Busy today, and if I’m going to be blogging, I want to get back to writing personal stuff; but I made the mistake of going back to that thread (which has exploded), and I saw this comment from Emilie Dice and it irritated me:
Because men are already “sex positive” by cultural default. It’s not an issue for them. Of course they want women making the right choice to cater to their sexist demands. It’s a given.
That really annoys me because it is so NOT what being sex-positive is about. It reminds me of non-sex-positive feminists who say, “I like sex! So how can I be sex-negative?” Because it’s not about whether you personally like sex. It’s about so much more than that. And the traditional patriarchal construct of how male and female heteronormative sexuality is played out is NOT sex-positive. So a guy not being afraid to say he likes to fuck isn’t necessarily sex-positive, either. Does he subscribe to the virgin/whore dichotomy? How does he view women who are openly, actively, unabashedly sexual? Does he speak in denigrating terms about some women and/or some types of consensual sex? Does he think “gay” is an insult? Does he use gendered insults? On and on and on. And of course, anything that is sexist (see Emilie’s comment) is by definition NOT sex-positive.
A few weeks ago I collected some sex-positive links to serve as reference for explaining what I mean, since I seem to be so often repeating myself.
READ ME: Disclaimer
9 Responses to "What sex-positivity is not"
Maybe this is a case where a semantic change would help. If you don’t know what “sex-positive” means to the people who use it, you could assume it means “Yay sex!” … which it does, to an extent, and I bet most sex-positive people would agree with “Yay sex!”
But there’s much more to it than that, because it’s not just about the actual sex, but about how we think about sex, and talk about sex, and choose sex partners, and what counts as “sex” anyway…
So maybe “sexuality-positive” would help people understand that we mean a lot more than just getting it on.
Yeah, or I mean, people could to some very quick background reading (such as I’ve provided) in order to gain a general understanding of the terminology, its history, and its meaning. That seems to me to be a better solution than moving to a different term which is just as open for misinterpretation for people who can’t take the time to understand what it means.
Hey Amber! Thanks for linking your sex positive list. GREAT one. I somehow missed it the first time around. Mind if I borrow some of those links and post them on the list on my site? ( http://www.funkybrownchick.com/sex )
Twanna,
Go right ahead!
I loved this comment on ‘that thread”. Not sure who it was by (panoptical - sorry: reading problems?), but it certainly trips one of my triggers:
which leads me to ask who gets control as a consequence of that construction?
Put me down as pro-malleability and pro-people controlling themselves. I can’t think of a response, but I suspect it should have one .
2 quick postscripts:
I answered your comments back on my blog,(short answer: WP strikes again) but didn’t bring them back here figuring you had other things going on that were a lot more important.
I didn’t think the HRC was at the top of your Christmas card list, but this story was interesting;
Seriously.
To me, it entails a certain amount of thought about sexuality as well as a firm grasp of your own desires.
And it also includes not passing judgment on other people’s sexual behaviors as “catering to sexist demands.”
There’s a world of difference between the blowjob I willingly give and enjoy giving and the one that teenage me made myself give for fear of losing my boyfriend. (But of course, you know that.)
I’ve read Emilie’s blog and she has some serious issues with sexuality and the sex work she does. I’m not surprised that she said something like that. I’d link but she has apparently moved her blog within the past couple weeks. You’re spot on about what sex-positivity is and is not, Amber. Will be linking.
Yes. This. I know we’ve had differing opinions about the term itself, and I appreciate where you’re coming from on the “just do a little research, people” factor, but the point is the same. Not only is sex-positivity *not* about women just caving in to become “willing” participants in their own degradation, it’s about actually creating a space where sex is not degrading. Why is this so hard to understand?
Just to expand a bit on the terminology issue, part of the reason I find “sex-positive” problematic (and I haven’t had a chance to scan your links, so maybe you do address this there) is that I feel like as a -term- it covers the part that encourages embracing sexuality in whatever (consensual and adult) ways float your proverbial boat, but it fails to convey the (imo) equally important part that encourages asexuality or periods of celibacy or whatever if *that’s* where your boat is at. I also think that sex positivity has to do with more than just sex, and I hate that it feels like that gets lost in the titillating stuff.
Purtek,
I’m pretty sure the asexuality thing is covered in at least one of the pages I linked to, because yes, that is a crucial part of it too. Making people feel pressured to do or not do anything has no place in sex positivity.
Also the “Do a little bit of research, people” - I do get annoyed but I hope it doesn’t come off as that simplistic. I *do* think people need to do their due diligence, but I also think it can be difficult to have productive conversations w/o coming to an understanding of a shared lexicon, and sometimes it can be hard to find reliable definitions, even if you have researched!
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