Skip to Main Content

Sexual & Reproductive Health

Consensual Sex

  • Consensual sex is sex to which both parties consent or agree. However, definitions of sexual consent vary widely.

 

  • Complications to participating in Consensual Sex include consent frequently expressed nonverbally and indirectly, or by passively doing nothing.

 

  • Additionally, consensual sex is not always wanted sex; individuals often agree to engage in sex that they do not want or desire. Traditional expectations for men's and women's roles in sexual encounters, unwanted sex include to satisfy a partner's needs, to promote intimacy, and to avoid relationship tension are some reasons for participating in unwanted sex. 

 

  • Although both men and women report engaging in unwanted consensual sex, women report engaging in this behavior more often than men.

This video explains sexual consent, how to communicate changing your mind, and/or not progressing further.

Intimacy

  • Intimacy is the opening of oneself to another person so that the two individuals can share with each other their innermost thoughts and feelings that are usually kept hidden from other people.

  • Intimacy also involves getting close enough to another person that he or she can see not only one’s positive qualities and strengths but also one’s hidden faults and weaknesses.

  • In a healthy intimacy, two individuals move into a relationship with each other, sharing common interests without losing their separate identities

  • Sex is cited as the most frequent example, but other examples include being with another person in an atmosphere of comfort and ease; hand-holding; hugging; sharing excitement, joy, and laughter; and doing things together. 

This TEDx video explores our increasingly lonely society and how to overcome it to embrace intimacy.

Sexual Violence

  • Sexual violence refers to sex obtained through violence; however, some major arguments involve whether only presence of a weapon or serious injury to the victim qualifies as sexual violence, or also relatively minor levels of force

 

  • Although both women and men can in principle be victims or perpetrators of sexual assault, women consistently report higher rates of victimization than men and men consistently report higher rates of perpetration than women.

 

  • Approximately 95 percent of rapes are not reported to police. There have been many attempts to develop rape and sexual assault prevention programs, but, at best, there is limited research support for their effectiveness.

 

"Good Girls Don't Tell" is a documentary on sexual assault in a rural college town in west Texas.