What makes masturbation enjoyable and healthy?

Privacy: Ensure you engage in masturbation in a private, comfortable setting.

Self-awareness: Masturbation allows you to learn about your body and what feels good, which can improve sexual relationships by increasing understanding of your own preferences.

Emotional well-being: For many, masturbation can reduce stress, promote relaxation, and help with emotional regulation.

Safety: Masturbation without the use of sexual material and obsession is a safe sexual activity that does not involve risks like harm for someone else.

Respect your limits: Masturbation should not be done in excess or interfere with your daily life duties and responsibilities.

Avoid shame or guilt: Masturbation is normal and healthy when approached with a positive attitude. Negative feelings as shame or guilt about your body or sexual fantasies may arise, but there is no fantasy or feature of your body to feel guilty about.

What makes the use of sexual materials enjoyable and healthy?

Entertainment and education: When used responsibly with respect to the acting individuals, pornography and sexual media can be a source of entertainment or help to learn more about different sexual expressions.

Self-exploration: Erotic content can sometimes help individuals explore different aspects of their sexual desires in a private, non-judgmental way.

Use in moderation: Avoid over-reliance on pornography or other sexual materials. If it begins to take over your time, thoughts, or relationships, it may be a sign of unhealthy dependence.

Respect diversity and consent: Choose materials that promote respectful, consensual, and ethical depictions of sexual behavior. Avoid Material depicting activities without consent, e.g. where persons are not able give consent for various reasons, e.g. minors, unconscious people or activities where people are forced to perform. Be cautious of content that objectifies people or perpetuates unrealistic expectations or harmful stereotypes.

Avoid replacing real intimacy: Healthy sexual behavior can involve connection with others. If pornography or other sexual media becomes a substitute for real, meaningful sexual relationships, it may be a sign of imbalance.

What makes sexual relationships healthy?

Mutual and ongoing consent: All sexual activities, including intercourse and other intimate actions, as well as abstaining from these, should be consensual, with all involved partners able to and enthusiastically agreeing to engage in them. Consent should be continuous and can be revoked at any point. All partners should feel empowered to say no or express discomfort during any activity.

No activities with children: Although they may be interested in sexuality, children are generally not able to take the responsibility and consent to sexual activities with adults as their brain development does not allow to estimate the consequences of sexual behaviour with adults.

Mutual respect: Honor the feelings, boundaries, and autonomy of your adult partners. Healthy intimacy is based on equality, trust, and respect.

Communication: Open discussions about desires, boundaries, preferences, and emotional needs are essential for a fulfilling and healthy sexual relationship with adults.

Safety: Safe sexual practices, including using contraception and protection against STIs, ensure both emotional and physical well-being. Always consider safe sexual practices, to protect yourself and your partners from negative physical and emotional consequences.

What makes casual sex healthy?

Clear boundaries and agreements: If engaging in group sex or casual sex, it’s important for everyone involved to have a shared understanding of boundaries, consent, and expectations.

Emotional awareness: It's important to recognize the emotional and psychological impacts of casual sexual experiences. Clear communication and emotional intelligence are key. Be honest with yourself and your partners about your emotional needs. It's essential to check in with yourself and your partners about feelings throughout the process.

Safe sex: Just as in any relationship, practicing safe sex is crucial to reduce the risk of STIs and unwanted pregnancy.

Communicate openly: Discuss what you want, what you’re comfortable with, and any limits or desires before engaging in any group or casual sexual activity.

What is unhealthy sexual behavior?

Coercion or manipulation: Pressuring someone into sexual activity or not respecting their consent is never acceptable. Without consent an act becomes a sexual assault. This can occur if the other cannot give his/her consent because he/she does not know about the content, execution and consequences of a sexual activity or is not able to understand them or the other actively disagrees.

Over-reliance on pornography: If you find yourself using pornography to the point where it negatively impacts your relationships, social life, or emotional well-being, it could be a sign of unhealthy behavior.

Using material depicting exploitation: Watching sexual material involvoing children in general, but sometimes also adults can be situations, they did not agree to either the activity itself and/or the distribution of the material. Even slight doubts can be a sign of unhealthy behavior and should lead to avoiding these images or videos.

Engaging in risky behavior: Having unprotected sex or not considering the emotional and physical well-being of yourself or others can lead to harm.

Disregard for boundaries: Ignoring or dismissing someone else's boundaries is a clear indication of unhealthy sexual behavior.

Harmful sexual behavior involving children

1. Sexually motivated observations in intimate situations, known as voyeuristic activities.

2. Sexually motivated touching or fondling outside of the genital area, whether clothed or not.

3. Using child sexual abuse images for own sexual stimulation and/or producing or distributing these.

4. Sexual grooming of children via the internet (chat rooms, etc.) or in direct contact situations.

5. Exposing of genitals with and without masturbation, known as exhibitionistic activities.

6. Demanding a child to receive sexual stimulation.

7. Demanding a child to sexually stimulate him – or herself.

8. Carrying out sexual manipulation and stimulation of a child.

9. Penetration with the penis, tongue, finger or object into a child’s mouth, vagina or anus.

10. The production of child sexual abuse images, with any of the above mentioned sexual activities involving or in front of children.

11. Talking about sexual topics to get sexually aroused in the presence of a child.

12. Showing depictions of pornographic content to get sexually aroused in the presence of a child.

Here is an overview of the classification of severity of images of children:

Indicative: Childrens’ faces or children shown non-erotically either fully clothed or in underwear, swimsuits, etc. (pictures from commercial sources, family albums, etc.)

Naked: Naked children in swimming areas, medical settings or provocative depictions of partially clothed children in underwear, swimsuits, transparent dresses, etc.

Nudist – naked or semi-naked children (pictures from legitimate sources)

Erotica – children in underwear or varying degrees of nakedness (surreptitiously taken pictures)

Posing – children posing either fully dressed, partially clothed or completely naked

Erotic Posing: Children in sexual or provocative poses 

Explicit Erotic Posing: Depictions of posing children emphasizing genital and/or anal area

Explicit Sexual Activities: Sexual activities amongst children that do not involve an adult, such as touching, mutual or self-masturbation or oral/anal/vaginal penetrative sex

Wrapping up: General Rules for Engaging in Healthy Sexual Behavior

1. Set and respect boundaries: Clearly define your own boundaries and respect those of others. Healthy sexual behavior involves knowing when to say "no" and respecting when others do the same.

2. Foster communication: Be open and honest with partners about your desires, concerns, and expectations. Mutual communication ensures that everyone feels heard and respected.

3. Promote sexual health: Practice safe sex by using protection, getting regular health check-ups, and discussing sexual health openly with your partner(s).

4. Seek help if needed: If you ever feel confused, guilty, or uncertain about your sexual behavior, talking to a therapist or sexual health professional can help provide guidance and support