“Sex positivity” can be a confusing name because it sounds like it means “sex is always great and everyone should have it”. I think a lot of people get misled by that.
It’s the antithesis of “sex negativity”, which is the idea that sex is uniquely powerful and dangerous and morally laden among all human behaviours. That there’s a special moral virtue in being ignorant about sex, a virtue that you lose when you learn about or have it. That you can be kind to someone, cruel to them, save their life, or kill them, but that won’t change who you are nearly so much as if you have sex with them. It’s the idea that outside of very specific moral boundaries, sex is fundamentally immoral and degrading, no matter how its participants feel about it. That it’s fundamentally wrong to feel sexual desire, to entertain sexual fantasies, to seek sexual pleasure, or to reach orgasm, unless you’re in one of the very limited set of moral parameters that make that okay. Those parameters are usually things like whether the people involved are married or in a committed relationship, whether they’re the right sex/gender, whether it’s for the right motivation (some people think “only for procreation” and others think “never for money”) and whether the sex act is one society approves of.
And there’s a very specific set of societal expectations: Of course everybody WANTS sex, that’s what’s healthy and normal, and unless you’re very weird or very special, of course you will try as hard as you can to enter a relationship like marriage where sex is allowable so you CAN have it. Once you do that, you basically owe it to the person you’re married to TO have sex. It’s because everybody wants sex so much that we need all these rules! Obviously WITHOUT these rules, people would run mad and make all kinds of big mistakes, because people can’t tell for themselves what’s right or wrong.
Sex positivity doesn’t take the opposite tack and say that sex is always good. Rather, its basic principle is that sex is ordinary. It’s like anything else humans do, like eating or sleeping or speaking or touching people. It’s value-neutral. People get to decide how they feel about it and whether they want to have it. If we make a society built on sex-positive principles, the average person will have enough information and empathy to be able to make the choices that feel right for them and others.
Sex positivity means understanding that if someone doesn’t want to have sex, that’s their absolute right, and it has the same moral weight as if they do want to have sex.
Sex positivity means that if someone has sex, the most important thing is whether they genuinely understand what sex is, what its risks are, what their rights are, and how to make it safe and pleasurable–and whether, knowing all these things, they have freely chosen to have this sex at this moment. The same goes for anyone else involved in the sex. Sex-positive sex with other people depends on valuing everyone involved; everyone involved has to be able to form their own opinions, make their own decisions, and have their own needs and wishes respected.
We don’t currently live in a sex-positive society. A society where being attractive or sexy is mandatory, where promiscuous sex is viewed as compulsory, and where people are shamed and punished for not wanting to have sex, is not actually sex-positive. And the sex-positive movement itself, sex-positive people, can miss the mark and fail to live up to their own principles, by not making space for people who need the freedom to express very different desires and boundaries.
The key to sexual liberation is not the “sex” part. It’s the “liberation” part. It’s about giving everyone the same freedom.
(Rules: If you want to argue with me you need to send me $20 to pay for the research and analysis it will take to seriously engage with you; otherwise, make your own post. No accusing me or anyone else of being a sexual predator without proof. No death threats, suicide bait, or invocations of harm like “I hope you die”/”somebody ought to kill you”)
