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Sex and sexual health

Sex and sexuality play an important role in your health and wellbeing throughout your life. Good sexual health means being able to enjoy a regular and satisfying sex life by yourself or with others.

Looking after your sexual health is not just about preventing unplanned pregnancies or sexually transmitted infections (STIs). It’s also about your right to have respectful, pleasurable and safe sexual experiences.

Learn more about sex and sexuality, including signs of a healthy (and unhealthy) sexual relationship and how to enjoy sex throughout your life. We also explore things that can affect your sex life and explain painful vaginal sex, safer sex, STIs, contraception and abortion.

Sex and sexuality

Sex­u­al­i­ty is an impor­tant part of being human and it’s dif­fer­ent for every­one. It includes sex­u­al feel­ings and attrac­tions, thoughts, pref­er­ences and behav­iours. Sex­u­al­i­ty is influ­enced by many things. For exam­ple, your phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al health, life expe­ri­ences, cul­tur­al back­ground and reli­gious beliefs. Learn more about sex and sex­u­al­i­ty, includ­ing sex­u­al and gen­der diver­si­ty, things that can influ­ence your ideas about sex and where to find more information.
Couple having breakfast in bed

Healthy relationships

A healthy rela­tion­ship involves part­ners car­ing for each oth­er and them­selves. Com­mon char­ac­ter­is­tics of a healthy rela­tion­ship include respect, safe­ty, hon­esty, kind­ness and feel­ing free to be your­self. Many peo­ple also feel that sex­u­al inti­ma­cy is an impor­tant part of a healthy rela­tion­ship. Learn more about healthy rela­tion­ships, con­sent, signs of an unhealthy rela­tion­ship and where to get help.
Couple in bed smiling

Enjoying your sex life

A healthy sex life is an impor­tant part of your over­all phys­i­cal and men­tal health through­out your life. Learn more about sex­u­al plea­sure and dif­fer­ent ways to have an enjoy­able sex life.
3 girls talking and laughing

What can affect your sex life?

There are many things that can affect your sex life, includ­ing your sex­u­al desire, life stage, phys­i­cal health and emo­tion­al well­be­ing. Learn more about com­mon issues and things you can do to main­tain a sat­is­fy­ing sex life, regard­less of your age or life stage.
Two set of feet in a bed

Painful sex (dyspareunia)

Painful sex is com­mon, but it’s not nor­mal. Many peo­ple expe­ri­ence it at some stage in their lives. ​‘Dys­pare­u­nia’ is the med­ical term used to describe pain before, dur­ing or after sex. The term ​‘sex’ includes exter­nal stim­u­la­tion and pen­e­tra­tion with a penis, sex toy or fin­gers. It’s nor­mal to lose inter­est in sex if you expe­ri­ence pain, but it’s good to know there are many treat­ment options. Learn more about painful sex, includ­ing the symp­toms, caus­es and what you can do.
Two set of feet in a bed

Safer sex and sexually transmitted infections (STIs)

There are many things you can do to have safer sex. Safer sex means more than pre­vent­ing STIs or unin­tend­ed preg­nan­cy. It’s also about com­mu­ni­ca­tion, con­sent and respect. Learn more about safer sex, STIs, sex­u­al health checks and what to do if you have an STI.
Couple holding hands

Contraception

You can use dif­fer­ent meth­ods of con­tra­cep­tion to pre­vent preg­nan­cy when you have vagi­nal sex. You have the right to use con­tra­cep­tion and choose a method that works best for you. Learn more about the dif­fer­ent types of con­tra­cep­tion and their effectiveness.
Different contraception choices in a pile

Abortion

Hav­ing an abor­tion means you choose to end your preg­nan­cy. Unplanned preg­nan­cies hap­pen to women of all ages and back­grounds. About half the preg­nan­cies in Aus­tralia are unplanned. In Aus­tralia, peo­ple can man­age their own health needs and choose what hap­pens to their body. They can also access safe med­ical or sur­gi­cal abor­tion ser­vices. But it can be hard to find and access qual­i­ty abor­tion ser­vices in some areas across the coun­try. Learn more about dif­fer­ent types of abor­tion, laws about abor­tion, par­ent­ing options and where to get help.
woman holding a pregnancy test

Sexual health resources

Find sex and sex­u­al health fact sheets in Eng­lish and edu­ca­tion­al resources in com­mu­ni­ty languages.

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This con­tent has been reviewed by a group of med­ical sub­ject mat­ter experts, includ­ing Sex­u­al Health Vic­to­ria.

© Jean Hailes Foun­da­tion. All rights reserved.