30 thoughts on “Why I Hate The Word “Sex-Positive””

1. I have exactly the same complaint about the Ethical Slut definition. I like sex, within certain well-defined boundaries, but I never want to risk forgetting all the ways my sexuality has been used against me by abusers in the past. It’s so much more complicated than that for me, and the simplistic definition leaves me feeling erased.

   Then there are the blogs I read that say how great sex is and how the religious powers that be want to shut us off from it because it’s so great, and finish off with an assertion that if you want to experience transcendence you should just go get laid or masturbate. As if it was as easy as that and would work out nicely for everyone. I considered writing a description of how dysphoria, depression, and the fear of my sexuality would all drag down any attempt to experience transcendence through masturbation, because it bothered me so much.

   In short: this post really struck a chord with me.

2. Yeah, I’m totally with you. I wish “I’m pro-people-doing-whatever-makes-them-happy-so-long-as-it-doesn’t-involve-hurting-anyone-or-preventing-other-people-from-doing-what-makes-*them*-happy” was less unwieldy (more wieldy? Why isn’t that a word?) as a phrase.

3. This post, it is great.

4. I don’t think Ethical Slut is that good of a book, in significant part because that problematic attitude toward sex pervades the book. “Whee, you’re going to get to bang everyone and it will be totes transcendent and radical!”

5. I really like this post, and will probably save it as a pdf (I have a thing about stuff on the Internet disappearing and what if I can’t get online but still want reading material?

   I sometimes feel like I’m not fun and sexual enough to call myself sex-positive.

6. Words: they’re important « Valprehension

7. Honestly, I think terms like sex-positive culture, consent culture, body-positive culture, etc. all fall under a larger branch: acceptance culture.

   Why can’t we just build an acceptance culture – I accept who I am, you accept who you are, and we’ll both accept each other as we are? I feel like that’s the root of what these cultures are trying to accomplish anyway – it’s just that words are troublesome. :p

8. Yeah, plus there’s kind of the ‘How are all these people managing to find partners to be positive *with*?’ factor.

   Plus it seems to attract a very specific culture that is nowhere near as broad as it should be while *at the same time* succumbing to the ‘Whenever somebody makes a statement about people in general, they are referring to humanity as a whole unless they specifically state the scope, even if its obvious or a vast majority of the audience’ trap.

9. I completely agree with this. I used to like to use the term for my own beliefs about sexual diversity but now I find it flawed. The problem with the term is that the modifier “positive” is to general. The intended meaning of sex-positive is something like “variation in sexualities, sexual practices, and sexual identities, isn’t necessarily unethical or wrong, regardless of ones personal choice to participate, so long as they are done in ways that don’t harm anyone”. Basically, it exists in opposition to the view that sex is inherently bad unless done in a very specific narrowly defined way Unfortunately people unfamiliar with the term sex-positive see the “positive” in the word and construe it as meaning “I like sex”. Which means people who aren’t sex positive see themselves as being sex-positive because they enjoy sex. While people who are sex-positive (or at least sympathetic to the movement) think they can’t be sex-positive unless they enjoy sex or specific sex acts.

   I think a new more clear term needs to be made that distinguishes between “I like sex” and ” I’m accepting of sexual diversity”. Maybe a term like sexual diversity positive or consent positive. This way people can support sex-positivity in concept without being given the impression that they should have sex they don’t want.

10. Why thanks, you.

    Making some slight adjustments might help, especially given how much about what sex-positivity was SUPPOSED to mean (long story short, that the cultural framework of sex as something that, at best, was ONLY neutral or without unwanted/bad outcomes and/or was implicitly negative when having anything to do with pleasure, rather than being about procreation, and all of that was framed as primarily about women, this sex-as-danger-to-all-you-wimminfolks thang) that got lost in the way, and also perhaps how some of that wording was just clumsy.

    The adjustments I’d suggest in thinking about this are:
    a) “sex” in these frameworks means consensual sex, not sexual abuse or assault, especially for those of us who have been victims or are survivors, and for whom sexual assault or abuse ISN’T sex (I get snippy about this, just for the record, calling abuse and assault sex)
    b) how about “engages in sex they find nice and pleasurable” or “creates a sexuality that is nice for them,” or some such. Either or both of those leaves room for all kinds of folks, including folks who aren’t engaging in any kind of sex at all and like it that way.

    Also, really looking back to the origins of western sex-positivity (way before the Ethical Slut; per the term, see Ellen Willis, but per deeper origins, look further back to Victoria Woodhull, as one place to start) may help you out here. Honestly, I think the problem with the term mostly boils down to a misunderstanding of initial intent, especially when folks aren’t looking back at the second-wave feminism it primarily sprung from, and the criticisms of some feminisms of the time it was reacting to. And perhaps the idea that what something sounds like must be what it means.

    - HC

11. How about “Enthusiastically Sex-Neutral”?

    Also Ozy, how come you don’t actually seem to engage with any of your readers and commenters anymore? This new blog seems more like a pulpit than a place of discussion.

12. I should probably have added that personally, I don’t find buzzwords useful in general, and certainly not for something as complex as sexuality — and 1000X this when we’re trying to talk about large groups of people, not any one person who is describing themselves — and the politics of sexuality. It’s cool to see, always, ideas about alternatives for buzzwords that may be outdated or broken, but personally, I think some of the answer to this is stepping away from buzzwords altogether and simply talking about sex and sexuality with the complexity it really requires, and refusing to oversimplify, period. Just IMO.

13. L: The GMP broke me of the habit because of the shitty-ass commenters there. Also about half the time when I get around to looking at the comments I’m like “yeah, that’s totally right!” and then I have nothing to say other than “Jesus, I like you people.”

    Heather: Yeah, the historical context of the term is important and I think really often erased in these discussions… Internet Feminism tends to be very ahistorical, as a rule, which is something I find really, really problematic.

    I think there’s value in having a name for “the movement that concentrates on people’s sex lives not being made of horrisuck,” if for no other reason than being able to find other people who are a part of it, and historically that name has been “sex-positive.”

    Thanks for the author suggestions btw.

14. Pro-sex feminism is actually what the origin was, but I hear you. Kind of. I tend to find that context is queen when it comes to people finding what they’re looking for in this respect, and that they often can and do do that without one term. At the same time, this really is a personal beef of mine, and I’m not married to my opinion on this. I’ll likely even less married to it if and when we can get a cultural shift around EVERYTHING ON EARTH being reduced to buzzwords.

    I’d also add that The Ethical Slut is around 15 years old at this point, and nothing in it was all that revolutionary when it came out to plenty of us who had already been in all of this for a while by then. So, some of the issue here might be a matter of simply having missed the movement you wanted — validly, for sure! — when it really was…well, the movement you wanted. Or was the movement you wanted in the historical context of the time.

    I do think that for younger people, let’s say under 30, “sex-positive” or “pro-sex feminism” IS going to feel very outdated and probably IS outdated for the place you’re at, and what’s going on in a wide cultural context now, particularly for and amoung younger people. For sure, if you want a term? I think coming up with a new term is a given, particularly if you want to express something different than was being expressed with all of this in the 80s and 90s. And I think you do. (And I think it’s a good thing: it’d be deeply depressing if we were still in the same place with all of this now.).

15. Great post! Do you think giving the sex-positive movement a different name would help its image, or is it just a matter of changing the messaging we send around sex? (i.e. less SEX IS GOOD FOR EVERYONE ALWAYS YAY)

16. I have to mention that it was from sex-positive bloggers that I first even heard about asexuality as being a common thing. It’s sure not something that’s coming up regularly in NON-sex-positive circles, from what I’ve seen. (Interesting discussion, possibly relevant, at http://www.thedirtynormal.com/2012/03/25/anti-sex-positive-feminism/#comments)

17. Wow. Between the post and the comments block, I feel a lot less alone.

    I’ve had a lot of the same misgivings, but until this point, it looked like the battle lines were exclusively between the slut shamers and the prude shamers. I didn’t expect to see someone else interested in talking about the identically problematic, shaming, and controling messages coming from both of those groups.

    Way to go, Ozzy.

18. I like “sex-pozzie”. It just sounds so adorable for some reason.

    On a more serious note, … did I have a more serious note? I’m sure I had it here somewhere, hold on…

    Now seriously, for reals, I think there’s merit in the argument. I’ve once debated with a self-described “bleeding heart liberal” who professes to be all about accepting and tolerance and feminism and stuff, and then she told me how she doesn’t agree with that “sex-positive movement” because they apparently say “everyone should be having sex, even children”… yeaaaah.

    So of course, there’s always a problem when people don’t bother to find out what a term or a movement is REALLY about, instead of making their own conclusions based on things they’ve heard somewhere or what it sounds like. And mainstream popular culture is known to pervert, demonize or caricaturize everything it doesn’t understand, because hey, it’d be too much trouble to do a 5 minute google search.

    But then, is it even possible to come up with a term that won’t be misunderstood? I think, as long as we’re not all speaking Lojban, it’s not going to happen. “Sex-neutral” could be thought to be about not caring about sex, like “I’m totally neutral about sex, it doesn’t matter to me”. Any other term likely has the same kind of caveats. With imperfect communication methods, we’re never going to prevent misunderstandings between humans. So in that sense, it might be best to stick with “sex-positive”, as it’s an already-recognized term, and maybe try to get the “it’s ok to not have sex”-concept more visibly into the sex-positive narrative.

19. Miriam: I can live with the term. I think the important thing is to be very intentional about “no, ‘sex for everyone’ is not what we’re about, what we’re about is consent and bodily autonomy and sexual liberation.” Which is a thing that’s already happening– see what Irene’s saying about asexuality in the sex-positive movement, which is also something I’ve noticed. It’s a thing that needs to keep happening, though.

20. Ozy: That’s what I figured/was hoping. Lol reading here feels like a volcano of ALL THE THINGS after being stuck at GMP being forced to beat a dead horse for a year. Lots of topics sure did miss you.

21. Aye, I indeed hate the word too. Not sure if it is just the word, though. Because this positivity-negativity approach about any neutral thing such as sex in either way is equally confining. I would really love to promote absolutely neutral approach towards sex, because it is liberating. See the analogy, peops: there are no such things as My Little Pony positive culture, or basketball positive clubs. People who like My Little Pony or basketball or both are not ‘positive’ about these things, they just LIKE it or not. All this sex framing around ‘sex is healthy’ or ‘sex is awesome’ terms when applied universally really spoils the whole thing for all. It is like ‘eat carrots – they make you healthy’ or ‘eating carrots is now trendy and progressive’ – even if you liked carrots before, it is now spoiled for you, as you just can’t choose to eat them because you actually LIKE it. It becomes invalidating towards your personal experience. We should stress the autonomy and consent when talking about any activity, including sex. Lets leave the likes and dislikes to the actual individual that is the only source of it and instead of postive/negative go for AUTONOMOUS approach. Movement for sexual autonomy, which includes freedom to dislike and decline some of the sexual activities or even all together at once. The autonomy is for individual likes and dislikes, the consent is for social level of likes and dislikes – the matchmaking between autonomous individual likes and dislikes. None of these is ‘sexy’, ‘positive’ or whatever. It is just the only way we can function as humans in non abusive way. ‘Sex positive’ and even this ‘consent is sexy’ you wrote earlier about too often sound like promotion. As individual autonomy is the main concern in both causes, why don’t we just unambiguously called them according to it. We shouldn’t promote it, we should DEMAND it out of anyone. I politically don’t care about someone liking or disliking sex. But it is my gravest concern if someone’s sexual autonomy is breached. I love when someone enjoys the same or similar activity as me, because if they do, we can have fun together., But if I require of someone to enjoy it, it will certainly spoil the whole thing for us both.

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23. That’s interesting that to you, “sex-positive” sounds like it means “sex is awesome and you should have sex.”

    To me, it sounds like “accepting others for who they are – including yourself.”

    To others, it means: http://sexstl.com/about/

    “realizing that no one is sexually abnormal. We’re all different, and that’s cool.” — http://enagoski.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/science-ftw/

    “not being ashamed.”

    “the freedom to be you and me (in bed).”

    “trusting that honest education, not moral absolutism, empowers people to make healthy sexual choices.”

    “acknowledging that humans are animals.”

    “thinking outside the cage.”

    “understanding your many layers.”

    “realizing the the topic of sex can be a part of polite conversation.”

    ….and many, many other things.

24. Reblogged this on The Thinking Asexual and commented:
    This is why I identify as “sex neutral” and not “sex positive.”

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27. “they’re not sex-positive because they think women should have the right to refuse anal sex, pegging, or learning to squirt.”

    Anyone who doesn’t acknowledge the right to refuse any sexual act is shitty at being sex positive.

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