Defining Sex Positivity
Franklin Veaux has set off on a bold stroll through the minefields of sex positivity, with this post that mostly expounds on what sex positivity is not. As somebody who has long used the term, I found his disquisition useful. I didn’t quite agree with his one paragraph on what “sex positive” actually is, though:
Sex positivity at its core is simply the recognition that there is more than one “right” way to have sexual relationships. It is an acknowledgement that human sexuality is incredibly diverse, that different people have different tastes and relate to sexuality in different ways, and that as long as everyone is having sex with consenting adult partners, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with sex, regardless of the way people relate to it. In short, it’s a deliberate refusal to place one’s own sexuality on a pedestal and proclaim it the “right” way to have sex.
My thought upon reading that was that I’d just boil that down to “Sex positivity is about being non-judgmental about consensual sexual choices.” But upon reflection, I decided that’s not enough.
Franklin’s paragraph, and my sentence, are statements that establish a space by bounding it and excluding things from it. In my sentence, the word “non-judgmental” is key; “acknowledgment that … there is nothing wrong” and “deliberate refusal” are key phrases in his paragraph.
At best, we’re describing a lack of sex-negativity with phrases like these. I think being genuinely sex-positive requires something more. Franklin’s post details many specific things sex positivity is not; mostly, these are specific sexual propositions or arguments that have been claimed to underlie, and be necessary to, the sex-positive position. And I agree with him that none of these, individually, are necessary to sex-positivity.
However, I do think you can’t be sex-positive without — risking tautology here — being positive about some sex. Being “not negative” doesn’t quite get you there. Being “not negative” probably suffices to unsubscribe you from the armies of the anti-sex culture warriors, but you’ve got to take a positive position and celebrate sexuality in some way, I’d argue, to be sex-positive.
Do you have to celebrate all the sex? Of course not. If you’re like most people with pronounced tastes and opinions, some of the sexual propositions and subcultures out there will strike you as boring, frightening, risible, or worse. No matter. Sometimes being non-judgmental doesn’t require much more from you than keeping your mouth firmly shut. “It’s not for me” doesn’t make you judgmental, but if you examine your motives for expressing that sentiment, there’s usually a parcel of judgment to be found. Sex positive people, I’ve found, spend a lot of time celebrating what they are into, and waste very few words talking about the sex that doesn’t appeal.
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Yeah… the paragraph you’ve quoted from Veaux sounds more “sex-neutral” or “sex-tolerant” when you examine it.
My guess is that he is well on his way down the path to sex-positivity though.
It’s a tough path for Westerners who’ve been raised in a society heavily influenced by Puritan ethic culture. Nineteenth-century abolitionist and women’s-rights activist Wendell Phillips reportedly said: “The Puritan’s idea of hell is a place where everybody has to mind his own business.”
Sex-positive thought requires a step further. You’ve got to accept that however we were created, by nature, a single supreme being, or tweaked by a superior race of extra-terrestrials as theorists like Zecharia Sitchin have postulated, humans were designed to enjoy sex in a major way.
If one examines the human male, it could be argued that men were designed so that the very survival of the human species depends on sexual arousal and enjoyment. If one examines the human female, you’ll see that the clitoris has but one purpose, to provide the female with repetitious pleasure, which also facilitates the reproduction of the species.
Surely if sex acts were seen by some creator as a bad thing, he or she could have designed around it, so that we would reproduce like amoebas and paramecium, or by external fertilization like certain sea life and plants.
Some dictionary’s definition of sex is any action which causes reproduction. It has been said that the only unnatural sex act, was the one that could not be accomplished. Being as until very recently, it was virtually impossible to fertilize the human ovum without at least the male experiencing pleasure, it could be argued that sex without pleasure is unnatural.
It should also be of note that when women experience orgasm, the cervical orifice dips into the pool of semen (which has been deposited in her vagina by the male), with every muscular spasm of joy, and pumps that seed through her uterus towards her egg.
If we are designed to enjoy sex, then as Martha Stewart says, “It’s a good thing!”, and sexual apathy could even be said to be unhealthy and even unnatural.
Oh, Whiplash, I have no doubt in my mind that Veaux is sex-positive as I understand the term. I’m quibbling a bit with his definition, but if you want my theory for why his shot at a definition came up light in my opinion, it’s that he’s of a scientific turn of mind and couldn’t bear to do the handwavium thing I did about “you gotta celebrate something but not all the things, leaving it all kinda fuzzy”. I think in his quest for precision, he may have settled for defining a state that’s short (but not too short of the state I have in mind when I use the term.