Sexual Webs Model for the Explanation of Unsafe Sexual Behavior: Knitting all the Perspectives of Unsafe Sexual Behavior

Whereas the contribution of unsafe sexual behaviors to global disease burden is not contentious, there are divergent perspectives of unsafe sexual act or practices. The different perspectives can be identified within the research traditions of Scholars in Public Health, Cognitive Psychology, Sociology and Political Economy. The challenge therefore had been in constructing an explanatory model that would knit these perspectives for analytical purposes in research on unsafe sexual behavior. Some researchers have to rely on more than one model or risk biases in the explanation of their findings, while some avoid the explicit use of theories or models. This study has knitted the various perspectives of unsafe sexual behavior in the sexual webs model for the explanation of contextual issues surrounding unsafe sexual behavior. Findings using this model will provide better insight on contextual issues surrounding unsafe sexual behavior for social policies and program interventions. We conducted a general search for qualitative research findings on unsafe sexual behavior through the Internet using Google search and Google scholar; 117 articles were obtained, but only seven had been synthesized using meta-ethnographic analysis to construct the sexual webs model. Furthermore, a lucid illustration of how to locate the various perspectives of unsafe sexual behavior within the constructs of the sexual webs model has been provided.