World Sexual Health Day 2021

1. Background and Goal Since 2010, WAS has invited many audiences to celebrate World Sexual Health and join this initiative to promote sexual health, well-being and rights for all. This initiative proposed by the then President Rosemary Coates of Australia has become a key strategy to bring our themes and socialize the mission of the World Association for Sexual Health. 2. Topic This year’s theme is sexual health in a digital world and the motto is: “Turn it on: Sexual health in a digital world” The reason for choosing the motto “Turn it on” is the message of igniting awareness of sexual health and sexual rights and enforcing them, as there are also many violations and abuses of sexual rights in the digital space. 3. Conceptual Framework We live in a world that does not differentiate between digital and analog to connect in our relationships, in the exchange of ideas and in our learning. The digital world has become an everyday space in which we spend many moments of our day to day, where we have universal connections that allow us to access and expand content and information to promote sexual health and sexual rights through the dissemination of appropriate messages. Information and communication technologies provide the ideal tool for health promotion to ensure that communication on social networks promotes involvement in health self-care. Especially in groups that are not reached with traditional methods such as young people. The implementation of the Smartphone in people’s daily lives has not only revealed the penetration of technology in daily life, but also the opportunity to take advantage of technological incidence as a potential tool to educate from communication. The development of applications for mobiles and tablets has been a dynamic, individual and interactive way of reaching people. In the case of health promotion, the development of mobile applications has meant the possibility of developing closer communication strategies for the target population groups. The main function of the internet is the rapid exchange of information and today it has become a tool for legitimizing or rejecting cultural trends and published information. On the other hand, it influences the ways of receiving and transmitting information and of creating relationships between people in the social organization. The trend towards the integration of new technologies as media and creators of communication, habits and culture, has increased, being adopted mainly by the youngest part of the population. Therefore, cyberspace has become not only a referential framework for the search for information, but also for the emission of messages, with the absolute certainty of its visibility and expansion. The information society goes hand in hand with globalization and new technologies because both have generated advances complementing each other, uniting latitudes and generating not only shared understanding, but knowledge to share. However, we know that there are access gaps between vulnerable groups and regions of the world that do not easily access digital platforms or information technologies online. In terms of public health, the Internet has become a source of consultation and recommendation. From consultation forums generated by anonymous and lay users on the subject, to the boom of specialized consultation and health promotion websites. There is a high traffic of online data oriented to the active search for information and advice on health matters. A priori it is possible to think that there are a high number of apps aimed at young people and sexuality, and that is true if we focus on applications on dating systems or ludic-sexual approaches, but there is not a broad panorama of tools that address the promotion of healthy sexual practices both among young people and people of any age group. In addition, it is very easy to access information, but it does not mean that they can always discriminate between what is accurate and reliable from what is not. But other issues arise when we discuss the use of digital technology and the internet for sexual purposes, one of them is privacy, consensuality, informed consent, confidentiality, the internet and the use of apps open possibilities, but they also raise questions and create threats, namely the possibility of sexual harassment and sexual related cyberbullying in digital contexts. The use of technology has called for the reframing and reconceptualization of what is sexual health and sexual rights in a digital world and we need to learn how to integrate technologies in people’s lives in an ethical human rights framework. Our slogan this here aims to call attention for this challenge because the expression “turn it on” is a call for action and for the need to raise the questions and topics and challenges and opportunities that the digital world brings and how these maximize or threaten sexual health and sexual rights.