In this unprecedented four-volume set, doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, educators, and clergy join forces to present information vital for sexual health. Topics candidly discussed include the meaning of sexual health, the effects of ignorance or neglect, and the role of love, touch, and communication. Doctors explain the roles of physical systems, while psychologists and members of the clergy detail the roles of religion, culture, and parental or family beliefs in spurring or squashing sexual health. State-of-the-art treatments and research are also featured. Each volume includes a chapter on how to talk with a doctor, therapist, or patient about sexual health.

Americans feel free to tell medical doctors of health ills from headaches to hemorrhoids, and to tell psychologists about mental problems from depression to delusions. Yet, there is one area that affects both physical and mental health most people don't discuss with either doctor or psychologist: sexual health. According to a survey published by the American Medical Association, 43 percent of women and 31 percent of men in the United States experience some form of sexual dysfunction, problems are largely hidden, and so exacerbated. Doctors don't initiate the topic with patients; neither do most psychologists aside from trained sex therapists. The problems might not even be rooted in disorders commonly understood as illness. As officials at the World Health Organization have defined it, sexual health is more than the absence of disease. It is a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being related to sexuality.

Mitchell S. Tepper is a Sexuality Educator, Researcher, and Advocate with a special interest in sexual health and the intersection with disabilities and/or chronic conditions. He holds an MPH from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Human Sexuality from the University of Pennsylvania. He is Founder and President of the Sexual Health Network, Inc., an organization of health professionals and educators providing information and guidance to the public, and resources and training to health professionals. Tepper is a former Board Member for the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists, for SIECUS and for the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health. He is also on the National Advisory Council to the Sexual Health Program at the Morehouse School of Medicine., which is under the direction of former Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D.

Annette Fuglsang Owens, M.D. is a certified Sexuality Counselor as well as Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer for the Sexual Health Network. Owens also founded the Charlottesville Sexual Health and Wellness Clinic, where she provides sexuality counseling to clients. She is Editor-in-Chief of Contemporary Sexuality, the monthly newsletter of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists. Owens has been featured in Glamour magazine, Good Housekeeping and USA Today, among other publications.