Healthy and Unhealthy Sexuality

Healthy Sexuality
Feels good; is celebrative; adds to self-esteem
Is healing; has no victims; loves, lifts, trusts, cares for and protects the other person
Deepens meaning and spirituality; adds to the feeling of closeness to God
Share vulnerability and regard provide excitement and satisfaction
Cultivates a sense of being an adult
Adds to one’s sense of self
Enhances the sense of safety and security
Uses love; honors the partner; shares control in a meaningful way; an “I-Thou” relationship
Pain is surrounded and infused with love and intimacy
Is responsible to both parties; enhances integrity
Is stimulating, challenging, playful and fun; becomes interesting as feelings are honestly shared
Integrates the most authentic parts of the self
Accepts the imperfect
Exists within a loving, respectful relationship
Creates comfortable intimacy
Is more concerned with feeling comfortable and the partner’s goodness, kindness and joy
Focuses primarily on building the relationship


Unhealthy Sexuality
Feels secretive and shameful
Is illicit, stolen, exploitive, abusive, and/or demeaning; the victim is used, then abandoned or dominated
Compromises values and spirituality
Fear provides excitement
Reenacts childhood abuses
Disconnects one from oneself
Is self-destructive and dangerous
Uses conquest, control, and power; an “I-It relationship
Pain is covered, medicated, escaped, or killed in a sterile way
Is dishonest
Becomes routine, grim, joyless
Requires a double life
Demands perfection
Is separate from intimacy and a loving relationship; sex is confused with caring
Creates distance or enmeshment/engulfment
Overemphasizes superficiality (looks, etc.)
Overemphasizes fears from the past