Sexual Ethics - To Register CLICK HERE

Thursday, August 13, 2026

12:00 - 3:00 PM

Participants will enhance their ability to help clients manage sexual boundaries and challenge their own preconceived notions about sex and morality.

Presenter: Joe Kort, PhD, LMSW

Members $45 | Non Members $65 | Students/Retired  $10

This webinar is approved for 3 social work Ethics CEs through the NASW-Michigan CE Collaborative, and counts as towards the live, synchronous requirement.

After registering, you will be emailed a registration confirmation. 

Overview:

Sexual ethics involve issues such as consent, sexual orientation, gender identification, sexual relations and procreation. This workshop will explore sexual ethics with technology, managing conflicts of interests as it relates to erotic transference from the clients, and ethics as it relates to working with sexual infidelity, clients who are managing sexual partners where STI/STD are present and ethical positions on sex work. Together we will explore how sexual pleasure is often narrowly defined in terms of heteronormative penetration, and whether it is possible to use pornography or pay for sexual acts if we strive to be ethically sexual citizens. 

Therapists will question their own sexual ethics as it relates to consent and non-consent. An essential part of teaching sexual ethics is getting people to reflect honestly both on what they believe and on how they have been led to those beliefs.

Sexual ethics are more than our personal choices and preferences; they are the ways we integrate care and respect for others, mutuality, and reciprocity into sexual practices. Thinking about the messages that influence sexual practices requires that we critically interrogate socio-cultural discourses about gender and sexuality and the contexts in which they circulate. This will be the framework for the course. We will explore gender, race, sexuality, and class construct sexual expectations.  We will look at how clients negotiate their sexual autonomy independently and in relationships. We will discuss how sexism, racism and the normalization of heterosex in sexualized popular culture and pornography shape sexual practices. Therapists will increase theirunderstanding of sexual ethics and technology, their ability to identify conflicts of interest, awareness of managing conflicts of interest, their awareness of crossing boundaries for themselves and in relationships versus violating them, and explore sexual boundaries with clients along the lines of erotic transference from the client to therapist. 

·       Participants will familiarize themselves with their own Sexual Code of Ethics

·       Participants will be able to recognize the purpose of the various parts of their own sexual ethical code.

·       Participants will be able to identify multiple sexual principles.

·       Participants will be able to recognize the need for supervision as it relates to sexual ethics.

·       Participants will examine the underlying sexual ethical reasons.

·       Participants will be able to name 2 underlying, common principles of general sexual ethics.