Safer Sex and Harm Reduction

What Is Safer Sex & Harm Reduction?

There is a need for balance between taking risks and maintaining our health. We take risks everyday, and we’re usually taught from a young age how to manage those risks in order to prolong our lives and increase our health. Unfortunately, when it comes to certain behaviours such as sex, sometimes our family, teachers, and mentors assume that silence and/or threats are the best way to keep us safe. In reality, these are very ineffective methods. Yet we often take on these attitudes ourselves, assuming that good and safe sex just happens, without negotiations and planning.

Safer sex and harm reduction acknowledge that people are going to experiment, and the more they feel supported in exploring their interests and desires, the more likely people will be to do so safely. In this section you will find information on how to engage in safer sex, body art, and substance use, and how to minimize the risk of getting and passing along STIs and other infections.

Resources

• Sexuality Education Resource Centre Manitoba
• Sexuality and You
• The 595 Prevention Team
• Canadian Harm Reduction
• Nine Circles Community Health Centre
  (Harm Reduction Services, including needle distribution)
• Street Connections (Harm Reduction Services)
  (204) 981-0742
  1-705 Broadway, Winnipeg, MB
• Main Street Project
• Safer Sex Information 
• STI Risk Rater
• BDSM: Safer Kinky Sex (information about safe piercing, branding, scarification)
• Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange
• AIDS Community Care Montreal – Body Art
• Safer Drug Use Information 
• Gay and Lesbian Alcoholics
• Addictions Foundation of Manitoba
• LGBT Tobacco Use