The "No-Sex" Class: Men, Women, and Sex-Positive Culture
Photo by Flickr user lrice. Used under a Creative Commons license.
Amber Rhea of Being Amber Rhea calls out a seriously backwards notion about the meaning of "sex positive."
She quotes a Emilie Dice as saying, in comments on a different site, that
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.
Amber's reply is actually pretty important!
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.
She said it here.
Yup. In common use "sex positive" is about as misunderstood as one can possibly get. For instance inside the created-by-men paradigm of women as the "no-sex" class it's exactly *not* true that *by default* men are sex-positive. The same paradigm, by the way, casts women, particularly feminist women, as sex-negative by default (instead quite a few feminists, including even alleged "man-haters" like Andrea Dworkin who against huge opposition established the core sex-positive principle of affirmative consent, have been in the vanguard of sex-positive culture.)
So! Last spring I listed the generally agreed upon core sex-positive principles, and in that post I pointed out that "sex positive" isn't at all the same thing as "pro sex." I think I gave a couple of examples there but here's a way to clear up whether men are "sex positive by cultural default."
Anybody who says "with prostitutes you're not paying for sex, you're paying them to go away afterwards?" Opposite of sex positive, m'kay? Not to say you can't be sex positive and pro-sex-work. But in this culture anyway you can't say anyone's sex-positive by default.
My goodness. Someone (online) said that line about prostitutes to me a mere two hours ago. Granted I already knew he was somewhat batsh*t crazy. But the synchronicity is unnerving.
I see butt!!
Also, cheers for clearing that up.
Thanks for the link and thoughts, Figleaf!
[You bet, Amber. Take care. --fl]
Hmm, well, while I agree with you for the most part, it seems like you're conflating two different concepts into the same ideal. Let's call them "sexuality positive" (being open and tolerant to the sexual needs of oneself and others) and "gender positive" (being open and tolerant to one's expression of self regardless of their sexual anatomy). The fact that some people might think of it as one or the other of those two concepts and not both might be part of the confusion.
Also, some of your recent posts have collectively inspired a really, really horrible joke. I apologize profusely in advance. Sorry! Very much so! Please don't hit me! Insanity pleading! (Unfortunately, I wouldn't be surprised to find I was hardly the first to think of it...)
Q: What do you call a man who is raped by a woman?
A: Lucky!
Because from the sexist viewpoint, men are always... you know... yeah. Shutting up now.
[I actually get the joke but... wow is that harsh! I'd argue that the original sex-positive principles really were gender positive as well, which is sort of the point. Consent's just such a big one and that was a *huge* gender fight in the 1970s, with, I'm afraid, an awful lot of men dead sure that if they had to get consent they'd *never have sex!!!" Mutuality's another. *Voluntary* and *negotiated* exchanges when power exchange is played. No shaming (which rules out the whole madonna/whore think no matter how diligently one tries to reclaim the vocabulary.) And so on. But yeah, getting back to that joke, you're right that, as Dworkin actually claimed, sex *inside* the no-sex class paradigm rape is just the most violent way of "getting" sex from women who, we indoctrinate ourselves to believe, won't say yes unless *some* kind of leverage is brought to bear. So again, yikes! Thanks, Nightfall. --fl]
To me, "sex-positive" encompasses both the definitions Nightfall gave of "sexuality positive" and "gender positive." No need to differentiate bc it incorporates both.
As someone who wholeheartedly subscribes to every single item on your sex-positivity checklist and even incorporates them into her work, I agree with your argument but think you're misunderstanding that oft-quoted line about prostitutes. I've always thought it referred to the distinction between visiting a sex worker (who, by considering it a business transaction only and leaving, theoretically won't get involved in one's other relationships) and having an extramarital affair. Is this not what you mean? Unless you don't support the legalization of sex work, I'm not sure how this is sex-negative.
[Hey Sabina! The short answer is that "pay to go away" implies a whole lot of gendered assumption, including primarily that women, unlike men, are going to agree to sex only in exchange for something else that *isn't* sex. Which is back to the "no-sex" class thing. A slightly longer answer would be that the contexts where I've always heard it actually spoken (for instance groups of customers when I was a bartender, for instance, or from "fatherly" business travelers who used to pick me up hitch-hiking and regaled me with advice) the "you're paying them to go away" thing is *way* more cynical than a straight-up business transaction. (For instance no one ever says of a waiter, lawyer, or doctor that you're not paying for their service you're "paying them to go away after." Weird huh?) Also if it was about just reducing complications from affairs then why aren't there comparable "pay to go away" services for women who might not want to deal with, well, complicated affairs? So anyway, that's what I mean when I say I think that *inside* the paradigm prostitution is problematic even though (as you point out) outside that context paying each other for sex as a way to "load balance" people's desires really could be pretty straightforward. And by the way, I'm not saying it doesn't ever happen -- somebody's got to pioneer subverting paradigms -- I'm just saying it's really good to be alert to when it is or isn't happening. Great question! Thanks! --fl]
OK, I see what you mean. I first read the expression on Belle de Jour: "He: 'I don't understand why my colleagues would have an affair with some girl in the office, and risk a marriage, when they could have someone like you.'
Me: 'I like to think my fee is as much for going out the door as coming in it.'" I understood it to mean it was far less likely for a sex worker (either gender-- this doesn't have to be a female sex worker and male client) to become emotionally involved in a client's life than for a someone who'd want to sleep with the person for free. I don't think it assumes women are incapable of sex for sex's sake unless they're getting paid for it.
The subject wouldn't come up in the context of a waiter or a doctor or a lawyer, because nobody would turn down free food service, medical care, or legal representation after the funds had run dry-- it's not the type of thing that would anger a spouse, right? And the waiter at your neighborhood restaurant won't be mad at you if you patronize another establishment occasionally.