Sexual Health Week: Safety, Choice and the Right to Be Heard

Sexual health is about much more than preventing infections or accessing contraception. It is also about choice, consent, safety, respectful relationships and having control over decisions that affect our own bodies.

During Sexual Health Week, conversations across the UK encourage greater awareness of sexual health and the importance of accessible, inclusive services.

For Anah Project, this is also an opportunity to consider sexual health through the experiences of women affected by domestic abuse.

When someone uses fear, pressure or control within an intimate relationship, a woman’s ability to make her own decisions about sex, contraception, pregnancy and healthcare can be affected. Recognising these behaviours is an important part of understanding domestic abuse.

 

 

Sexual Health Is Part of Our Overall Wellbeing

Good sexual health includes physical, emotional and social wellbeing.

The World Health Organization describes sexual health as requiring a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and relationships, including the possibility of experiences that are safe and free from coercion, discrimination and violence.

This means conversations about sexual health cannot focus only on disease.

They also need to include consent, relationships, reproductive choices, access to healthcare and people’s ability to make decisions without pressure or fear.

For women experiencing domestic abuse, those issues can become particularly complicated.

When Control Extends to Sexual and Reproductive Choices

Domestic abuse can take many forms and does not always involve physical violence.

A partner may pressure or force someone into sexual activity. They might deliberately interfere with contraception, refuse to use contraception, control access to healthcare or attempt to influence decisions about pregnancy.

These behaviours can form part of a wider pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour.

Sex without consent is sexual violence, including when it happens within a marriage or established relationship. Being someone’s partner does not create automatic consent.

Consent must be freely given.

It can also be withdrawn.

Reproductive Coercion

One form of abuse that can receive less attention is reproductive coercion.

The NHS provides sexual and reproductive health information covering contraception, sexually transmitted infections and accessing sexual health services.

Within an abusive relationship, however, a woman may not always have complete freedom over these decisions.

Reproductive coercion can include behaviours intended to control someone’s reproductive choices. This might involve sabotaging contraception, pressuring someone to become pregnant, attempting to prevent a pregnancy or controlling decisions relating to pregnancy.

These behaviours matter because reproductive autonomy is part of a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body and future.

Consent Should Never Be Assumed

Conversations about sexual health must include clear conversations about consent.

Consent should be voluntary and based on choice.

Fear, threats, manipulation or pressure can undermine someone’s ability to make that choice freely.

There can also be circumstances in which a woman does not feel safe saying no. She may fear violence, abandonment, financial consequences, family repercussions or other forms of retaliation.

This is why simply asking whether somebody said “no” does not always capture the realities of coercion.

Understanding the context of a relationship matters.

Barriers to Seeking Sexual Healthcare

Accessing sexual health services should be straightforward and free from judgement, but women can encounter very different barriers.

For some Black, South Asian and Middle Eastern women, conversations about sex and reproductive health may be particularly sensitive because of cultural expectations, stigma or concerns about confidentiality.

A woman experiencing domestic abuse may face additional difficulties.

Her movements might be monitored. A partner may accompany her to appointments, control transport or money, check her phone or prevent her from accessing healthcare independently.

Immigration concerns and language barriers can create further obstacles.

These circumstances demonstrate why services need to be accessible and sensitive to women’s different experiences rather than assuming that everyone has the same freedom to seek help.

Privacy Matters

Privacy can be particularly important for someone living with controlling behaviour.

Technology has made sexual-health information easier to access, but it has also created additional ways for abusive partners to monitor someone.

Browsing history, messages, appointment reminders, location information and online accounts can potentially reveal that someone has been searching for support.

Women seeking information about domestic abuse or sexual health may therefore need to consider digital safety as well as physical safety.

Healthcare professionals and specialist organisations can also help women consider safer ways of accessing information and services according to their individual circumstances.

Conversations Without Shame

Stigma can prevent people from asking questions about sexual health.

Fear of judgement can be particularly powerful when sexuality intersects with cultural or religious expectations, marriage, family reputation or community pressure.

Creating respectful conversations does not require dismissing culture or identity.

It means making sure women have accurate information, understand their choices and can access support without being shamed for asking for it.

Sexual health services should be places where women can discuss concerns confidentially and receive appropriate professional advice.

Healthy Relationships Include Choice

Sexual Health Week also gives us an opportunity to think about what healthy relationships look like.

Respect matters.

Communication matters.

Consent matters.

So does being able to disagree or say no without being frightened of what will happen afterwards.

A healthy relationship should not require someone to surrender control over their body, contraception, healthcare or reproductive decisions.

Recognising controlling behaviours can help challenge the idea that they are simply normal features of intimate relationships.

Supporting Women at Anah Project

At Anah Project, we support Black, South Asian and Middle Eastern women and girls experiencing domestic abuse.

Our culturally sensitive, trauma-informed approach recognises that women’s experiences of abuse can intersect with family circumstances, culture, immigration, housing, finances, health and other areas of their lives.

Support can involve helping women access healthcare and appropriate specialist services as part of a wider process of rebuilding safety and independence.

We understand that discussing sexual violence or reproductive experiences can be extremely personal. Women should be able to decide what they want to disclose, when they want to disclose it and what support they would like to receive.

Sexual Health Is Also About Autonomy

Sexual Health Week gives us an opportunity to move the conversation beyond contraception and sexually transmitted infections.

Sexual wellbeing includes consent, dignity, safety and autonomy.

It means having access to reliable information.

It means being able to seek healthcare.

And it means having the right to make decisions about your own body without coercion, violence or fear.

For women experiencing domestic abuse, protecting these rights must be part of the wider conversation about sexual health.

Because every woman deserves to have her boundaries respected, her choices heard and her body recognised as her own.