Recognising harmful sexual behaviour by young people

What kinds of sexual behaviour are a problem?

You might be worried that your child, or another young person, is doing sexual things that are wrong or hurting someone.

It can sometimes be hard to know if this is the case, or if their behaviour is a normal part of teenage development that you don’t need to be worried about. 

The questions below are here to help – if the answer is ‘yes’ to any of them, you should have some concern and find out more about what is going on:

• Are they more able than the other person to get things they want, or to prevent things they don’t? – for example, because they’re significantly older, more sober, or more dominating?
• Are they not taking seriously the other person’s feelings?
• Are they using lies or tricks; isolation; or threat, intimidation or force, over a period of time, or in the moment, to get the other person to do something sexual with them?
• Are they doing any of the following things, possibly to get the other person to do something sexual with them:
• lying or tricking
• threatening, forcing or intimidating
• making it harder for the other person to spend time with people they’re close to

• Are they saying or doing things which make it hard for the other person to tell anyone else about the sexual activity?
• Did one or both people feel bad during the sexual activity? – for example, angry, depressed, ashamed or scared?

Consider whether their behaviour fits with the basic principles of healthy sexual behaviour.

 
Here are some examples of harmful sexual behaviour in teens (they would also each be a ‘yes’ to one or more of the questions above):

• Sharing sexual pictures of someone without their consent
• Sharing sexual pictures of themselves without the person they’re sending it to  being clear that they would like to see them
• Pretending to love or like someone so they agree to sexual activity
• Viewing sexual images of children online
• Having sexual activity with someone who is significantly more drunk than themselves
• Befriending a younger child in order to do something sexual and asking them not to tell
• Having sexual activity with someone who passively ‘lets’ it happen
• Touching someone’s bottom, breasts or crotch area without clear in-the-moment indications that they want that.

Why might a young person behave like this?

Negative ideas about sex and gender can invite people to act in sexually harmful ways. These ideas are communicated in some things in popular culture like magazines, tv shows, and on social media as well as in pornography, and also sometimes in peer groups and families. Young people may be more vulnerable to these ideas because of their life stage. During the teenage years, young people are more concerned with their image and reputation in the eyes of their peers, and will go further to fit in with what they believe their peers think than at other times in their life.

Many other things can also add to the risk of harmful sexual behaviour, including:

• Alcohol or drug use
• Seeing  or being the target of aggression (sexual, physical or psychological) at home, at school, or in the community
• Limited skills or opportunities for enthusiastic consensual peer sexual activity
• A lack of knowledge about sexual boundaries
• Lots of negative feeling with few skills or options for dealing with it
• The behaviour being met with positive and/or little or no negative consequences (for example, adults turn a blind eye and peers offer respect)

Naturally every situation is different, and in most a few things in combination are playing a part.

If we understand the factors playing into a young person’s behaviour, we can more effectively address them, and in doing so, help the young person to stop.

This should be done whilst recognising the part that the young person’s personal responsibility played.

Remember, there are situations in which a young person is not truly responsible for their sexual behaviour because they are being controlled, pressured or intimidated – the advice in this article is not relevant to these circumstances.