Sexual Activity and Affirmative Consent

Overview

This lesson focuses on learning about sexual activity, including the risks of being sexually active and the influences on becoming sexually active, as well as affirmative consent and its importance.

Learning Targets

  • Analyze who and what may influence a person to be sexually active.
  • Evaluate the different risks and consequences of sexual activity for you as an individual.
  • Describe what happens in each phase of the human sexual response.
  • Demonstrate effective ways to communicate affirmative consent.

Preparation

For the Warm-Up Activity: Write the journal question on the board or identify (and copy as needed) the worksheets you plan to use.

For the Content Focus: Open the Sexual Activity and Affirmative Consent PowerPoint slides or make copies of the Note-Taking Guide.

For the Lesson Focus: Copy the Sexual Activity and Affirmative Consent for Healthy Communication Skill-Building Challenge Worksheet.

Warm-Up Activity

Select a warm-up activity to help get your class focused and on task.

  • Journal Question: High school can be a time when you begin to seriously date someone and feel you may be together forever. Whether or not you are currently in a relationship with someone, write down your personal boundaries when it comes to being sexually involved with someone. What will you do and what won’t you do in a relationship?
    • Option: Write or project the question and have students respond in their journals as they enter class.
    • Option: Have students discuss the question with a partner or in a small group.
  • Vocabulary Review: Have students work individually, in pairs, or in small groups to complete the Sexual Activity and Affirmative Consent Vocabulary Review Worksheet.
  • Quiz: Have students complete the Sexual Activity and Affirmative Consent Quiz to assess their prior knowledge.
    • Option: Collect the quiz and use it alongside a posttest to demonstrate student learning.
    • Option: Have students share their answers with a partner and then go over the answers together as a class.

Lesson Content

Review the content from the textbook lesson.

Lesson Focus: Healthy Communication

  1. Provide each student with a copy of the Healthy Communication Skill-Building Challenge Worksheet.
  2. Review the assignment directions with the class and review examples of an affirmative consent response using I messages and nonverbal communication before asking the students to start working. Remind students that they should focus on creating examples that are not directly related to their life (i.e., if a student is in a relationship, they should use different names than theirs and their partners).
  3. Option: Have students work individually to complete the worksheet.
    Option: Assign students to work in pairs to complete the worksheet.
  4. When students have completed their two situations, ask for students to volunteer to read through their script. If students worked in pairs, have the students read through the script together.

Challenge Activity

Have students needing additional challenge work on the following critical thinking task:

Have students who need an additional challenge work on the critical-thinking task. Have them access valid and reliable information to determine your state’s laws if an individual continues to engage in sexual activity even if affirmative consent is not given or is given and then the individual’s partner changes their mind. Are the laws different based on a person’s age? What are the consequences if affirmative consent is not obeyed?

Reflection and Summary

Review the critical content from today’s lesson. Review the learning targets and ask students to answer each question posed.

Can you...

  • Analyze who and what may influence a person to be sexually active?

    External influences like peers, social media, friends, and family members may all have an influence on who you date and how serious a relationship may be. Internal influences can include your own expectations, your beliefs, your values, and your emotions.

  • Evaluate the different risks and consequences of sexual activity for you as an individual?

    There are physical (contracting an STD or becoming pregnant), social (comparing your own sexual activity or lack of sexual activity to what your peers are doing), mental (possible anxiety about being pressured to be or not be sexually active and possible depression), and emotional risks (not having the emotional maturity to manage a sexual relationship or having lower self-esteem) and consequences to being sexually active as a teen.

  • Describe what happens in each phase of the human sexual response?

    Excitement phase: Increase in heart rate, muscles may tense, skin becomes flush, the nipples may become hard and sensitive, and blood flow increases to the genitals.

    Plateau phase: This is an extension of the excitement phase. Heart rate, muscle tension, and respiration continue to increase.

    Orgasm phase: This is the shortest phase of the human sexual response. Orgasm is the climax of the sexual response, and many individuals experience intense pleasure in the genital area as well as muscular contractions in the internal and external genitalia and throughout the body.

    Resolution phase: Muscles relax, the heart rate and respiration return to normal, and the blood flow to the internal and external genitalia returns to normal.

  • Demonstrate effective ways to communicate affirmative consent?

    When consent is given, it should be for a specific act, meaning both people know exactly what they are going to do, and it is what both people want to do. Affirmative consent must be communicated verbally and nonverbally and should be a clear yes. There can be no hesitancy, lack of a response, or an unclear response.

Assessment

Complete one or more of the following assessment tasks for this lesson.

Take It Home

Ask a family member or trusted adult if they were ever influenced to be sexually active. If they were, what was the influence?