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Anonymous User asked:

How do we bring back sex positivity. It seems like it was everywhere in 2012 and a bit lacking now.

I wish I knew!

My best analysis at the moment is: Sex Positivity I was fighting against the idea that non-normative sex is sinful and people who do it are harming the public decency. Sex Positivity II needs to contend with the idea that non-normative sex is dangerous--that by opening up sexual boundaries for negotiation instead of standing by societal universals, it sets the stage for people (particularly women and young people) to be exploited and traumatized.

(Obviously this is a huge simplification and both ideas have existed in some form in both eras and there's overlap and other critiques, etc etc etc.)

So the problem to be solved now, and I don't think it's a trivial thing that can be brushed off with "oh my gosh you guys we talk about consent more than anyone, did you stop reading at the name," is how demystifying and destigmatizing sexuality can make us safer, how it can enable us to defend our boundaries as well as our desires.

But I also don't want to end up talking about only safety. Sometimes conversations about consent are only conversations about consent violations, and even if they're good conversations that's not a complete sexual philosophy, it's all helmet and no bike. Call me fancy but I like to think there's more to good sex than not raping your partner.

I guess that's the way forward for sex positivity, as vague as it is--synthesizing sexual freedom with sexual safety. Taking in critiques about unwanted sexualization and pressure without going abstinence-only (or "keep it in the bedroom"-only, which isn't even safer, you just are less likely to hear about it).

There's so much more I want to say here. About how badly I feel like I've internalized this and taken on a kind of embarrassment I didn't have back in the day, like I could stand up to "you are promoting promiscuity" but not to "you're being gross and no one wants to hear it." And how this ties into body positivity and queerness and gender, none of which are "sex" but they're very linked to how open you're allowed to be about sex before it gets gross and no one wants to hear it. About the current turn towards fascism and how that feeds into and off of superficially milder criticisms of sexuality. About how sex-positive communities don't disintegrate because abuse occurs, they disintegrate because nobody knows what to do afterwards. About the way "protecting the children" can cross over into repression. About credit card processors. About fandom "anti" wars and "movies have too many sex scenes" and Everyone Is Beautiful And No One Is Horny. About the way that "destigmatizing" sexuality too often means cleaning up the sexuality until it meets the fundamentally unchanged standards of the stigma. God. Someone should start a blog about this.


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