ABSTRACT
Social work research, education, and practice has become saturated with an overemphasis on assessing sexual health through a lens of sexual risk, negatively impacting the most marginalized groups of US society (racially, gender, and sexually minoritized people). Sexual risk emphasizes an assessment of sexual health that prioritizes marriage, monogamy, and white, middle-class standards of sexual health. This chapter dissects the roots of sexual risk and presents an alternative framework, sexual liberation, which emphasizes sexual autonomy, pleasure, and education. Utilizing a reproductive justice and human rights lens for assessing sexual health, this chapter presents an alternative to sexual risk that promotes inclusion of marginalized groups in US society, providing them with an opportunity to exercise their sexual autonomy free from judgment and discrimination and laying a groundwork to promote their sexual health.
