How Our Bodies Ourselves Decides Which Resources to Include

Our Bodies Ourselves is different from other women’s health and sexuality sites in a number of ways. We prioritize empirical validity, personal authenticity, and incisive feminist analysis.

• Evidence-based medicine (EBM) relies on rigorous research. Our Bodies Ourselves always turns to the best research available. The gold standard of EBM requires randomized clinical trials. EBM can prove or disprove the efficacy of treatments. However, there are limitations to evidence-based research, because not everything affecting women’s health or sexuality has been studied. Further, studies may be biased, and may fail to take into account gender, sex, race, disability, or other important criteria.
  
• Non-medical evidence: Reliable research conducted by journalists, social scientists, historians, and others whose methodology involves close adherence to factual information.
  
• Expert consensus: In areas where rigorous research hasn’t been conducted, or isn’t conclusive, the consensus of experts (e.g. medical specialists, practitioners) is often formalized in order to guide practice. Sometimes we need to use this content.
  
• Lived experiences: The personal experiences of women and gender-expansive people are crucial sources of knowledge for Our Bodies Ourselves. We always take seriously the needs, perspectives, and voices of women and gender-expansive people.
  
• Contested: When an area of women’s health or sexuality is contested by content experts, we aim to explain the different perspectives so readers can make up their own minds based on the strength of the arguments and who is making them. In these cases, especially, we aim to be as unbiased as possible when presenting legitimate differences of opinion.
  
• Feminist analysis of the larger context: The contexts of our lives allow us to understand particular health and sexuality issues. Our individual experiences are powerfully shaped by such factors as intimate familial and social relationships, housing, neighborhoods and regions, work, environmental conditions, health care, politics, and criminal legal systems. Analyzing these contexts from an intersectional feminist perspective is a key part of what makes Our Bodies Ourselves different from other women’s health sites.

• Wide range of sources: We draw from a wide range of outstanding sources, as well as using our own, original materials. We often update information from previous versions of the book, “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”
  
• Inclusiveness: All types of diversity are considered when choosing our resources. We want to cast as wide a net as possible in terms of gender, race, class, sexual orientation, disability, age, ethnicity, etc.

Exceptions to the rules: While these are our principles, we do make exceptions. For example, sometimes sex education sites also sell sex toys and other items. Sex educators often create excellent resources. We allow these resources on Our Bodies Ourselves despite their being “commercial” sites because the products are educational. We always note if we direct visitors to a resource that pushes the boundaries of our own guidelines.