sex-positive

"Sex Positive" It's an Adjective, Not a Noun

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Thu, 2011-07-21 16:17

While recounting her analysis of femme guilt and women slut-shaming other women in conversation with Charlie Glickman Rachel Rabbit Write gave me the jog I've been needing for... oh, a couple of years now to put my finger on a common misconception about the term "sex-positive."

Charlie said to me, “Just because someone considers themselves part of a sex positive culture or a kink community doesn’t mean that these things (sexism) aren’t still around.”

Source: Rabbit Write

Here's the deal. "Sex-positive" is a comparative or intensifying adjective, like "hotter" or "thicker," not a noun like "a gold star."

Thus one can't simply congratulate one's self for being "sex-positive." Yes, "my ladies always come first" is more sex-positive than "He pays for dinner so sex is for him." And the former really is preferable to the latter. And yes, there's a threshhold past which you can start feeling pretty good about yourself. But if nothing else, bragging about how you're "sex-positive" is probably a good sign that there's still more to uncover.

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Clarisse Thorn on Why Active Monogamy is Also Sex Positive and Thus Needs No Apologies

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Thu, 2011-06-09 15:33

Clarisse Thorn, who's written thoughtfully on the appeal of BDSM and polyamory and swinging in the face of their standard objections takes a good long look at the appeal of monogamy in the face of its standard dissents. She concludes

Personally, I always think it’s really key, during any sex-positive critique, to emphasize from the start that whatever you like is cool as long as the actions you take are consensual. I know people who act all apologetic for being monogamous, usually because they’ve been overexposed to “polyvangelists” who argue that non-monogamy is “better” or “more evolved”. This is silly! Liking monogamy doesn’t have to be justified, as long as you don’t turn around and claim that non-monogamy is bad and wrong. And liking monogamy is a perfectly awesome reason for preferring monogamy!

Source: Clarisse Thorn

For probably the same reasons "sex positive" has been wielded by those seeking to lever consent through peer pressure often enough to be spoken of with everything from cynicism to scare quotes. (The same thing happened to the word "liberated" in the 1960s and 70s when it became a euphemism for "you should want to have sex with me the way I want to do it even though either you don't find me attractive or you don't enjoy what I'm proposing."

But as I like to point out from time to time, sincerely, without ironic, and with no tepid "to be sure" boiler plating, to be sex positive is not about agreeing to or endorsing any proposed sexual act or interest. Instead it's to acknowledge that other people might consciously, willingly, and deliberately find sexual gratification by means that don't necessarily do the same for you.

For this reason being sex positive is exactly opposite being automatically open to any activity any partner might propose. The closest it comes is to being willing to recognize or at least to consider what might be appealing about a practice to others even as you decline to participate yourself. (Case in point: does Sen. David Vitter's baby-play fetish appeal to me? No, it doesn't even turn me off! Except perhaps in the most general terms I don't understand the appeal at all. That said, while I'll avalanche his ass in stickleburrs for his aching, supercilious hypocrisy actively condemning others for acts he enjoys (non-monogamy, sex work, and fetishism, all with adults who have affirmatively decided to participate) I recognize that it's something that intensely gratifies him sexually and that it either appeals to his partners as well... or at least doesn't trouble them enough to decline to participate.)

But here's the trick: while sex positivity is often discussed in the context of acknowledgement and toleration for "non-mainstream" activities such as kink, BDSM, polyamory, LGTB orientations, or sex work, it necessarily implies toleration and acceptance of asexuality, disinterest, and even squicks: real sex positive people are as respectful of "no thank you" as they are of "yes please." Even if those who really, truly would never say no themselves.

But it especially implies toleration and acknowledgment of monogamy. Because after all, even in very open societies monogamy (serial or lifelong) is the most frequently chosen relationship option. Yes, of course, there's enormous (sex-negative!) pressure to make and keep monogamy the default or even the only sanctioned form of relationship. But that in no way invalidate the choice of those who are attracted to it at all, at all. Nor does it invalidate the very real benefits Clarisse articulates that make it attractive to those who choose it, even as many others are attracted to the benefits of their own choices.

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Sex Ed Demonstration Tip: First Teach Baby Steps Then Teach Running the 100-Meter Hurdle

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Fri, 2011-03-18 23:06

Photo by Flickr user asmythie. Cached as a bandwidth-conserving courtesy
Photo by Flickr user asmythie. Used under a Creative Commons license.

So last week when I was in Chicago I had a too-short conversation with a couple of local sex bloggers about the then-recent brouhaha over the optional, one-shot live demonstration John Michael Bailey recently hosted for his human sexuality class at Northwestern University. I didn't really get a chance to expand on it then but I mentioned that I didn't really like it. It turns out I'm not alone.

Em & Lo said "Northwestern University human sexuality class has live demonstration by a kinky couple (we’d feel better about that if the guy had been naked too and hadn’t been wielding a modified power tool)." Cory Silverberg said, "[Bailey invites] us lowly undergraduates to a special after class lecture where 'real people' tell us about what’s really happening with sex. He claims that he does this so students can see what sexual pleasure looks like. But what he’s actually doing is carefully curating a kind of token sexual identity freak show." Betty Dodson said "Call me an 'old foggy' but we have a nation (and a world) full of young women and men who have no idea what sexual pleasure could be like. Until I see a man on all fours taking it up the ass and shooting as a result of your fucksaw, I say buyers beware. Pussy ain't made of steel."

You'll notice that each objection brings its own perspective. And despite Bailey's allegations none of those objections could be called "sex-negative." I'm pretty sure mine's not either.

I too happen to be over the moon happy that people are feeling comfortable enough with vibrators and other toys to graduate up to radical experimentation with power tools.

And intrinsically speaking a Sawzall-based vibrator might not even be that far off from the original steam powered vibrators developed by doctors in the 1800s.

That said!

If someone's going to do one single demonstration of human sexuality in an intro to human sexuality class I'm... just not comfortable with starting people out with a clothed-top/naked-sub Sawzall demonstration.

To be honest if I was going to try and come up with a single demonstration I'd almost not bother.   It doesn't really matter that 70-80% of people will eventually try PIV intercourse, or that 10-15% will try some form of activity with someone of their own sex, or that about .0003% will ever try clothed-top/naked-sub bdsm with a power tool, you're still going to be leaving an awful lot of people with nothing to identify with and nothing, really, to bring with them either to their partners or, if they continue in human sexuality, to their own clients or students.

So I'm not saying the only "legitimate" thing to demonstrate is straight-up hetero PIV intercourse.  Quite the opposite!  Pretty much anything one chose it would still be presenting a single point of view.  Which, again, for a one-time demonstration isn't going to be nearly representative enough of the sort of essential sexual activities even university students will almost never have been exposed to.

Stuff like negotiating, communicating, discovery play while learning each other's bodies, dealing with contraception for heteros and sex safety regardless, and so on.  And, since, again, power exchange is just one point of view and one that not even BDSM folks practice very time, and especially since it takes a while for beginners to discover their own inclinations, I probably wouldn't include topping and bottoming beyond the sort of incidental your turn / my turn transitions it would be really good for beginners to have modeled for them.

If I had more than one opportunity for a demonstration it would be a lot easier.  If it was once a week in a 10 week course I'd be a lot more comfortable modeling what was instead the only demonstration in the course at Northwestern.  Because by then there's be a heck of a lot more context.

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Sex-Positive Doesn't Mean "As Long As I Don't Run Screaming From the Room" And It Doesn't Mean "Anything I Can Get Away With"

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Thu, 2010-10-21 22:11

Heather Corinna of Scarleteen has the clearest vision of sex-positive principles of any human being I know. The other day I mentioned some of the responsibilities of sex positivity. Today she laid out a few inalienable sex-positive rights

Just like the United States’ Declaration of Independence says that that all men are created equal, that all are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are truths held to be self-evident (even though they’re not exactly often honored, a civics discussion for another day), I’d say these are sexual truths, sexual declarations of independence we should all hold — and have partners hold — as self-evident.

  • No one is entitled to any kind of sex with anyone, or to access anyone else’s body part, just because they want it or because they have had it or accessed it in the past.
  • No one should have to know or explain why they don’t want to do something or why something is painful rather than pleasurable in order to have someone else accept either or both of those things as givens.
  • No one should ever feel they have to engage in any kind of sex they don’t enjoy or want in their own right to satisfy or mollify someone else.
  • If someone wants a certain kind of sex to be in their sex life, it’s on them to find and choose partners who share that desire, not on their partners to try and conform when they don’t.

If there’s any of them or anything in them that doesn’t feel deeply true and real to you, I think it’d be a good idea to think about why not, and to also think about how not holding those things as true for yourself and your sexual partners really serves you, someone else or your sex life. If you held these things as true, and insisted your partner did, too, would you be likely to get what you really want and need? How about if you didn’t? Since it sounds like you haven’t been, think about how well that has — or hasn’t — been working for you.

Source: Heather Corinna of Scarleteen

As I said the last time about responsibilities, you can still have perfectly adequate, perfectly consenting-adults sex that doesn’t meet those requirements. For instance Heather’s correspondent and her partner? Sure, whatever he’s doing hurts her. Sure whenever she tells him it hurts he says he wants to do it anyway. And so sure, she continues to agree to let him do it. That’s… pretty much consenting adults making informed decisions.

There’s just nothing sex positive about it. “Sex positive” isn’t “anything goes.” And it sure isn’t “anything I can get away with.” But finally it’s also not “anything as long as I don’t run screaming from the room.” Again, sex can be perfectly consenting, freely chosen, mutually agreed on, even if it’s not pleasant, or enjoyable, or even desired* to one, both, or even all parties. That’s not enough to make it sex positive.

I’d add that in this situation it’s not just that he’s being a butthole (Heather’s construction) or that she’s being a doormat. Both of those things happen to be true but it’s also the case that both of them have responsibilities. A butthole who’s partner confidently enforces her or his boundaries is still a butthole. A doormat who’s partner sensitively intuits her or his boundaries and never presses is still a doormat. Sometimes the rights of sex-positivity require exercise of your responsibilities. Sometimes the responsibilities of sex-positivity require standing up for your rights.

Update Heather gets to that last point in her post when she says

It sounds to me like you’ve both made some fouls. He keeps going on about something he wants that he knows isn’t right for you, and unless you’re an excellent faker or he has been paying no attention to you whatsoever, which he probably also has known you aren’t that into even if you haven’t said so outright. Big foul. You, on the other hand, knew something wasn’t working for you and didn’t feel good, but instead of drawing a limit and opting out, you did something for a long time you never liked and that even hurt you just to appease him, or maybe even just to get him to stop kvetching about it. That’s not sound, either.

Again, rights and responsibilities go both ways.

* for instance sex where the intention isn’t pleasure but procreation only can be neither pleasant, enjoyable, or desired. This can be true for those who are inhibited, triggered, or deeply religious, and also for many couples who are trying actively but with difficulty to conceive can tell you. The trick here is there are more choices than “sex positive” and “sex negative” sex.

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It Doesn't Matter Who You Do it With, Cheating Isn't Sex-Positive

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Mon, 2010-10-18 16:01

So someone who’s about to get married wrote Svutlana to say she had a fling with her best-friend maid of honor, enjoyed it quite a bit, and now wonders if she could be a lesbian. Svultlana offers some great sex-positive advice… in her trademarked fractured English of course.

it seem for me that big question here no simple be whether you be lesbian or no, Ms Dyke. Svutlana be extreme sorry for say, but even though you no insert foreign penis anywhere in for your body, you just cheat on husband-for-be. It seem for me that this fact complete escape you, maybe because you cheat with best friend maid-of-honors and now be complete obsess with try for decide if you should buy L Word series value pack or no…

For sure cheat with maid-of-honors no seem like cheat at all…it simple seem like enhance maid-of-honors job describe that include give bride-for-be most incredible earthshake orgasm that, in Svutlana opinion, sure beat host bore bride shower. Need you for ask self why you feel need for make earthshakes with somebody other than your fiancé. Maybe it be fling or maybe be shades of flings for come and indicate that you no be ready for make lifetime commitment.

Source: Svutlana of Svutlandia.

Oh, by “sex-positive” did anyone think the advice would be “hey, if it feels good do it?” Obviously a lot of people can make very sound arguments in favor of changing the rules of a relationship without consulting one’s partner, a.k.a. cheating. It’s been all the mode lately to say “it doesn’t count if you do it with another chick.” And you’ll run into plenty of folks who say it would be “sex-negative” to expect someone to remain monogamous when they would rather not.

Sex positivity is considerably more complicated than that. In addition to being more tolerant of other people’s sexual natures, and more honest about your own, it also means being generally more responsible in the relationships you enter and choose to remain in. And that includes making and honoring agreement’s with your current partners, and seeking… even risking… renegotiations.

Sex positivity absolutely says it’s ok to have sex with someone of your own sex if that’s what you desire, if you’re both adults, and if it’s an informed, mutual decision. No doubt about that. But precisely because the sex or gender of your partner is irrelevant it’s also irrelevant who you cheat with.

Point being that real sex positivity says it’s ok to have sex with the partners of your choice… but it’s not ok to screw them over.

I’m not saying don’t do it, incidentally. I’ve cheated on a partner in the past, I’ve been cheated on in the past, and I’ve also had sex with someone who was cheating on her partner at the time. In no case was it the end of the world. (At least for me the end of the world has always been the loss of an authentic relationship, period. That might coincide with an incident of cheating, and so I think it’s easy to confuse the two. But relatively rates of self-reported sexual infidelity suggest most relationships aren’t damaged by cheating per se. But I digress…)

Just don’t confuse it with being sex positive. (After all, otherwise you’d have to accept that serial adulterers like Newt Gingrich and sex-worker customer/persecutors like David Vitter or Eliot Spitzer are “sex positive.” It doesn’t work that way.)

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Christine O'Donnell on Sex: "You're going to stop the whole country from having sex?" "Yes."

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Thu, 2010-09-16 12:03

Via Daily Kos there's evidently a Joe Scarborough radio program transcript from Nov. 13th, 2002, where Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell answers a question bluntly and, I think, truthfully.


O'DONNELL: The sad reality is — yes, there is something you can do about it. And the sad reality, to tell them slap on a condom is not (CROSSTALK) NIES: You're going to stop the whole country from having sex? O'DONNELL: Yes. Read the quote in context here.

If I can find more of the transcript online I'll post it. But the bottom line is, you know when you hear people talk about other people being "sex negative?" I think that's what we're looking at here. I'd add that contrary to what a lot of alt-sex activists claim, it's actually really, really hard to find someone who's actually, categorically anti-sex. And as Heather Corrina has pointed out in conversation and, I think, on line, the reason it's hard to find people who are literally anti-sex is that most people who criticize certain behaviors actually have fairly positive views about certain kinds of sex. Among so-called "sex-negative feminists" there might be opposition to certain forms of sex that are considered, say, unilaterally rather than consensually exploitive or abusive. But within the limits of comfort, safety, respect, and perhaps partners with whom they have affinity they can be outright gleefully, enthusiastically-consensually positive about it. So even there the notion of "sex negative" tends to be pretty bogus. And I'm willing to be open-minded about O'Donnell about that, and I'm actually actively working on finding counterevidence for some form of sexual behavior she doesn't just begrudge or tolerate or believe is required for survival (e.g. to "keep" a husband once you're married.) So far no luck — even in marriage it doesn't sound like she thinks it should be, would be, or possibly even could be a mutually, non-dutifully fulfilling experience. But I'll post it if I can find it.

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Words and Meaning

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Thu, 2009-04-30 14:00

A follow-up on my “Quitcher Bitchin“ post from yesterday since I think I may not have clearly reflected my concern. Turns out last week Kimberlly of of The Errant Wife found herself subjected to a rash of insults that possibly better reflect the point I was trying to make.


Well, who doesn’t love a torrent of abuse on a Thursday?

...

So far I have been called despicable, a urinal, a whore, a cunt, a bad mother a bad wife, a swine: and that is just what they are calling me on my comments, you should see what they are saying over there. By a day in it had degenerated completely: apparently I should be killed and I should have AIDS – if the world were fair that is. Interestingly, the comments got uglier as time went on. “Group think” as my husband put it. Much as we bloggers legitimize ourselves via our similar leanings – they draw strength from their numbers.

The use the perceived worst things of femininity: I have my period, I am a bad wife, a bad mother, I am ugly, I am fat, I am rapidly aging, I have a big vagina, I am (god forbid) saggy – they judge me based on a view of what it is to be a woman that I have long since rejected.

It fascinates me that in crafting their insults they see only the female – I am not a terrible person, I am a terrible woman – most of what they hurl at me from their safe anonymity are gendered insults. Because I am not a person, you see, I am an object to be possessed.

Read the quote in context here.

Yes, I’m aware of various etymological and linguistic support for the inevitability, and even, I guess, desirability, of using attribute-denigrating language. That plus various “recovering meaning” initiatives for words like “slut” and “queer.” And the whole “but you n-words say ‘n-word’ all the time” business.

I don’t think Kimberly’s interlocutors have any of that in mind when they call her the words they call her. Instead they call her those things because they believe it specifically, descriptively identifies her as precisely those things. Which, they believe, are the shittiest, crappiest, lowest, most worthless, things they’re capable of imagining: characteristics “of or peculiar to” something with a vagina.

My point in saying it’s hard to be sex-positive and still use those words wasn’t because I thought it’s just naughty to use un-PC words because they might hurt someone else’s feelings. Nor was it because I think there’s a real problem with people using dead metaphors without considering their once-living implications.

Instead I mean what I said, in my usual starchy way, in my first post ever on this site: “it’s hard to use cock-sucker as an epithet once you’ve met someone who knows how to do it.”

It’s not that calling someone a cunt, a cocksucker, or a slut might hurt their feelings. If you want to hurt their feelings go for it — if you pick a really scummy degrading one maybe it will hit home and they’ll feel really bad and you’ll win! It’s just… it’s hard to use those words as insults once you have an actual sexually positive understanding of their “technical” meaning.

Call me naive but I’m pretty sure none of Kimberly’s comments come from particularly sex-positive individuals.

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Seriously. Quit'cher Bitchin'

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Wed, 2009-04-29 15:37

Amber Rhea of Being Amber Rhea talks about how most of the euphemisms for female genitalia double as insults that imply “weakness, uselessness, and contemptability.”

So, yeah, I will continue to get my panties in a bunch about pussy being used as an insult. Because it is NOT OKAY, and it IS important – not something to be “overlooked.” Likewise, years ago I stopped using “bitch” as an insult – there is no need to use a gendered insult when the non-gendered “asshole” or “jackass” or a million others will do. Plus I just hate the word. It makes me bristle and rankle and feel really bad inside. If I hear someone use it whom I consider a friend, suddenly I find myself questioning how much I should trust them.

And I will not abide those who roll their eyes and insist this is a minor issue and I’m – wait for it, here it comes – too sensitive.

If you give a shit about the status of women in society, you will STOP using those insults. That’s all there is to it.

She said it here.

Yes. Absolutely. It’s not just disgraceful it’s stupid.

I’ll go a step further and say you probably shouldn’t call yourself “sex positive” if you use any gender- or genitalia- or sex-act-specific terms as insults.

And yes, this goes waaaay back for me.

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The "No-Sex" Class: Men, Women, and Sex-Positive Culture

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Tue, 2008-07-29 17:21


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.

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Whisper "Google 'Asexuality'" Pass it on

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Sun, 2008-04-13 19:37


Photo by Flickr user svanes. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Asexuality advocate Ily of asexy beast reminds us that it’s not just closeted, oblivious, or in-denial gay people who “lie back and think of England.”

She also points out just how little public discussion or acknowledgement there is for asexual people…

...and how much information is available once you know where to look…

... and how simple it is to find that information…

It never ceases to amaze me how little is standing between people and their understanding of asexuality. I know I’ve said this before, but like I said, it never ceases. All people have to do is type “asexual” into Google, but if you don’t know to do that, the obstacle is insurmountable. If asexuals are indeed 1% of the population, that makes 60 million of us worldwide. And we can only get 2 people at the average San Francisco meetup? Most asexuals have never even heard the word; I consider myself lucky that I at least had the choice to identify this way. Most of my brethren are still taking it for England and wondering why they relate to Sherlock Holmes so much.

While I sleep, I would like my astral persona to hover over people at their computers in other time zones, whispering, “Type…‘asexual’...into…Google…”

She says it here.

Bear in mind that one of the most crucial elements of modern sex-positivity is

“Everyone always has the freedom to decline.”

Another?

“There’s an absence of shame”

And while we’re at it

“Uses inclusive language”

“Respects unique and individual preferences (what’s true for you or me isn’t universal)”

“Comprehensive definition of sexuality”

Which leads to a final point that Ily is trying to correct through, among other things, pamphleteering in the Bay Area…

“Developmentally appropriate sex education is strongly endorsed”

Having had the experience earlier this winter of mentioning asexuality in class and then, later, having been quietly but profusely thanked. Pass it on.

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