Background to the Project

• During (2005 -2008) funding was provided by the Australian Research Council for a Linkage grant between Moira Carmody from the University of Western Sydney and NSW Rape Crisis Centre.
• The first stage of the research involved interviewing 56 young women and men from rural and metro areas regarding their views on sexual negotiation and what they wanted to learn from sexuality and violence prevention education. These findings were published in a 95 page report Developing ethical sexual lives which was distributed extensively nationally and internationally in late 2006. The young people identified that current sexuality and violence prevention education failed to prepare them for the complexity of sexual intimacy including issues around consent, sexual negotiation and pressured sex. The young people felt existing programmes focused primarily on risk and danger and excluded positive skills for ethical intimacy.
• The findings informed the development of a 6 week violence prevention program piloted in rural and metro areas across NSW in 2007/8.
• The program provides young women and men aged 16-25 years of age opportunities to learn new ways of negotiating sexual intimacy based on a sexual ethics framework developed by Moira Carmody. As an alternative, the Sex & Ethics programme focuses on promoting ethical non-violence skills that assist them to negotiate sexual intimacy positively.
• The findings of the research and the impact of the education groups were published as:

Carmody, M, (2009) Sex & Ethics: young people and ethical sex, Melbourne, Palgrave Macmillan.

Carmody, M (2009) Sex & Ethics: the sexual ethics education program for young people, Melbourne, Palgrave Macmillan.

What is the Sex & Ethics Violence Prevention Program?

The education programme is a skill based program. A key element of the program is that it does not tell young people what they should do but provides an ethical framework to help them make ethical decisions about intimate relationships. The long term goal is to build the capacity of young people to negotiate sexual intimacy and prevent sexual assault and to reduce unwanted, coerced sex in casual and ongoing relationships.

Topics include:
* Different perspectives on sexual intimacy
* The sexual ethics framework
* Pressures to be sexual and how to handle them
* Non-verbal communication skills
* Alcohol and drugs and the impact on sexual decision making
* Ethical consent and the law
* Relationship skills
* Negotiating conflicting desires and needs
* Recognising the signs of abusive relationships
* Breaking up
* Being an ethical bystander
* Standing up to sexual violence in your community