It’s World Sexual Health Day!
Today, September 4, is World Sexual Health Day. Sexual health is about so much more than just avoiding disease and unplanned pregnancy — it’s a critical part of well-being, and includes being able to enjoy and embrace our sexuality. The American Sexual Health Association defines being sexually healthy as:
- Understanding that sexuality is a natural part of life and involves more than sexual behavior.
- Recognizing and respecting the sexual rights we all share.
- Having access to sexual health information, education, and care.
- Making an effort to prevent unintended pregnancies and STIs and seek care and treatment when needed.
- Being able to experience sexual pleasure, satisfaction, and intimacy when desired.
- Being able to communicate about sexual health with others, including sexual partners and health care providers.
Sexual health requires a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships — this means centering and celebrating pleasure and safety (of all kinds) in sex. When we think of sexual health as only about risk prevention and management, we fail to recognize its physical, emotional, mental and social attributes, many of which touch every aspect of our lives.
On World Sexual Health Day, and every day, we encourage you to think about what it means to be sexually healthy — from physically to emotionally to intellectually. Below, we’ve rounded up some characteristics of sexually healthy people we can all strive toward — and of course, there’s always more!
Communication
- Interact with all genders in appropriate and respectful ways
- Listen to and respect others’ boundaries and limits, communicate and negotiate their own
- Communicate respectfully their desires to have sex and not to have sex
- Ask questions of other adults about sexual issues, when necessary
- Accept refusals of sex without hostility or feeling insulted
Relationships
- Develop and sustain friendships with no sexual agenda
- Create trustworthy, safe and giving partnerships
- Can be sexually intimate without being physical (ex: talk about sexual feelings, verbally express attraction, do things that awaken desire in partner)
- Express their boundaries
Self Worth
- Appreciate their own bodies
- Allow themselves to experience pleasure, feel joy in sexual experiences of their choosing
- Have the capacity to nurture themselves and others, and accept nurturing from others
- Allow themselves to be vulnerable
- Are comfortable with their sexual identity
- Are taking steps to address issues that have arisen as a result of past experiences
Values
- Exhibit tolerance for people with different values
- Are not threatened by others with sexual orientation different from theirs
Body Integrity
- Utilize contraception when needed to avoid unplanned pregnancy and practice safer sex to avoid contracting or transmitting infection
- Have access to affirming, medically accurate sexual health information and education
- Practice health-promoting behaviors, like regular checkups, breast or testicular self-exams, and routine testing for STIs, and more
Healthy sexuality means having the knowledge and power to express sexuality in ways that enrich one’s life. This means approaching sexuality from a standpoint that is informed, consensual, and respectful. Healthy sexuality is free from violence and coercion.
Understanding healthy sexuality can help us create a world where all people are able to live with the support, resources, relationships, and communities they need to thrive and live fully. Promoting healthy sexuality is an important component of reproductive justice and gender justice — and we all have a responsibility to contribute to a more sexually healthy world.
