Communication – An Essential Skill
By now you know quite a lot about protecting against sexual risks. But did you realize that a lot of risky behavior comes from poor communication and lack of honesty? It’s been said that the brain is the most important sex organ, and your sexual tool kit should include well-sharpened communication skills. Develop and depend upon your spoken and written thoughts; it’s all about listening and reading carefully. It’s also about partners trusting each other to explain and respect boundaries.
Sexual wellness is not just about PAP tests and using condoms. Your sexual expression may conflict with the necessity for open and honest discussion before you have sex. You need to negotiate that very thin line between spontaneity and protection. If you and your partner are cool with being intimate, you should be cool with respecting each other’s right to protect reproductive and general health. This should not be a fuzzy area – defend your right to protection.
When intimate partners cross interpersonal boundaries, however, the emotional consequences are not just immediate – they can permanently impair future relationships and your physical health. Being up-front about what you and your partner can and cannot accept, what you both want and don’t want, and how you feel about them is paramount to preventing misunderstandings and misrepresentations. For example, there’s a huge difference between “just-kidding” and sexual harassment. Fierce passion is another human condition, but relationship violence is a cruel distortion, just as obsessive stalking grown from jealousy is a distortion of a big crush.
Whether you call it interpersonal violence, date rape, or domestic abuse, physical and mental abuse is a serious problem when one or both partners deny its existence and ignore the consequences. While you should make every effort to communicate, don’t think that you must tough it out alone. We urge you to seek counseling and, if necessary, seek legal help.
The days of “puppy love” are long over, and as a consenting adult, you are responsible for your thoughts and actions. For instance, crossing boundaries includes sharing websites of a sexual nature and sending emails or other messages that contain ideas of a suggestive nature. These are forms of harassment if they are unsolicited. In addition, alcohol is the number one factor in date rape. If someone is inebriated, his or her judgment is impaired and consent can be highly questionable in a legal action.
Whatever the STI, whatever the intimacy issue, and whatever the boundaries, use your common sense, your communication tools, and the right “hardware” – protection – to reduce risks and emotional hardships. And as difficult as it may be to do, you could just sit this one out. Saying “not this time” can be the most honest and healthiest choice.
Speaking to Power – We all have our own communications styles, of course. Yet some people are exceptionally talented in using their words to manipulate others, especially when they are in intimate relationships. Some relationships take on the form of power struggles, and one partner may abuse his or her role by trying to impose control.
Power dynamics occur in a variety of ways, shapes, and forms, but they almost always grow out of an unequal relationship. Some people bring preconceived notions to the relationship. Consider, for example, misogyny, which is hatred towards women. Even though some men would protest that they love women, these same men may act out behaviors based on their perceived superiority or need to control. As a result, these attitudes threaten women’s privacy, dignity, and freedom.
Power struggles, of course, go both ways. Negative behaviors range from simple jealousy (although, is jealousy ever simple?) to physical and mental abuse. It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, straight or gay – if you’re in a romantic situation, ask this question: How equal are we? Is one of us taking unfair advantage of the other? How can we draw the line between genuine love and extreme control?