The Sexualitree is a conceptual model of sexuality that is designed to be interactive and personalizable. The ways that you can use it in classroom and clinical settings are extensive, and depend on your participants/patients (their age, existing knowledge of the range of ways that people are sexual, openness to dialogue and introspection, etc.) and the group dynamic (are you teaching, facilitating, or providing a therapeutic environment, how many people are present, what are your and everyone else’s goals, how much time do you have, etc.). Given the wide range of potential answers to all of those questions and more, providing one concrete way to use the Sexualitree seems very limiting! Instead, here is an introduction to the model and a few examples of how it might be used. 

To begin with, it is important to keep in mind the top aspects of sexuality that are brought forward in The Sexualitree:

Global Ideas

These are concepts that are important to The Sexualitree:

• Sexuality is complex.
• Cultural, relational, and intimate influences all affect sexuality.
• Sexuality influences the way people view their culture, and relationships—both intimate and social.
• Each person’s sexuality is unique because of the ways that their cultural, relational, and intimate experiences with sexuality interact.

Depending on classroom or therapeutic goals, it may also be important to keep in mind one or more additional pieces of The Sexualitree’s groundwork.

Specific Parts of the Model

These concepts are part of the Sexualitree, but are not strictly necessary to each lesson, depending on the variables at hand:

• The cultural pieces of sexuality are deeply rooted. They can be changed, but only with time and difficulty.
• The relational pieces of sexuality are the structure upon which intimate experiences are founded and spring out of.
• The intimate pieces of sexuality, or the sexual and romantic experiences that a person has, can grow and change over time.
• There are many potential topics related to sexuality that interact with the three levels of the model in complex ways. This is a non-exhaustive, alphabetical list of topics that may be useful to consider at each level. Professionals will need to consider which topics any student or client might need to process to more deeply understand the academic content or therapeutic context:

Abstinence	Fantasy	Pornography
Access to healthcare	Fashion	Puberty
Anatomy and physiology	Gender	Religion
Body image	Healthcare system	Reproduction
Communication	Intercourse	Sexual assault
Consent	Laws	Sexual orientation
Contraception	Liking and loving	Sexual response
Disability	Masturbation	Skin hunger
Education	Media	STIs and STI prevention
Family	Oral sex	Technology

Ways to Use The Sexualitree in the Classroom

The way(s) that you introduce the Sexualitree in a classroom will be based on your other content goals and objectives, the community you are in, your content scope and sequence, among a wide range of other factors. Here are three (of many, many possible!) examples of ways to introduce the Sexualitree:

1. Invite participants to brainstorm about the ways that their culture tells them sexuality should be, and then a second brainstorm about the ways that their friends, family, and peers talk about and engage in sexuality. Finally, ask participants to work individually or in small groups to come up with all of the different aspects of sexuality that influence or are influenced by individual sexual or romantic relationships. After this brainstorming process, introduce The Sexualitree and discuss the global and specific ideas from above.
2. Write out some of the topics that could be connected to sexuality from the list above on 3×3 sticky note cards. Project the Sexualitree and discuss each of the three levels represented (cultural, relational, and intimate). Distribute the sticky notes to participants individually or in small groups. Invite participants to decide at which level they think their aspects are most important/relevant to someone’s sexuality, and to stick them in that area. Invite a discussion from the larger group about whether they agree that the aspect is where it should be. Hopefully, the discussion will address the fact that many of these aspects belong in more than one place on the Sexualitree, that each person’s tree is likely to look different, and—most importantly—that there is no “right” answer.
3. Describe the three aspects of the tree as in the above example. Label four areas of the room with signs that say Cultural, Relational, Intimate, and Not Present. Briefly define each area, then read topics of sexuality that you think are most relevant or useful to your participants to discuss, and invite them to move to the area of the room where they think that element is most influential to them. Invite discussion within and between groups about why participants moved to that area.

After an introduction to the Sexualitree, there are many places you might decide to go next. The metaphor of a tree can work in many contexts.

If you are working with older adults who are reflecting on their histories and how they shape their aging and evolution, you might discuss the full lifecycle of a tree, inviting participants to consider how their longstanding roots (culture) and slow-growing base (social) histories inform their current intimate relationships.

If you are working with teenagers, you may use the tree as an opportunity to discuss long-term goals, how their root systems and social structures are still forming and can be influenced by their choices, and how these evolve to support their intimate relationships, both current and future.

If you are working with parents, you may talk about how they are setting the cultural soil from which their children will take nourishment, the social systems in which their children will develop strength, and the environment in which their children will develop their own intimacies.

If you are working in a college classroom, you might use the tree as a framework for discussing all aspects of the curriculum. For example, participants who may be confused or unclear on how or why sexual attraction varies dramatically from person to person, a look at the realities of cultural and social frameworks as supportive of (but not, ultimately, defining) the intimate relationships that each person grows and develops. 

If you want to discuss, for example, the implications of a song or a music video with participants, ask them what messages in the song came from the artist’s cultural, social, or intimate relationships and why they might be expressing those experiences in those specific lyrics or visual expressions.

Conclusion

The Sexualitree is a highly versatile model that can be used for a wide variety of sexuality conversation topics. After introducing a model like this, it is often useful to turn the dialogue over to the participants. Ask questions like: What might it mean to think about sexuality in this way? What can the Sexualitree show them about their personal lives? How might this framework help them in conversations with their families, friends, and partners?

The ultimate goal is to dig in, have fun, and engage.