What Is Healthy Sexuality?

• You can articulate a clear vision of the sex life that will be fulfilling and authentic for you.
• You can share your sexual needs and desires with your partners, and you are a receptive listener for theirs.
• You are able to communicate clear boundaries, and you respect the boundaries of others.
• You know how to give yourself sexual pleasure, and you do so on a regular basis.
• You instruct your partners in how to give you sexual pleasure, and you are open to receiving instruction in pleasing them.
• You feel competent to pleasure yourself and your partners.
• You have skills for creating and sustaining intimate sexual relationships.
• You know how to generate your own sexual energy; your libido need not by determined situationally.
• You understand how your history has produced the sexual self that you are now, and you have tools to work with that history to increase your enjoyment of sex.
• You have practices for enriching and empowering your sex life.
• You are open to sharing your sexual aspirations, successes, and challenges with someone in addition to your partner.
• Your sexual expression is in integrity with your spiritual values.
• You are a sexual learner: open to suggestion, and to evolving sexually over a lifetime.

Copyright 2005 by Felice Newman. Please feel free to link to this page; please do not reprint without permission. Adapted with permission from The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us (Cleis Press).