Welcome to Sexes: A New Open Access Journal on Sexuality and Sexual Health

It is my pleasure to introduce you to Sexes, a new open access journal dedicated to the publication and worldwide dissemination of inter- and multi-disciplinary research on sexology and to the promotion of greater global understanding of critical issues in sexuality and sexual health.

Perhaps the title of the journal, Sexes, in and of itself makes a “statement” that helps explain the rationale for another journal in this field. The study of sexuality and sexual health is, by definition, an interdisciplinary endeavor, engaging scholars from many fields. Thus, Sexes encourages a diversity of perspectives, ranging from physical, chemical, biomedical, psychological, behavioral, sociological, and anthropological/cross-cultural to public health, legal, and historical. The title “Sexes” reinforces the notion that sexuality has many faces, involves diverse populations, and encompasses many subfields. Sexes expands well the MDPI portfolio of reproductive biology and urology & nephrology journals, and complements well—just to cite a few—with International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health [1], Healthcare [2], Women [3], or Uro [4].

In Sexes, we welcome papers that bring new insights to longstanding mainstream issues and controversies related to sexual health. At the same time, we encourage authors to tackle new topics on understudied issues and populations, whether they focus on specific geo-cultural regions, specific sexual and ethnic minority groups, specific disorders, or specific challenges (e.g., domestic abuse, infertility, STIs, etc.). We further encourage authors to suggest realistic and culturally acceptable applications, recommendations, and potential solutions for the problem under study.

As a noted and/or upcoming scholar, your contribution to Sexes will afford you an opportunity to play a role not only in shaping a respected journal in the field but also in initiating new conversations within the field of sexual health, thereby influencing the direction of future research in the field.

Along with the standard scholarly benefits of contributing to the international dialogue on sexual health, the journal offers specific benefits. First, Sexes is committed to rapid review and turnaround, ensuring timely dissemination of papers. Second, articles published in Sexes will immediately be made available worldwide under an open access license. Thus, everyone—interested scientists and the general public alike—has free and unlimited access to the full text of all articles published in the journal, and everyone is free to reuse the published material given proper citation.

Although open access is usually supported by the payment of Article Processing Charges (APCs) from the authors’ research budgets, in order to attract high-quality research articles, Sexes will not charge any publishing fees for manuscripts submitted by 31 December 2020 and accepted for publication following the standard peer review process.

We hope to work together with you—authors, scientists, and scholars—to make Sexes a high-quality source of information and ideas about recent advances in sexual health. We consider it a privilege to work with you in making this vision a reality, and we look forward to receiving your contribution in the near future.