\u27Our Lives\u27 and \u27Life Happens\u27, from stigma to empathy in young people\u27s depictions of sexual health and relationships

This article describes qualitative research undertaken to explore young people\u27s understanding of sex and relationships that used a scenario-driven body-mapping technique. This art-based method was designed to allow young people to think deeply about the subject and build upon each other\u27s ideas through the medium of decorating a life-sized human body. Although this method produced rich information the depictions of young people tended to be highly stigmatized. We further refined the method to encourage young people to empathize with the character that they created and the resultant research became the basis for the sexual health resource \u27Life Happens\u27