Harm prevention and response
Overview of how to respond to harmful rough sex, including harm prevention, harm reduction, and harm management.
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The increasing prevalence and mainstreaming of rough sex within youth sexual culture, its diverse contexts, and the wide-ranging impacts of harmful rough sex require a comprehensive and integrated approach spanning prevention, harm reduction, and harm management.
These three areas are overlapping rather than linear, and the approach taken will depend on the young person's unique experience, context, and needs.
Harm prevention
Preventing harm by building critical thinking, supporting informed decision-making, and strengthening sexual agency.
Harm reduction
Reducing the risks associated with rough sex through strategies that promote consent, communication, care, and caution.
Harm management
Responding to harmful experiences through informed, supportive, and mana-enhancing care.
Using the response guidance
Read the Understanding harmful rough sex and Effective engagement sections to ensure care is informed, relevant, and culturally safe
Use the conversation and question prompts as a guide rather than a checklist
Work within your role and scope of practice, with responses complementing, not replacing, workplace policies and pathways. If disclosures of harm occur, follow workplace disclosure procedures
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