What types of personal information should be disclosed to a partner before sex, to ensure informed consent?

9 comments

  1. A clean STD test, what both parties would do if there’s an accidental pregnancy (if applicable), and a discussion about what both parties are comfortable with.

  2. STI status, any health issues that may matter, any hard limits and it’s probably good to share what you like/want beforehand

    Not everyone likes penetration, or oral, or hair pulling or whatever

  4. The full context of the sexual encounter should be always disclosed first, by which I mean things like STD status, whether the relationship is exclusive or not, casual or not, etc. And specific sex acts should be cleared beforehand, like others have said.

    Beyond that, to be honest, I think that it’s always wrong to purposefully avoid disclosing any information to a partner because you think it would make them less likely to sleep with you. Like if someone said that they weren’t comfortable sleeping with, say, people who had received some vaccine or another – I would think that that reason is pretty silly, but it wouldn’t give someone else the right to lie about their vaccine status to get into bed with them.

  5. IMO, things that should be discussed beforehand are: abortion to find out if you agree on it, if you have an STD, if you’re hoping to have natural children, if you never want to have children, and if you have a kink or habit that might be off-putting or scary to someone.

  6. This is a COMPREHENSIVE yet CONTROVERSIAL list:

    1. STI history (e.g., Does the person have a hx of curable STIs like chlamydia? Or incurable infections like Herpes (HSV2)?)
    2. Sexual history (e.g., number of partners if applicable, genders of previous sexual partners)
    3. Opinions about abortion– God forbid if one partner is pro-abortion and the other isn’t.
    4. IV drug use history
    5. Drug use history in general
    6. Age– PLEASE verify age
    7. Opinions of protection– it should be a no brainer that protection is important, but not everyone shares this view
    8. Last sexual encounter (e.g., the last time a person had sex with another person. Timelines matter for transmission of STIs)
    9. Chronic illnesses that can impede judgement (e.g., Does the person have ___ amount of years to live?)
    10. Opinions of exclusivity (e.g., polyamorous relationships, FWB).
    11. Sexual Orientation (No need to provide an explanation here. There are riskier affiliated sexual orientations than others).
    12. MEDICATIONS– this is my inner pharmacist coming out, but there ARE teratogenic medications that warrant explicit approval prior to engaging in sexual activity.
    13. Personal hygiene comfortability (e.g., if the person believes in bathing daily, every other day, etc. This seems trivial, but there are instances of women getting many UTIs and yeast infections due to an unclean partner, or a partner who may not have the same beliefs with respect to hygiene).

    Like I said, some is controversial. But this should encourage caution when having sex with another person regardless of gender, orientation, or race. Some of what I listed might seem ironic for a hookup, but should show that there’s much more that goes into sex instead of temporary fun.

  7. For myself, I keep a fairly strict version of informed consent. I would choose to disclose everything about myself that I knew or suspected might be a deal-breaker for them. To me, it’s my ethical obligation to do so. Additionally, if they asked me something, I would answer honestly or say I wasn’t comfortable disclosing that, so they would be able to then choose for themselves whether that was a deal-breaker for them.

  8. Personally I don’t care how many partners they have had before. I want to know that they are going to go with the clinic with me and get tested. So that we both know we are clean and aren’t going to get each other sick. I also talk about things I like and not in the bedroom. Things that are not allowed to happen. What happens if something goes bad and pregnancy happens. You know the basics.

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