WSHD 2023: Consent

World Sexual Health Day is central to and an important celebration of advancing the mission of WAS and creating a world where sexual health is optimized for all.

The 2023 theme for World Sexual Health Day is Consent.

Consent is the cornerstone of any empowering sexual experience. It’s about cherishing everyone’s autonomy and decisions in their intimate lives beyond race, bodily ability, gender or sexual orientation.

Learn more about consent below or download the fact sheet or download the Consent toolkit.

What is consent?

Consent is permission. No one can touch another person’s body without permission. All partners must give consent for any sexual activity.

Consent Isn’t Just About Sex

Consent is required before any sexual activity and in many non-sexual scenarios as well. You need consent for things like:

Kissing
Hugging
Sharing food
Touching any body part
Exposing your genitals
Taking or sharing sexual photos or videos

Understanding Consent: FRIES

A fun way to remember the different parts of consent is the acronym, FRIES.

Freely and Willingly: It isn’t consent if there is pressure, manipulation, or influence of drugs or alcohol.
Reversible: You can change your mind about sex at any time and remove consent. Even if it is your long-term partner, even if you already agreed, even if you’ve done it before, or even if you’re in the middle of sex.
Informed: You can only consent to something if you have the full story. For example, if someone says they’ll use a condom and then they don’t, there isn’t full consent.
Enthusiastic: Sex is about doing things that you want to do, not things you have to do! Enthusiastic can mean the difference between an ‘okay’ or ‘I guess’ vs a ‘absolutely’ or ‘hell yes!’
Specific: You must be specific about what you’re asking consent for. For example, saying yes to kissing does not mean someone has consented to penetrative sex. Agreeing to hang out at someone’s apartment doesn’t mean agreeing sex—even if it’s 3:00 am.

A Lifetime of Consent

Whether they’re 1 or 101, all people deserve bodily autonomy. Start talking about consent with young children and always keep it in mind. Consent is important at any age.

Download the Fact Sheet

Also available in Greek

Test Your Knowledge

How much do you know about consent? Can you recognize the difference between consent and coercion? Test your knowledge with these short quizzes.

Promote WSHD on Social Media

It’s easy to promote WSHD on your social media channels. Below are four sets of social posts you can share to educate your followers about consent on September 4 and beyond. Click the link below each image set to download a file with all of the included images in the set. The WSDH toolkit has suggested messages you can share across your channels.

Learn about consent: Click to download

Consent or coercion: Click to download

How to ask for consent: Click to download

All about consent: Click to download

Printables

Download facts sheets—Understanding Consent and Teaching Consent.

Understanding Consent (English)

Teaching Consent

Κατανοώντας τη ΣΥΝΑΙΝΕΣΗ (Greek)

Presentation for Peer Educators

This brief presentation for college-aged peer educators—Let’s Talk Consent—covers the basics of sexual consent, consent and alcohol, gender roles and consent, and consent in porn. It also helps test one’s understanding of consent with different real-life scenarios and a “Know the No” exercise.