DOMAINS OF DELIGHT
RELATIONSHIP JOY
Relationship joy is individuals having the freedom to learn about, imagine, discuss and experience joy in relationships with married, romantic and sexual partners, friends, family and peers.
Individuals are able to celebrate the joy of safe, inclusive and equitable relationships. They are free to choose a consensual romantic or sexual partner(s) of their choice, without fear, stigma or shame, and talk comfortably about sex, pleasure and consent with sexual partners.
“I AM MORE SATISFIED WITH [MY] RELATIONSHIP NOW THAN IN THE PAST, … BECAUSE NOW THERE’S MORE RESPECT, MORE AFFECTION, MORE UNDERSTANDING, MORE EXCHANGE, A LOT OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, A LOT OF COMPANIONSHIP. SO, THERE’S NO WAY NOT TO BE SATISFIED, THERE’S MORE JOY.”
(“Raio de Luz”, Brazil)
DOMAINS OF DELIGHT
01
RELATIONSHIP JOY
Relationship joy is individuals having the freedom to learn about, imagine, discuss and experience joy in relationships with married, romantic and sexual partners, friends, family and peers.
Individuals are able to celebrate the joy of safe, inclusive and equitable relationships. They are free to choose a consensual romantic or sexual partner(s) of their choice, without fear, stigma or shame, and talk comfortably about sex, pleasure and consent with sexual partners.
“I AM MORE SATISFIED WITH [MY] RELATIONSHIP NOW THAN IN THE PAST, … BECAUSE NOW THERE’S MORE RESPECT, MORE AFFECTION, MORE UNDERSTANDING, MORE EXCHANGE, A LOT OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, A LOT OF COMPANIONSHIP. SO, THERE’S NO WAY NOT TO BE SATISFIED, THERE’S MORE JOY.”
(“Raio de Luz”, Brazil)
INTRODUCTION ▸
Relationship Joy
Relationship joy is having the freedom to learn about, imagine, discuss and experience joy in relationships with married, romantic and sexual partners, friends, family and peers. It also includes the joy of being single, unmarried and happily unattached and the pleasure of spending time alone.
Relationship joy is having the freedom to learn about, imagine, discuss and experience joy in relationships with married, romantic and sexual partners, friends, family and peers. It also includes the joy of being single, unmarried and happily unattached and the pleasure of spending time alone.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN PRACTICE?
What it looks like in practice?
Organizations and service providers can:
- Celebrate the joy of safe, inclusive and equitable relationships through the images, case studies and language that is used to deliver programmes or services.
- Support individuals and groups to identify relationship, gender and sexual norms and inequities at play in their relationships and communities, and imagine positive alternatives.
- Promote diversity in relationships and in relation to gender and sexual diversity, through campaigns, settings and information materials.
- Create safe spaces for conversations about relationship values, experiences and (in)justices (also see Domain 5 Safe spaces).
- Address and be sensitive to an individual’s situation within the context of their relationships, and be aware that an overly individualistic approach has limited value. This means making space for conversations about an individual’s relationships with partners, family, community members and others.
- Are inclusive and affirming of the diversity of sexual and romantic relationships, including relationships between unmarried people and LGBTQI+ relationships. This includes ensuring that service providers do not assume someone’s relationship status, gender identity or sexual orientation, or their desire to conceive. It also means they provide high-quality care and support without judgement, and actively support difference and diversity in a setting or campaign through images, case studies and language.
Participants are free to:
- Enjoy relationships in which they are supported, recognized, valued and respected.
- Choose a consensual romantic or sexual partner(s) of their choice, without fear, stigma or shame.
- Choose to be single and happily unattached.
- Learn, talk and educate others about relationships and relationship joy.
- Identify and reflect on relationship norms in their community and (if necessary) imagine more equitable, inclusive and joyous alternatives.
- Explore, identify and express what matters to them when it comes to relationships with others.
- Communicate their own needs, desires and limits in a relationship and have these needs, desires and limits respected.
- Show love and care for a partner.
- Empathize and connect with others.
- Talk comfortably about sex and pleasure, and practise consent with sexual partners.
Take a deep dive into Ana Autoestima
DELIGHT DIAGNOSTIC: ASSESS YOUR PROJECT OR ORGANIZATION
Assess your project or organization
We invite you to reflect on how your organization, project, or programme relates to the four levels of action that can help facilitate relationship joy:
Increasing individual awareness and capabilities related to relationship joy or related topics such as happiness and pleasure;
Advocating for and strengthening policies and legal frameworks that uphold sexual and reproductive rights, gender equity and relationship joy;
Addressing social and cultural norms that influence the possibility of experiencing relationship joy;
Ensuring that resources—such as education, health services, housing, access to credit, as well as experiential support like having a voice, safety, and resilience—are available and accessible to influence the possibility of experiencing relationship joy.
These areas are facilitators rather than necessary components—people may still experience relationship joy even in challenging contexts.
You can think of these areas as waves that strengthen each other and help create more supportive environments for relationship joy.
Below are some prompts you can use to reflect on your work, how it supports the four levels of action, and how relationship joy shows up in your mission, work, or outcomes—like ripples spreading through different areas.
Consider:
- How could your organization’s aims and vision more actively celebrate every form of relationship joy – in other words, value and support all relationships equally – while also promoting fairness, equality and respect within them? (all levels)
- How do you help individuals ecognize, explore, and build their own awareness, skills, and capacities for experiencing relationship joy? (individual awareness and capabilities)
- Are there legal restrictions or parameters that may affect the way you characterize or provide support for certain relationships (e.g. laws against LGBTQI+ relationships)? (policies and legal frameworks)
Review:
- Are resources available and/or used to work on relationship joy? (resources)
- What do you already know about social norms, expectations and experiences of interpersonal and intimate relationships in your community? (social norms)
- What does your knowledge about social norms of relationships suggest about gender roles? How might these help to perpetuate inequalities and inequities in the ways that different genders experience relationships? (social norms)
- Do you ask questions about relationship satisfaction, values or equity as part of your provision and/or data collection? (individual awareness)
ACTIVITIES
Activity 2.1 Imagine you and your Ideal partner
Activity 2.1 Imagine you and your Ideal partner
This activity helps participants describe what matters to them when it comes to relationships, and to consider the effect that a programme or service might have in helping them experience relationship joy.
Ask participants to draw a picture of themselves and their partner – either the partner they have, or an imagined ideal partner.
Ask them:
- Where would the picture be taken?
- How would you look in the picture (e.g. would you look serious, silly, cool, in your best outfit, or in casual clothes, etc.)? How would your partner look?
- Why would you choose this pose or setting?
- Would it be a beautiful picture? Why or why not?
- What emotions or qualities do you want to capture about yourself and your partner and the relationship?
- How could this picture reflect joy, connection or growth in the relationship? (For example, would there be a bright yellow sun; would it show the fulfilment of a life goal, such as having a home, a car or children; would it show more than just you and your ideal partner, such as friends or family?)
Prompt group discussion by asking:
- What were your thoughts about relationships before [the programme/service]? Did you ever think about your ideal partner, or having joy in a relationship?
- Has [the programme/service] had an effect on how you feel, think or imagine relationships? If so, how? If not, why not?
- What else could [the programme/service] do?
“I need a committed relationship with someone I can lean on, who can lean on me, who knows that I can count on her, and she can count on me. I’m there to protect her, love her, value her, care for her, and respect her, and she does the same for me.”
-Focus group participant, Tanzania
“When it comes to sex, I’m very comfortable; I can be comfortable around her. I don’t feel the need to hide or be shy around my partner.”
-Focus group participant, Tanzania
Activity 2.2 Rewriting the rules of relationship
Activity 2.2 Rewriting the rules of relationship
The activity is based on an ethical framework developed by researchers in Australia. It was adapted from Great Relationships and Sex Education: 200+ Activities for Educators Working with Young People by Alice Hoyle and Ester McGeeney (2019) and includes (with permission) content from The Practical Guide to Love, Sex and Relationships by Walsh J, Mitchell A, & Hudson M (2017) from the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, which are updated from work from Moira Carmody’s work in sex, ethics and young people. This content is used with permission.
This activity helps participants understand how social, cultural, family and community norms and expectations can affect their relationships, and how they can change these “rules” to bring more joy into their relationships.
Introduce this subject to participants by saying: “We are all influenced by ‘relationship rules’ that we have absorbed throughout our lives. These ‘rules’ – which are also called ‘gender norms’ – describe expected behaviours, such as:
- “If I’m the man, I have to take charge”
- “Men should always know what to do during sex.”
- “Women should never know what to do during sex.”
- “Men are always ready to have sex”
- “If a woman loves her man she should have sex with him whenever he wants”
- “Girls who initiate sex are ‘easy’ and not ‘marriage material’.”
Sometimes these rules can negatively affect our enjoyment of relationships, even though we don’t realize it.
Ask participants to answer the following questions:
Taking care of me:
- Is this what I really want to do?
- Am I safe emotionally and physically?
- Is the other person treating me with respect and concern?
Taking care of you:
- How does what I want affect the other person?
- How do I know?
- How can I check?
Having an equal say:
- Do we have equal power, or is one person getting their way most of the time?
Learning as we go:
- Few of us are born knowing how to ‘do’ relationships. We can learn, and learn from our mistakes.
- What would have made the situation better?
- What am I doing, what am I not doing?
- What can I learn from this?
Ask participants to share ideas about what each of these principles might mean and discuss how they differ from common relationship rules that participants encounter in their everyday lives.
INDICATOR OF SUCCESS
Input indicators
Number of professionals trained on relationship, gender and sexual diversity and inclusion.
Number of professionals trained on preventing violence against women and girls.
Ongoing provider self-assessments indicate an increased number/percentage of domains assessed as inclusive/positive using GAB’s sexual pleasure self-assessment tool and training toolkit (link to: https://www.gab-shw.org/resources/training-toolkit/; https://www.gab-shw.org/resources/sexual-pleasure-an-assessment-tool/).
Do project materials recognize that some people prefer to be single?
Do curricula present relationship joy as it relates to all interpersonal relationships, including those with family, friends, co-workers and communities, not just romantic or sexual relationships?
Number of workshops or sessions that incorporate the concepts of mutual respect and communication in relationships.
Number of safe spaces or support programmes for LGBTQI+ and other marginalized people.
Availability of toolkits or discussion guides that explore equity and joy in relationships.
Outcome indicators
Increase in participants speaking positively about their personal relationships.
Increase in participants’ understanding of unhealthy power dynamics (e.g. see the case study of Equimundo, which taught young people about “green flags” and “red flags” in relationships).
Increase in participants’ comfort level using diverse pronouns for gender identities.
Indications that participants understand the diversity of relationships that exist, including asexuality and deciding not to engage in sexual or romantic relationships.
“For a while, I’ve been without a partner, without anyone. So, there are other ways to satisfy oneself without having a partner, right?…there’s no need to have a partner to be satisfied, I think […] It’s no use having a partner and not being recognized. That’s how I see it. It’s better to be alone than in bad company.”
-Doce, Brazil
“I don’t feel the need to hide or be shy around my partner. I used to struggle with taking off my clothes and being free in front of my previous partners because of WhatsApp groups where we chat as friends. We experienced our friends being humiliated by people they were dating, with comments like, ‘Oh, she pretends to be a man, I did this and that to her.’ Those are the things I don’t need; I don’t want to go through that. So, I decided I don’t want relationships with such people … I want a relationship where I can be free and comfortable, where I can be naked and move around without feeling that she will talk about me tomorrow.”
-Juma, Tanzania
Immerse youself in the other Domains
