Sex-Positivity 101.

     "We always have this idea that sex needs something to redeem it.” 

-Charlie Glickman, Good Vibrations

“I’m a Sex Positive Sex Educator"

SexTech Conference 2011, San Francisco, CA

I’ve been developing my understanding of what it means to be sex-positive for several years now. But today I heard the best description I’ve gotten yet.

In the Gold Room at the Stanford Court Renaissance Hotel, perched atop Nob Hill in downtown San Francisco, Charlie Glickman of the Good Vibrations Sex Shop gave us his run-down.  Here’s the quick version: We live in a sex-negative culture. We’re taught that sex is bad:  inherently dangerous, sinful, dirty, and—most importantly—shameful. The only way that sex can be redeemed is through procreation, marriage, or love.

Some sex acts are good, some sex acts are bad. In other words, when we’re being sex-negative, we judge the what and who rather than the how and why.  People who engage in certain activities are simply less worthy—regardless of the actual effects on that person.

Which acts was Charlie talking about? Anal sex, of course. Oral sex. Open relationships. Group sex. Same-sex sex. Sex without relationships. BDSM. Masturbation. Sex toys.

“As long as there have been people, there have been these types of sex,” Charlie said. “What changes is how many people engage in them, how we talk about it, and what the ramifications are.” In the U.S., some sex acts—acts which are often ignored in other countries—can lead to arrest, job loss, humiliation, or even a loss of child custody.  In a sex-negative culture, there’s an obsession with whether or not something is “normal”—and an endless interest in policing others’ sex lives.

So what about sex-positivity, then? Is this the view that all sex is good?

Not necessarily, said Charlie.

Sometimes people who’ve been constrained too tightly by social boundaries want to destroy the boundaries altogether.  “This isn’t healthy either,” Charlie said. “In fact, the healthiest people I’ve met are people who have very specific boundaries, know them, and can communicate them.”

In other words, a sex-positive view moves the emphasis back to the how and why.  Is someone having sex because they feel like they have to, or because they’re looking for attention? Are they having sex to keep a relationship from ending? Are both parties consenting? Are they comfortable with the activity? Are they preventing STIs and unintended pregnancy? Have they communicated about their preferences and boundaries?  Are they having fun?

Charlie says the cornerstones of sex positivity are pleasure, consent, and well-being.  It makes sense. Sex without consent is not pleasurable. Sex without pleasure does not contribute to a person’s well-being. And sex that does not contribute to your well-being (or your partner’s) is just like anything else in that category: a problem.  We all deserve to be well.

Of course it is important to ask questions about sex. Of course there are ways that sex can be unhealthy. But damaging sexual experiences do not come solely from stigmatized activities, and the behaviors we like to consider normal—like vaginal sex between a heterosexual married couple—have caused their fair share of pain.  To be sex positive is, at heart, to believe that what works for an individual is most important. 

Sex needs no redemption.

I say: Cheers to that.