There's another kerfuffle going around about why it is/isn't possible to be a "sex positive" feminist and/or whether "sex positive" is even a valid concept. An anonymous poster at 25 Things About My Sexuality inadvertently puts her finger on what I consider to be one of the acid tests of "sex positive" culture (emphasis mine.)
3. Over the past year I’ve realized that I am asexual, and I only feel comfortable with that label because I know that I’m not straight or gay.
4. Everyone thinks I’m a lesbian, especially my lesbian friends. A few have hinted that they’re waiting for me to come out. When I told one of them that I was asexual, hoping for solidarity, she paused and said, “Just stick with ‘queer.’”
Source: 25 Things About My Sexuality
People get this idea that "sex positive" means "anything goes." Or, even more off-by-a-mile, that it means "everything goes." Instead in a thoroughly sex-positive culture nobody needs to be warned "just stick with 'queer.'"
Incidentally I'm not suggesting the friend herself was being ace-intolerant for giving that advice. Instead she was just acknowledging the reality that the unsexuality of asexuality alarms a lot of people and can sometimes provoke uncomprehending and suspicious "what's your damage, you have to have been damaged" interrogations.
People can, and seemingly do, argue all day month year century long about the perennial bugaboos of BDSM or sex work and where, how, or whether they fit in "sex positive" culture. Contrary to partisans of those topics they're just not the best place to look for negative attitudes about people's sexuality.
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maybe it's just me, but
Submitted by nekobawt (not verified) on Thu, 2011-10-27 01:29.maybe it's just me, but asexuality is totally compatible with sex positivity. it's okay for people to have sex if they want to, and it's ok for people to not have sex if they don't want to. other people's sex lives are their business, and if they choose (inasmuch as one's sexuality is a "choice") for said sex life to be null...what's the problem? it's not like "i'm asexual" is a secret code word for "BAN ALL THE SEX."
i guess, for some people, "sex positive = 'anything' goes, as long as 'anything' isn't 'nothing'"? i don't get it. :/
Of course asexuality is
Submitted by figleaf on Thu, 2011-10-27 08:03.Of course asexuality is compatible with a sex positive perspective! Which is why I think people's reaction is one good way to measure whether they're "sex positive" or just, I dunno, sex maximizers. I'm pretty sure the woman who said "stick with 'queer'" was just saying if you just say you're queer people won't try and "convert" you "back" to sexual activity, or, worse, relentlessly cross-examine you looking for chinks in your "facade." Thanks, Nekobawt.