What is good sex? What is bad sex?

Source of the videos: ‘The Good Sex Project’, downloadable at https://goodsexproject.wordpress.com/good-sex-the-film/

Duration of activity: 60-80 min

Learning objectives:

Explore what makes sexual encounters pleasurable and not pleasurable.
Encourage young people to talk about pleasure and to adopt a sex positive approach by overcoming shame, embarrassment and taboo.

Materials needed:

The videos :
- Good sex is… https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=7rZYh_WgVV0&feature=emb_logo
- Bad sex is…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRQY_RIrn7E&feature=emb_logo
Flipchart paper or big pieces of paper
Markers, coloured crayons, art material that can be used for handicraft, pictures from magazines, word clippings from magazines.

Step by step process of the activity:

Explain that in this activity we will explore aspects of pleasurable and not pleasurable sexual encounters
Give a quick background to the videos: they were the output of workshops conducted with 278 young people in England . The young people answered the questions ‘what is good sex?’ and ‘what is bad sex?’ and depicted their answers in creative ways, as are shown in the videos.
Start by showing the video on good sex. (2 min)
Ask young people to recall some of the words they heard in the video and write them down on a flipchart (5 min)
Proceed with showing the video on bad sex and in the same way, record what young people recall about what makes sex bad (7 min)
Open up the discussion by using the following questions: (15-20 min)
- Thinking first of the first video, did anything make a particular impression on you?
- Were you surprised by how openly young people talked about pleasure and about good sex?
- Is it difficult to talk about pleasure when it comes to sex? Why is this so you think?
- Do you agree that dirty, raunchy, fast, random and experimental sex is good sex? Why so?
- For those of you who don’t agree that dirty, raunchy, fast, random and experimental sex is good sex, why do you disagree?
- Who can really define that sex is good?
- What are the prerequisites of good sex? How does consent and safety blend in this?
- And how about self-determination and a personal sense of agency? How do these qualities relate to good sex?
- And open communication and negotiation? Are these important in having good sex? How?
- Thinking of the second video on bad sex, did anything make a particular impression on you?
- What may prevent young people from having pleasurable and positive sexual encounters/relationships?
- How can young people explore their sexuality in a free, open, positive and pleasurable manner while at the same time remaining safe?
Following the discussion in plenary, split young people in 6 groups. Invite them to use some of the creative materials to create a poster : 3 groups will create a poster about what constitutes pleasurable and positive sex and 3 groups will create a poster about what constitutes bad and not pleasurable sex. The groups have 20-30 min to work as a team and create their posters.
Once the groups complete the posters, put them up on display and ask young people to go around and have a look (5-10 min)

Take home messages and activity wrap up:

While sex largely remains taboo, it is by talking about it openly that we can explore how to have happy, positive and pleasurable sexual relationships. Pleasure is a key driving force behind most sexual encounters. Having a positive approach to our sexuality, means that we use freedom, experimentation, openness, non-judgement, pleasure, and also a strong sense of personal agency. For sex to be good, it is important that no matter what we do, we do it in a consensual, safe and respectful manner, free from coercion, abuse and exploitation.

Tips for facilitators:

Young people may have difficulty to express what constitutes good sex and bad sex. They may feel strange, awkward, shy, embarrassed, uncomfortable to do so. Or they may giggle out of embarrassment or awkwardness. You can address their reactions in a general way, reflecting that because we largely consider positive sexuality a taboo, awkward feelings and feelings of embarrassment are natural. And that is okay. However, having open discussions about pleasure and positive sex , we allow ourselves to create new perspectives which can help us build a sense of agency and empowerment which are vital in having a positive, happy and fulfilling sexuality.

Tips for adapting the activity and follow up:

You may decide to give out some or all of the words below, enlarged and cut out to the groups to use when they are preparing their posters. Alternatively you encourage young people to cut out words and/or pictures from magazines, which can be used in their posters.

Adapting the activity for online implementation:

● Similarly to the face-to-face implementation, start this activity with showing the videos and asking participants to brainstorm

● You can capture the brainstorming on an online board (such as Padlet, Slido, Mentimeter, Scrumblr etc) or the online platform’s Whiteboard.

● Considering that the facilitation questions are quite numerous, you may opt to hold small groups discussions first, before you go to plenary, in order to maintain participants’ engagement in the process.

● Each small group can receive a few of the facilitation questions, with each breakout room been allocated different questions.

● Once the small groups have finished with their discussion, you can convene in plenary where you can wrap up the discussion using some of the facilitation questions and the key messages.

● An alternative way to run the plenary discussion would be to include some of the facilitation questions in an online quiz, which could also help maintain participants’ engagement. Such questions for instance could include:
○ Is dirty, raunchy, fast, random and experimental sex good sex?
○ Is it difficult to talk about pleasure when it comes to sex?
○ What is bad sex?
○ Who can really define that sex is good?
○ What are the prerequisites of good sex?

● You can then wrap up the discussion in plenary.

● For the second part of the activity that entails creative handicraft, you can ask participants to prepare them individually and then anyone who feels comfortable can share them on camera. Alternatively you can ask participants to send you their posters privately. You can then put them together in one slideshow (anonymously) and present them to the group.