent Hughes, broadcaster and 100 Steps to Transformation
Zelda West-Meads, agony aunt, Mail on Sunday You magazine

Images available from WENN, tel: 0207 984 7806

Who to contact

For media requests and more information, please contact:

Kate Redway, Terrence Higgins Trust on kate.redway@tht.org.uk or 07957 812 691

Rebecca Findlay, FPA (Family Planning Association) on rebeccaf@fpa.org.uk or 020 7608 5265

What the agony aunts said

Click the links below to listen with your usual online audio player, or right click (shift and F10 for keyboard users) to save the audio files on your computer. Transcripts are available below.

Gill Cox

Listen to Gill Cox (22 seconds, mp3)

Tracey Cox

Listen to Tracey Cox (40 seconds, mp3)

Emma Marlin

Listen to Emma Marlin (1 min 40 seconds, mp3)

Susan Quilliam

Listen to Susan Quilliam (40 seconds, mp3)

Denise Robertson

Listen to Denise Robertson (1 min 28 seconds, mp3)

Deidre Sanders

Listen to Deidre Sanders (40 seconds, mp3)

Dr Pam Spurr

Listen to Dr Pam Spurr (38 seconds, mp3)

Jenni Trent Hughes

Listen to Jenni Trent Hughes (22 seconds, mp3)

Zelda West-Meads

Listen to Zelda West-Meads (1 min 14 seconds, mp3)

All audio files are copyright FPA. See our copyright information.

Transcripts of what the agony aunts said

Gill Cox

Hi, my name’s Gill Cox, I’m agony aunt for Bella magazine. Sexual health services for young people are crucial, not just for the emotional and physical wellbeing of young people, but for the wider social benefit. Because teenage pregnancies, for instance – just one area they might deal with – have a huge on-cost, it’s to all our benefit to keep those services going.

Tracey Cox

Hi I’m Tracey Cox, I’m a sex and relationships expert and I do an agony aunt column and have done for years. I’m here to help raise awareness for sexual health, because most of the letters that I get, basically are from people who don’t understand the situation and unless they are given the correct education, and you need funding for education, we’re only going to get worse with our sexual health issues.

And that includes not only pregnancies but, you know, STIs, it includes relationship breakdown, it includes the fact that our divorce rate is now one in two marriages failing. You know, we think this all relates back to the funding and back to the education that we should be getting right from word go.

Emma Marlin

I’m Emma Marlin, agony aunt of Woman’s Own magazine. And I’m here today because I really believe that sexual health services need to be ring-fenced so that people have somewhere they can go to talk about this very private matter, that’s both anonymous and incredibly knowledgeable.

People have this assumption that sexual health is just something, oh well you can just go and see your GP about. But actually, for a lot of people, having something different, somewhere where they can go where it’s completely confidential, completely anonymous is really important, and I think we underestimate that.

I also really believe that sexual health services in this country play a vital role in helping young adults to navigate a really difficult part of their lives. And it’s there for them, whether they need information, support or whether they just need a mistake and need somewhere that they can go and get help and advice. And not necessarily everyone can go to their parent or their GP.

I think one other area that’s really important, that’s not very often talked about, is that I do get letters from readers in their 40s – they’re out of a first marriage and into the whole new world of dating.

And STIs do happen in later years because people are being less careful. And they’re petrified of going to their GP. They may share a GP with their entire family, they may share a GP with their ex-husband. And so sexual health services that are separate and confidential and incredibly knowledgeable are really key for those men and women who are experiencing a new lease of life in their older age.

So there’s lots of really good reasons why we need to spend a little to save a lot.

Susan Quilliam

I’m Susan Quilliam, I’m an agony aunt and relationships psychologist and I’m passionate about sexual health because in my job I see so many problems.

Now, the common thing is to think that it’s women who have sexual health problems because they’re going to get pregnant and they’re going to catch STIs. Actually, I get a lot of letters from men, even quite young men, saying that they’re worried about that.

They’re concerned, not only for their partners, but for themselves. I think it’s a misnomer to say that men are unconcerned about sexuality and sexual health, the ones who write to me are very responsible.

They need all the help, information and support they can get. They deserve it and so does the nation.

Denise Robertson

I’m Denise Robertson and I am the agony aunt of the This Morning programme on ITV.

I happen to believe fervently in the cuts because we’ve got to get out from under the deficit before this nation can progress. But a cut which then leads to a huge expense is no cut at all. And if we take money away from sexual services, we will then have to deal with unwanted pregnancies, with sexually transmitted diseases, with unhappy families. It’s not saving money, so please don’t do it.

There are a lot of people out there who are afraid and do not know how to negotiate the National Health Service. And we need to help them by having voluntary bodies with all the expertise at their disposal who can help them find the safe way to be sexually active.

If we take that away, we'll have a lot of mistakes being made, and those mistakes will have to be paid for by the tax payer, that’s you and I. So this is not a sensible cut, if it was, I’d be a hundred per cent behind it.

Sexual health services are not only invaluable to the health of the nation, they’re essential to the happiness of the nation. And if we take away money from sexual health services, we will pay double for it in the end. And to me, that doesn’t make sense.

Deidre Sanders

I’m Deidre Sanders, I’m the agony aunt of The Sun newspaper, and every week I hear from hundreds of people of all ages who desperately need really effective sexual health services.

Teenage pregnancy rates are the lowest they’ve been in this country but, none the less, I still hear from pregnant teenagers every day who need help to decide what they’re going to do. And also, rates of sexual infection, I think it’s one in ten under 25-year-olds are infected with chlamydia which is a serious worry, and sexual infection rates are rising among older age groups as well.

So we desperately need their services out there if we’re not going to see a real catastrophe.

Dr Pam Spurr

I’m Dr Pam Spurr, I’m an agony aunt and sex and relationships expert, and it’s terribly important that we continue to fund adequately the sexual health services that we have.

I hear from hundreds of young people, and older people, who say they have to wait a long time for something like a sexual screening appointment or wait a long time for another sort of sexual health appointment and we do not want to make that situation any worse.

It’s really quite desperate for some people already so I’m very much behind today’s shoot and I really hope it makes some sort of difference so we get the message out there.

Jenni Trent Hughes

Hi, I’m Jenni Trent Hughes and I’m involved in this photo shoot today because I think that sexual health services are hugely, hugely important in all relationship issues. I find that a lot of the people who come to me for help are actually there because of issues that have arisen in the sexual aspect of their relationship, so yes I’m all for this.

Zelda West-Meads

I’m Zelda West-Meads from You magazine, the Mail on Sunday – their agony aunt. And I’m here today because I think sexual health is so important and it’s very important that we have funding for that, because if you don’t have that then you’re going to get a lot more children and young people and teenagers getting pregnant, and also sexually transmitted diseases. So it is a very important area to support.

I get a lot of letters from teenagers to the Mail on Sunday. And a lot of them think that they know all the answers, but actually they write to me and say “I don’t know what I should be doing about sexual health, I don’t understand how it’s going to feel like when I first get involved.” And also girls write, more than boys in this respect, that they very often feel under pressure, that other girls have experimented with sexual relationships.

And sometimes it’s the boys who are putting them under pressure. Or the other way round, it can be as well. Because a lot of shy boys feel “I haven’t done it yet and I’m going to feel very nervous and I don’t know what to do”.

So, even though we think in this day and age that everybody, young people, know everything, actually they don’t and it’s very difficult for them to admit that.