Open Communication: Honesty, Listening, Trust, and Intimacy
Open communication is the honest and respectful exchange of thoughts, feelings, needs, preferences, concerns, and relevant information.
Healthy Intimacy: Trust, Closeness, Communication, and Respect
Healthy intimacy is emotional, physical, romantic, or sexual closeness built through trust, honest communication, mutual respect, and individuality.
Mutual Respect: Equality, Boundaries, Trust, and Consent
Mutual respect is the shared recognition of each person’s dignity, rights, feelings, boundaries, needs, and freedom of choice.
Sadism: Erotic Pain, BDSM Roles, Safety, and Consent
Sadism is enjoyment associated with causing or imagining pain, discomfort, humiliation, fear, or submission and may appear in consensual BDSM.
Discipline: Self-Control, BDSM Rules, Boundaries, and Consent
Discipline means guiding or controlling behavior through rules, training, self-control, or agreed consequences and may have personal or BDSM-related meanings.
Sexual Fantasy: Erotic Imagination, Desire, Meaning, and Consent
Sexual fantasy is an imagined erotic thought, scene, role, person, sensation, or activity that may involve curiosity, desire, pleasure, or arousal.
Sexual Aversion: Fear, Disgust, Avoidance, and Intimacy
Sexual aversion is a strong feeling of fear, discomfort, disgust, anxiety, or avoidance related to sexual thoughts, touch, situations, or activity.
Feel: Emotion, Sensation, Attraction, and Sexual Awareness
Feel means to experience an emotion, bodily sensation, attraction, desire, impression, or awareness, or to touch something in order to sense it.
Trust: Honesty, Reliability, Intimacy, and Consent
Trust is confidence in another person’s honesty, reliability, and respect and may support emotional safety, intimacy, communication, and cooperation.
Human Development: Growth, Identity, Sexuality, and Life Stages
Human development is the lifelong process of physical, cognitive, emotional, social, psychological, and sexual growth from conception through older adulthood.