Introduction:
Sexual behavior intersects with law, ethics, and responsibility. Inspired by Józef Tischner’s view that sex is a mood, experience, and encounter – yet also a form of responsibility – the study explored how lay respondents (medical students) relate sexuality to responsibility. The survey was first conducted in 2013 and repeated in 2025 (declared the “Year of Tischner” in Poland).

Aim of the research:
The study examines how lay medical students conceptualize responsibility within sexuality and explores the implications of these attitudes for gynecologic counselling, prevention of sexually transmitted infections, unplanned pregnancy, and medico-legal considerations.

Material and methods:
A questionnaire reflecting Tischner’s concept assessed agreement on five statements using a 6-point scale (0–5; higher = stronger agreement): sex as a mood, emotional experience, personal encounter, corporeality, and responsibility brought into the world. A sixth, open-ended item asked “What is sex?”. Volunteers were neither perpetrators of sexual violence nor diagnosed with pathological sexual preferences. Descriptive and comparative analyses were performed, including gender-based comparisons; statistical significance was set at  = 0.05.

Results and conclusions:
The “Sex is an experience” statement received the highest rating (mean 4.4 ±0.9), while “Sex is a mood” was rated the lowest (2.8 ±1.6). Overall, gender was not primarily associated with responsibility. Median and mean ratings were broadly similar between women and men; a statistically significant difference emerged only for “sex as responsibility” (p = 0.037), a value close to the significance threshold. Comparative findings across the 2013 and 2025 samples are presented in the full manuscript. In this descriptive sexual-ethics study, responsibility was not a dominant element in respondents’ understanding of sex.