intimacy

High School Human Sexuality Curriculum

/ Veronica
This is the session of Human Sexuality 101 was offered by The Autism Program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. This group was designed for three high school/young adult girls and boys with ASD.   The teens in this group were bright and engaging and have had a little formal exposure to sexuality concepts, but still struggle with the more nuanced facets. Many of these activities could be adapted for groups of various sizes and ability levels.

You can find all of our lesson plans for the high school human sexuality classes here.

HighSchoolHumanSexuality

High school Human Sexuality 101 Week 5- Intimacy

/ jpbrown2 / 1 Comment

Intimacy Intimacy was the focus of week 5. This concept can be difficult to understand because it is very broad so this is how we talked about it in our class.

We talked about how intimacy can be divided into two parts: physical and emotional. Physical intimacy involves expressing ones feelings for another person through a physical manner (holding hands, hugging, kissing, and sexual activity). While emotional intimacy involves the feelings towards another person. It is based on how comfortable you are with someone and how much you can share with them. It is important to understand that there are levels to intimacy and that it is not necessarily just for two people in a dating relationship.

For this week’s activities, we opened up with a discussion on the numerous ways to have intimacy with someone.  During group time, our plan was for participants to create a “Intimacy Chart”.

Intimacy Chart

We provided them with pictures displaying different types of intimacy ( holding hands, hugging, etc.) and asked them to write down how each of the pictures made them feel. After that we arranged the picture in order to what we felt would be the natural progression of relationships. To finish off the activity we categorized  each picture based on whom we are comfortable doing those actions with. The main purpose of the “Intimacy Chart” is to help the participants to visualize the different types of intimacy.

Although this was the plan, one of our students had a different idea of how she should do this activity.  She asked for a folder and then decorated it with her boyfriends name.  She then put the different acts of intimacy she felt comfortable with in the folder.  At first, she didn’t want to share which behaviors she had chosen, but then she decided that she would share.  What a great spontaneous adaption!

For more information on intimacy visit our Intimacy Activities and Adult Human Sexuality Week 6- Physical Intimacy and Human Sexual Response

This Week’s Material

Parent Letter Week 5

Intimacy Powerpoint

Intimacy Activity

/ Veronica / 1 Comment

This activity can be used to teach about different intimate activities, either alone or with a partner. All of the actions come in a word list form and in a visual form. The activity includes a continuum worksheet in which  activities can be classified as “less intimate” and “more intimate”.

One way to use this activity is to teach what sex is.  We often assume that people understand what sex is, but people have difficulty with understanding sex even when it is explained.  First list the acts of intimacy in a continuum and then discuss “where sex starts” or “which activities are sex and which ones are not.  This is more difficult than it seems.  For example, it is not uncommon for students to start with thinking that “kissing above the waist over the clothes” is sex. When we teach this activity, we encourage students to express their own understanding of what is more or less intimate but because the concept of a spectrum is difficult, we guide them at the anchors of what is the most inmate and least intimate.  By seeing sex in the context of different sexual activities it helps fill in some of the gaps.

Instead of a continuum you could use categories- the categories we use help reinforce the idea of a continuum as well.  There is also a list of different levels of intimacy that can be used to classify these activities. Using the activity in this way is consistent with the concept of postponement- postponing intercourse until a relationship is more serious of formalized.

Sometimes when people see all the different acts of intimacy  they are surprised but it is important to be inclusive of all different forms of sexual expression.  We also don’t use all the different acts with every group, but we’ve given you a pretty comprehensive list that you can tailor to meet your student or child’s needs.

Download the intimacy activity intimacy activity pictures or with just words.

Levels of Intimacy

Levels of Intimacy

The Circles of Sexuality

/ sarahlcurtiss / 1 Comment

No, these aren’t the circles we usually talk about related to levels of intimacy and based on the Circles curriculum.  These circles developed by Dr. Dennis Dailey, focus on Sensuality, Sexualization, Intimacy, Sexual Identity, and Sexual Health.  I think these might make a good framework for a 5 module course or could be used to introduce the concept of sexuality.  Click here for a full explanation of The Circles of Sexuality.