The "u" in www.sexualityandu.ca could be a 15-year-old boy trying to decide whether he's ready to have sex for the first time; a 23-year-old sexually active woman who doesn't want to get pregnant; a mother afraid to talk to her kids about sex; or a doctor who wants to communicate better with his patients about STDs. The Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada developed the provocative new Web site partly in response to the rise in STDs.

"When we were designing this site, we identified three goals," said Vancouver's Dr. Jan Christilaw, president of the society. "One, Canadian women have the right to be protected from unwanted pregnancy. Two, Canadians have the right to be protected from sexually transmitted infection. And three, Canadians have the right to be protected from coercive sexual relationships." Recent studies reported in the Journal of Human Sexuality show the rates of STDs are climbing after two decades of decline, especially in men and women under age 25. The infection rate for chlamydia, the most frequently reported STD in Canada, rose 30 percent from 1997 to 2000. People ages 15 to 29 accounted for about 75 percent of all cases of chlamydia in 2000. Gonorrhea increased 35 percent in that same period. And there have been outbreaks of syphilis, which was on the brink of elimination in 1997.

Studies have also shown that girls are starting to have sex at a younger age, while the age is increasing for boys. "When I talk to these young women, they may be aggressive, they may be assertive in sexual relationships, but they're still using their sexual decision-making in a very unhealthy way based on them misunderstanding the risk. That 14-, 15-, 16-year old group, they're really bad in terms of birth control and protection against sexually transmitted infections," Christilaw said.

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