About us & our Mission

Sex-Aware is a non-profit organisation founded in December 2018 in Vienna, Austria. The female founders are united by the vision of empowering people to care for their sexual health and well-being. The focus lies on spreading awareness of sexually transmittable infections (STIs), providing education about their prevention, fighting stigma, and advocating a low-threshold, cost-free access to preventive STI testing.

The core team of Sex-Aware consists of a medical doctor, a jurist, a multimedia professional and a community pharmacist. The founders of Sex-Aware have gained experience through years of developing and hosting sex-positive spaces, as workshop facilitators or as health professionals. They are now keen to share this knowledge with the community.

The urgency to establish Sex-Aware stems from the limited access to cost-free preventive STI testing in Austria. After speaking with others about this lack of service the founding members of Sex-Aware noticed that, despite some STIs becoming more common again, a majority of people seemed to lack both basic knowledge about STIs and awareness of the risk of infection. As STIs occur mostly without symptoms and can have serious impacts on health, including infertility and cancer, this was especially alarming. The lack of cost-free STI testing and of sex-positive education about safer sex and consent, the stigma and shame that still occur around STIs prompted the founding of Sex-Aware.

Sex-Aware wants to educate the public about STIs, their prevention, and the general topic of consent. The organisation currently focuses on young people, especially those who engage in non-monogamous relationship models, have several sexual partners, participate in one-night-stands, or want to encourage safer sex within their current relationship. This includes, but is not limited to, providing safer sex information online and in person, offering training on how to negotiate safer sex methods and organise safer sex events, educating people about consent, and advocating free preventive STI testing.

Sex-Aware sees itself as provider of information and tools around safer sex based on which people can then make informed decisions about their sexual health. Sex-Aware promotes a stigma-free conversation about STIs with an open-minded approach towards sex. Additionally, it aims to include all sexes, genders, forms of (sexual) attraction, and ableism. The team is always keen to improve their efforts. We are hence open and anticipating all feedback, suggestions, and expertise!

Let’s work together to start a conversation on safer sex. Be sex-aware.

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