Scarleteen

I have heard from my sex-ed teacher that sexual jokes contribute to unhealthy relationships. That’s what she thinks about sexual jokes. What do you think about them?

Hi Sage,

That's one of those things where what I, or that sex ed teacher, think about them matters way less than the comfort an individual person feels about them; one relationship may have partners who like to joke about sex, another may have people who are really uncomfortable with those kind of jokes.

I don't really agree with the statement that sexual jokes are a red flag because humor, even sexual humor, is such a broad category that the statement tells me very little about the actual behaviors going on in a relationship. If someone is making sexual jokes at the expense of their partner, that's not a great sign. Neither is someone making sexual jokes when a partner has told them it makes them uncomfortable. But that's very different from, say, someone who occasionally make's sex-based puns or people who find joking with each other during sex fun.