Why it’s harmful: If someone is verbally or nonverbally expressing discomfort with any action/speech/situation, it is a sign to stop and communicate with them about the discomfort, not to continue to push until they stop expressing discomfort with whatever is making them uncomfortable. Sometimes, when we do something that makes someone else uncomfortable, we may feel shame or embarrassment and attempt to alleviate those negative feelings by forcing the situation. Forcing the situation can be harmful to someone physically and psychologically. Instead, we should step back, recognize our feelings, accept that we did something wrong, apologize, and work to understand why the behavior was harmful.

Questions to consider:

• If someone expresses discomfort, why do I continue with the behavior or think it is okay to do so?
• Do I understand how forcing an issue or behavior can hurt someone? How can I shift my thinking to better understand why this is harmful? Is there a different situation I have worked through before that I can connect to this?

Why it’s harmful: If someone trusted you enough to send you their nudes, wouldn’t you want to live up to that trust by keeping them private? More times than not, when people share nudes that they have received with their friends, they don’t have that other person’s permission, which means it is a harmful form of betrayal and objectification. In doing this, we reduce someone’s value to the appearance of their body and allow others to form evaluations, praises, and criticisms for something they weren’t supposed to see in the first place. 

Questions to consider: 

• Did the person trust me to keep those pictures to myself?
• How do my friends feel when I show them these photos?
• Would I want someone I trusted to share my nudes with their friends?
• Have I really thought about how my actions could affect someone else before pressing send?

Why it’s harmful: If someone doesn’t intend to get intimate with us, what makes us think that a few drinks will change their mind? Whether we realize it or not, using alcohol to get someone more relaxed and more likely to have sex with us is harmful because it ignores their boundaries and pushes them into something they don’t want or aren’t ready for. Being drunk decreases the likelihood of effective communication from both parties, which may translate to a non-consensual or forced sexual encounter. Also, don’t you want someone to want to be intimate with you? 

Questions to consider: 

• Would this person have wanted to go as far with me if they were sober?
• Why do I think it’s okay to ignore the initial distance or boundary that someone set? 
• Do I want them to have regrets about our interaction? 
• Do I want to be having sex that I have doubts about? Sex that I feel more than just “fine” or “okay” about?

Why it’s harmful: Having open, honest conversations about sex can help us understand our own wants and needs, and can lead to more positive sexual experiences. However, talking about the intimate details of a sexual experience with our friends ignores our partner(s) right to privacy and safety in a relationship. Furthermore, the way we talk about our sexual encounters may contribute to a harmful culture that values the quantity of sex over how safe and healthy it is and objectifies the people we are engaging in sex with. Bragging about sex can also result in the harmful idea that the more sex you’re having, the better — whatever it takes. You might end up ignoring boundaries, skirting consent, and hurting people to portray your sexual success.

Questions to consider:

• Do my partner(s) want my friends to know this information? Do my friends even want to hear it?
• Does my identity have anything to do with how I talk about sex? (i.e., if I’m a straight, cis man, do I find it acceptable and rewarding to brag about how much sex I’m having?)

Why it’s harmful: If you need to convince someone to give consent, then they aren’t consenting. Instead, this is a form of coercion, which can involve manipulating, persuading, pressuring, or forcing someone to do any act they don’t actually want to do. Any consent that is not freely given, ongoing, and enthusiastically given is not actual consent, and shouldn’t be treated as such.

Questions to consider:

• What do I know about consent? Do I need to learn more about consent and coercion?
• Where have I observed this type of behavior before?
• Why did I talk someone into having sex with me?

Why It's Harmful: Telling someone who they can and can’t follow and what they can post on social media is a form of control. It can be especially harmful if you use social media as a tool to blame, question, or turn aggressive with your partner. Setting and respecting boundaries around social media goes both ways and is a conversation that should occur from a place of mutual trust and respect. In a world where social media is extremely common, we have to learn how to use it in a way that is not harmful. 

Questions to Consider: 

• Why do I have feelings about my partner's social media following and posting habits?
• How would I feel if my partner was controlling my social media? 
• Where did I learn about controlling my partner's social media and how did I learn about it?

Why It's Harmful: Taking photos of someone without asking (ex: up the skirt, from behind, of their face, etc.) removes their choice over what, how, and when they want to be photographed. Respecting people’s privacy and right to their bodies is accomplished by asking before you take a photo and never taking photos of people who are too intoxicated to give consent. Taking non-consensual photos and videos is an act that can be extremely traumatizing and distressing for the person in them. 

Questions to Consider: 

• Why do I want to see and/or take a photo of something like a photo looking up someone’s skirt? Am I using this for my own sexual or emotional gain without the consent of the other party?
• How would I feel if someone took a photo of me in a vulnerable position that could include my genitals and/or be used in a sexual manner and/or distributed without my knowledge?
• How can I be better about asking to take a photo of someone ANYTIME I want to take a picture? What can I do to reflect on my behavior of taking vulnerable photos of people without their knowledge? 

Why it’s harmful: Sexual Extortion or “sextortion” is a term that encompasses targeted behavior where sexual content is forcibly obtained or distributed.  If you are going to lengths such as creating fake accounts, hiding your identity online, and blackmailing individuals for sexual photos of themselves, you are not deserving of these images. Retrieving and sharing the sexual content of someone can compromise their career, relationships, mental health, and livelihood. This type of harm is predatory and exploitative. 

Questions to Consider: 

• Why do I feel I need to blackmail others to take pictures of themselves and send them to me? 
• What are my intentions with these photos or content?
• If money is what I am looking for or need, how else might I go about getting it in an ethical way that wouldn’t hurt others? 

Why it’s harmful: Creating fake pornographic images or videos of someone is just as harmful as dispersing real pornographic content without their consent and permission. It has the potential to betray someone’s trust, hurt their reputation, and cause them to experience a loss of dignity and safety. These consequences can be extremely harmful to someone’s mental and psychological health. Making it look like someone did something they never did is not only confusing but cruel.

Questions to consider 

• Even though this content is “fake,” how might I be causing very real harm?
• Just because the technology exists, why do I feel the need to utilize it? 
• How would you feel watching a very real-looking video of yourself doing something you didn’t do?

Why it’s harmful: It’s normal to want to spend a lot of time with your partner, but it can cross the line into being harmful when you begin to isolate someone from their community. This is a form of control, which may serve to keep other harmful behaviors a secret and prevent someone from developing a full life outside of their relationship. People need community to thrive, and relationships should be additive to someone’s life, rather than take away from other parts. This means that our partners should be encouraged to, and supported in, spending time with their friends.

Questions to consider:

• What is making me want to isolate my partner? Maybe jealousy, fear, stress, feeling out of control, or something else entirely?
• Do I have any unmet needs that are influencing my behavior? 
• How can I find a balance of quality time and individuality in my relationships?  

Why it’s harmful: Someone consenting to sex with a condom is not consenting to sex without a condom. Removing a condom without a partner’s knowledge violates their autonomy and decision-making power over what happens to their body. Not only this, but it also opens the door to potential health consequences. If you want to have sex without a condom, there needs to be an open conversation with your partner that takes place before sex, where you are receptive and accepting if the answer is no. 

Questions to consider:

• Why do I want to have sex without a condom? 
• What have I learned/heard about condoms? Are these things true?
• How can I support my partner’s bodily autonomy?

Why it’s harmful: While sex can be a way that two people show they care about each other, it is never okay to guilt or pressure someone into sex. Telling someone they have to have sex with you if they love you is just that - guilting and pressuring, which is a form of coercion. Coercive behaviors do not lead to true consent to sex, and instead, violate boundaries and demonstrate a lack of respect for our partner’s ability to choose. This is not love, and instead, causes harm. We should want our partners to have sex with us because they want to, not because they feel like they have to.

Questions to consider:

• What do I believe about love and expectations within relationships? 
• What does consent look like? What does consent NOT look like? 
• How can I communicate what is important to me in a relationship?
• How do I think love and sex relate?