Sexual aftercare and its role in informed consent

Sexual consent is about good communication between sexual partners before and during intercourse. Consent is not simply about saying “yes” or “no” before intercourse. Rather, it is about consulting with your sexual partner throughout the sexual encounter and being attuned to verbal and nonverbal responses.

However, when we talk about consent, we don’t always talk about what happens after sex.

Communication and care are important during sex. Even if someone has freely and enthusiastically consented, it is important that the sexual partner treats them with respect. No one wants to feel disrespected or uncared for. Respectful sex also includes how we treat our partners before and after sex.

It is time to include sexual aftercare in the informed consent discussion.

What is sexual aftercare?

Sexual aftercare refers to checking in with your partner after sex to make sure they are OK. It can also mean doing certain things to make the person feel safe and relaxed.

Aftercare can look like many things. It can mean making time for physical needs, like drinking fluids or, for women, going to the bathroom to prevent urinary tract infections. It can also mean spending time with your partner to help each other relax or tune into what else is going on in their lives.

In some cases, aftercare may be a brief process of checking in and paying attention to how someone is doing. In all cases, aftercare is about making sure that care and respect for the sexual partner continues throughout the sexual encounter.

The term “sexual aftercare” comes from the kink community. During kink-based sex, people may enact certain “scenes” that eroticize power dynamics and consciously cross physical and emotional boundaries. Aftercare is about regrouping after the scene. It helps everyone feel emotionally and physically comfortable.

Within the kink community, negotiating a sex scene ideally includes planning sexual play as well as aftercare. Asking someone what they’re likely to need after sex is part of the process of arranging what people want and negotiating boundaries and consent.

A new term for an old idea

Taking care of another person after sex is obviously not a new concept, even if the way we talk about it varies. The term we are probably most familiar with is “cuddling” after sex. There is a lot of research supporting the importance of cuddling after sex for sexual and relationship satisfaction.

Beyond cuddling, intimacy, affection and communication after sex also promote satisfaction and well-being in the relationship.

In fact, what happens after sex has a huge impact on the quality of the sexual encounter and how someone feels after sex.

Aftercare refers to a deliberate (or planned) approach to building rapport with a partner after sex and ensuring their well-being. For this reason, aftercare is becoming part of contemporary conversations about sexual communication, consent, and pleasure.

Follow-up and consent information online

The Internet plays an important role in educating people about sexual health and consent.

Following the global #MeToo campaign and the rise of feminist digital activism, issues around consent and resistance to sexual violence have gained prominence online. This has led to a large amount of online content on platforms such as TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram addressing consent and what respectful sex should look like.

This content encourages political engagement against sexual violence as well as personal reflection and learning. These authors challenge us to ask ourselves: What do I need from a partner to feel safe? How do I tell my partner about my sexual needs?

In addition, the internet has given people the opportunity to engage with diverse sexual experiences and communities, such as kink communities. Over the past few decades, the language of “kink” and the processes of sexual negotiation and consent that take place in kink communities have been adopted into the “mainstream,” in part because they became accessible online.

With the mainstreaming of kink culture, or at least greater awareness of these cultures, kink ideas have found their way into digital content about consent, respect, and sexual pleasure.

Why is follow-up care for consent important?

Consent is essentially about caring and respecting another person. It’s about finding out what someone is comfortable with, checking in with them, and making sure they feel safe throughout the sexual encounter.

Introducing the concept of sexual aftercare into consent education makes it easier to focus on consent as an ongoing dialogue. It provides practical guidelines for people to talk with sexual partners about what they need and how they want to feel about sex. How do you want to feel after sex? What helps with that?

When aftercare is discussed when negotiating sexual consent issues, it encourages deeper conversations about what people want and need for safe, respectful, and pleasurable sex.

Jennifer Power receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care.

/Courtesy of The Conversation. This material from the original organization/authors may be time-sensitive in nature and has been edited for clarity, style and length. Mirage.News does not represent any institutional or party position and all views, positions and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the authors.