Beyond 'sex-positive' and 'sex-negative'
Words of nuance, words of skill
And words of romance are a thrill
Words are stupid, words are fun
Words can put you on the run*
How do you feel about "sex positivity"? So just to the word now!
When I heard it for the first time, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the fact that such a sensual and vibrant space was marked with such a cool and mathematical expression, the sound of which reminded me of the formulation of unpleasant medical diagnoses. Or I had to think of the criticism of positivism in scientific contexts, when the elaboration of a topic is limited to the accumulation of facts, while there is also an excess of knowledge which cannot be positivized, cannot be answered clearly with „yes“ or „no“.
With these first associations to ‚positivity‘, the term is not judgmental, but only describes a factual „something is there“ „something is above zero“. Of course, ’sex positivity‘ does not only want to emphasize that sex simply is present, but it is also meant to be valuing, appreciative, that positivity refers to an affirmative, welcoming attitude: that all sexual orientations are accepted, that sexuality is an important and beautiful part of life, that open and shameless contact means enrichment and liberation (whereby sex-positive spaces should also be shame-positive spaces and deal with shame in a hospitable way).
I agree with all that. At the same time, I’m sceptical. Because the overgrowing pop-up of „sexpositive“ „sexpositive“ „sexpositive“ everywhere will eventually boost my immune system and cause stress and nervousness. Because it integrates itself into the other annoying, one-sided positivity terror of smileys and Likes and happy happy and „Just do it!“ Because it narrows down the space and directs you towards certain objects when it gives one (and supposedly right) direction: „This way! Into the sex-positive!“, instead of taking seriously the multi-layered twists and turns of „sex“, which has many directions, not only the junction „positive ⇔ negative“. Because it builds up pressure for sex to be pleasing and to take place — which could be compensated for if the „A“ could be smuggled more into the terms, like: „… we are (a-)sex-positive“..
But above all I wonder whether sex (also and perhaps especially on sex-positive events) is always positive or has to be positive. Doesn’t sex also have a lot to do with negatively connotated elements — like suppression, distraction, filling a vacuum, the search for confirmation? It makes „sex-positive“ a disadvantageously chosen word when it could be understood as in denial of or judgy with these aspects. Of course, some sex-positive spaces can be smart and warm enough to welcome these more troublesome human aspects, too. That would be their strength for me. So maybe it’s just those hyped scene gestures that annoy me so much, because the warm and smart is drowned out by the loud self-affirmation.
After all, sex is not a positive experience for everyone and the term „sex-positive“ can be like a slap in their face. Either way: who defines what is positive? How do we know that something is positive? Is the positive, like happiness, always desirable, is it automatically good? The term then acts as if it could be so well described. It’s not easy for me to put into words what’s happening in these sexy spaces, not only because it’s something other than positive in the sense of „something nice“, but because it’s not easy to describe something complex, raw and unpredictable. That’s what makes these rooms so powerful, not their positivity. Aren’t they already becoming lifeless and domesticated through a previously determined attribution of „what happens there is positive“?
Is it allowed to do or want something that is not immediately usable as something positive/good?
Does ’sex-positivity‘ want to bring all practitioners quickly to a safe side and shield them from critical looks and calm agitated minds: „Don’t worry! At first glance this may seem filthy and obscene, but it is all very positive!“?
"But now you begin to see the problem with desire: we rarely want the things we should."
- Andrea Long Chu
And to what extent does sex not move beyond binary positive/negative classifications anyway? Something turns me on — I don’t know if it’s positive! Maybe, to be honest, it’s not! But that’s exactly why it turns me on! So to what extent does the term ’sex positive‘ tame sex? So that we are threatened that in the end it is mainly sex that disappears from these sex-positive spaces. So in the end, is the sex positive even the sex negative?
To what extent is the sex negative also beneficial for the sex positive?
„O you sad, square, alcohol-free modern age, you disdainful age of flying and world travel, you see now how much the adventurous lovers suffer under you. Oskar and Emma’s love gradually died away, and why? Yes, for lack of danger. (…) Where activities are so easily and blindly allowed, they soon become boring and finally flag. This is the terrible joke of the time (…) where everything is so grudgingly allowed. (…) Oskar and Emma wanted to make a novel, but it didn’t work out, it broke apart. (…) Danger is the vein, and the obstacle is the blood of a novel. And obstacles no longer exist in this characterless, unproud world, which is incapable of any noble prejudice. (…) Oskar and Emma knew this, and an unspeakable anxiety takes possession of their young hearts. Their parents were unprejudiced people, O misery."
- Robert Walser, 1913
The programmatic proclamation of sex-positivity sometimes appears as self-legitimation, which can only live on the assumption that sex-positivity is so important and urgent because around sex-positivity there is above all evil sex-negativity. Argumentatively, the term repeatedly evokes comprehensive repressive contexts, whereby I ask myself whether this social straightjacket is really as constricting as diagnosed? Not that there is not (still) repression and misinformation, of course! But who and what exactly is the enemy, when sometimes the flag of sex positivity is hoisted so airlessly?** What exactly are the defects that (must) be challenged and how exactly? To what extent does the term then have a reductive effect in terms of a precise description of the state of affairs? And to what extent is it manipulative, because with ’sex-positivity‘ a promise of salvation always resonates almost religiously – and with it the condition that the rest must always be maintained as sex-negative, because otherwise one loses one’s own power as the other/the resistant (-> danger of self-fulfilling prophecy, in which one no longer sees what is actually going on and whether the accused are not already doing better). Which fits perfectly, when so many pioneers of this movement stage themselves as gurus and priestesses.
What kind of important and interesting different feminist viewpoints are overseen when discourses are reduced to a simplistic divide between “pro-sex” and “anti-sex”? Is the enemy of sex-positivity really sex-negativity? Because if sex-negativity is opposed to bad sex, then sex-negativity is much more positive than sex-positivity By bad sex I mean simply: compulsory or instrumental sex. And that can be „only man and woman in missionary“ as well as the positive version: „Studies prove: sex makes you happy! So have a lot of sex, otherwise something is wrong with you!“ Suppressing sex and improving sex — both have a stressful and patronizing logic for me. „Being able to enter into sexual relations with confidence and joy became as common an expectation for the modern era as feeling trepidation and guilt had been for previous ages.“ (Alain de Botton)Then sex-negativity as a political position is funnily enough more exact and as a feminist tool more useful, because it considers the close knot between sex and power. Why should our sex be pure from the environment in which it grew in? Free from capitalist, patriarchal, neoliberal forces?
You know when people meditate to lose their ego, but by this actually only inflate their ego? It seems to me that sex-positivity also gets into such a dialectic when it threatens to fall into a self-made trap and form alliances with exactly such forces in its watered down, uncritical form. „Hot tips that drive him crazy“ in Cosmopolitan are not sex-repressive, don’t follow dusty religious morals, on the contrary. And this type of sex-positivity is everywhere, it’s ruling.
This critical-programmatic and normative objective that we must finally become more sex-positive is also ancient. After the ( partly grandiosely failed) liberation project of the 1968s and the writings of Wilhelm Reich, are we not making any progress in terms of language, and do we have to chew on the same words over and over again and pretend that this is a brand new revolution? How much historical awareness does the current sex-positive movement show?
Ultimately, you can sometimes hear the approving back-pats when announcing one’s identity as „sex positive“, using it for identity politics and fixed affiliation: „We are the sex positive in a sex negative world. We are the ones with the better sex. The others are idiots.“ What prestigious class of the sex-positive is emerging here? What kind of habitus prevails in their spaces and which representatives of which social milieus are present in them? Who is noticeably absent?
Although I would actually find it charming if one were to define oneself so straightforwardly as a sex elite.
Well, nevertheless it needs terms, and they have to be kind of crisp. What else is possible? I like ‚( a-)sex-friendly‘, because the whole clinical aspect of the ‚positive‘ is missing and instead the well-meaning is emphasized – also for that, which doesn’t have to be only positively evaluable and sayable. But then there is still the problem with the word ’sex‘, we haven’t talked about that yet. What is meant by ’sex‘? It’s a contested word that is often replaced by the term ‚eroticism‘ or simply ‚intimacy‘, which is more of an end in itself, in order to get it away from its fixation on reproduction and penetration. And BDSM and so on don’t need to be sexual. But ‚erotic-positive spaces‘ carries something too swollen and sweaty, like an 80s music video.
„Intimacy-welcoming spaces“?
„Human Rights Spaces“? ( → „A life of coming people, which is worthy of this name, depends […] on the fact that the preambles of the human rights regulations (and its associated behaviour) are uncoupled from bubble formulas like ‚dignity‘ and ‚respect‘ and the terrible adjective ‚untouchable‘ – when they are permanently and without any consideration ‚touched‘. Wouldn’t it be nicer to put something actually existing in their place, namely ‚the skin‘, a real border. ‚Human right‘ should be the right to the integrity of the skin against unwanted interventions. Skin that is, however, touchable, where desired, mutually.“ Klaus Theweleit, 2019, transl. by BA)Afterword "Männerphantasien", 2019)
'Taboo-tackling-movement'?
Suggested by my friend Anna Mense: "Sexy time, sexy space, sex event, sensual spaces, sexual culture event."
'Quality Time?'
'Sexundogmatic spaces'?
'Sex reflective spaces'?
'Sex-respecting spaces'?
'Sex-critical'?
'Sex-neutral'?
Just „feminist spaces“? Because no matter whether sex-positive or sex-critical, in the end we are united in the fight for less suffering and equality for all? (bell hooks: „Feminism: A Movement to End Sexist Oppression“)
"Confidence-and-Joy-Positive Space"?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And probably I would also have to use more defined terms for the under-complex sides of the sex-positive, so that the criticism doesn’t hit the wrong people — maybe I problematize something more like unquestioned sex-enthusiasm or sex-optimism? In the sense of a "cruel optimism", as Lauren Berlant describes it: „Cruel optimism exists when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your flourishing.“ Maybe I could also specify to be againstentrepreneur.
I found some related texts!
https://megjohnandjustin.com/sex/sex-positivity-2/?fbclid=IwAR0SfAE2mFSlNPl1uDXOOpmTVCBCM6qjr90CMMUb3zFfFLEYO2oMmqxcgIU
„In sex negativity, and mainstream sex positivity, people try to fit in the ‘charmed circle’ of sex (monogamous, coupled, in private, penis in vagina, etc.). In the sex positive moment people embrace the ‘outer limits’ of sex (non-monogamous, in public, kinky, etc.) But this easily replaces one sex hierarchy with another […] As soon as we have any kind of hierarchy – with one kind of sex as the ideal – some people are going to be excluded and stigmatised, and some people are going to feel pressured to have that kind of sex.
The brilliant zines Fucked, and 2 Fucked 2 Furious explain how various groups are excluded from sex positive spaces, such as people who struggle with sex, who've experienced sexual trauma, who're on the asexual spectrum, who don't fit the body ideals in sex positive spaces, or enjoy the kinds of environments they're often in (e.g. social, noisy, often with drink and/or drugs). There's often an expectation in sex positive spaces that people will find sex simple, will easily experience pleasure, will know what they're into, and will be up for trying new things, for example.
Also as Elizabeth Sheff and Cory Hammers point out, sex positive spaces are often overwhelmingly white and middle-class because many sex positive organisers have questioned norms around sex, gender, and relationships - which apply to them - but often not issues around race, class and disability - which do not. This means that people of colour, working class people, and disabled people may well not feel welcome in these spaces. [...]
So instead of being sex negative or sex positive, we aim to be sex critical. This is an idea from eminent sexologist Lisa Downing which she nicely explains on her blog. Basically it's about moving away from the negative/positive binary, and instead taking a critical lens on all forms of sex and representations of sex. So we'd be just as critical of sex advice as we were of porn, for example, or just as critical of heteronormative sex as we were of kink.
Being sex critical means that we can ask who is being included and excluded in any form of sex, or event, or piece of writing. For us it also means being really aware of power dynamics which mean people might feel pressured, or struggle to give informed consent."
https://resonanceaudiodistro.org/2017/07/24/undoing-sex-audiozine/
"That is, sex here is not as an enemy to be polemically confronted, but an overwhelming relation demanding examination, where the pain and weight of gender are more immediate. My project: to long for the good and feel its absence, picking apart, historicizing, drowning in the weight of phenomena, "tripping on content" as Chris Kraus puts it.
So then to clarify: I do not set out to reject an entire wave of feminism. Under the banner of 'sex positivity,' even sexual optimism, are gestures that would be absurd to reject-the historicizing of sexuality, demystifying sexuality, giving information surrounding STDs and contraception to women and queers, disrupting reactionary forms of shame. What is necessary is far from a sectarian return to "second wave" theorists, but rather tracing the thread that gave rise to our present situation-the ways in which sex has been exalted, its relationship to senses of the Self, and the ideologies of the whole and natural. Sex positivity as a supposedly coherent social movement would be only a paper tiger; rather, the object of this essay is to disrupt the attachment to sex as it has lived in feminism and popular imagination, and it is a relation that lives well beyond the past 30 years of 'sex positive feminism'."https://radtransfem.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/the-ethical-prude-imagining-an-authentic-sex-negative-feminism/
"It is vital that the phrase "sex-negative" stops being an insult, or at least that more feminists develop an understanding that sex is not above criticism. Not bad sex, not sex gone wrong, not the sex that other people have. Our sex, real sex, what we call sex - it must be criticised"
"Sex-Positive Feminism,as I frame it, is a marginalised, progressive force which is present-day. It is a feminist tendency which aims to fight the shaming of women and a woman's right to independence as a sexual actor. As such, its obvious enemy is sex-moralism, which it directly opposes. And its subtle enemy is compulsory sexuality, which may easily coopt it. The job of fighting sex-moralism is straightforward if not easy. The job of resisting cooption by compulsory sexuality is extremely challenging and requires sisterhood and cooperation with sex-negative feminists. Unfortunately, many sex-positive feminists conflate sex moralism with sex-negative feminism and fight them both, leaving them wide open to being coopted into the service of compulsory sexuality.
Sex-Negative Feminism is a marginalised, progressive force which dates from the Women's Liberation Movement of the 60s and continues to the present day. It is a feminist tendency which speaks honestly about the hard knot of sex, power and violence formed by male supremacy and which aims to liberate women from sexual violence and compulsory sex. As such, its obvious enemy is compulsory sexuality, which it opposes openly. Sex moralism appropriates some sex-negative feminist language in its abstinence and anti-sexualisation advocacy but sex-negative feminists do not support the way it uses the language to make antifeminist arguments. Sex-negative feminism's most complex struggle is with sex-positive feminism, which does not need to be an enemy. As sex-negative feminism does not advocate shaming or controlling women, sex-positive feminism does not need to oppose it on these grounds. But when sex-positive feminism is co-opted by and advocates for compulsory sexuality, sex-negative feminism must resist, as compulsory sexuality under male supremacy is compulsory violence against women.
As I have outlined them here, neither sex-positive or sex-negative feminisms are totalising systems. Many women's feminisms embrace elements from both categories, in that many feminists know that women must neither be shamed for sex or forced into it."https://everydayfeminism.com/2014/05/sex-positivity-critical-analysis/?fbclid=IwAR2WgJNZmqa81airb1xo7l862sFFGuaKfwg18v0V0tp1IJg2lJU77ceaDWE
"I want people to lead healthy, satisfying sex lives. If extensions, high heels, and an air of vapidness do that for you, rock on. But on the other hand, I think it's fair to go a step beyond that. Because I am curious about understanding why certain preferences exist: What messages are we receiving from society at large that are telling us that this is sexy? Is it coming from somewhere? And I think that matters if we want to understand sexuality as a field. At the end of the day, I'm always going to be all for people doing what makes them happy, as long as it's consensual. But my problem with sex-positivity without critical analysis is that it always ends there without engaging people in a conversation around how socialization affects the choices that we make. And asking why doesn't have to be judgmental. It can be curious. And I think that curiosity is (largely) missing from the mainstream movement."https://miracharlotte.com/2015/07/20/in-search-of-sexually-empowering-feminism/
"The sexual revolution was this proclaimed attempt to free our sexualities. But what it did for heterosexual women is primarily create a set of rules to maximize our bodies' availability to men. While the sexual revolution seemed appealing to many women at the time, in the long term, it was deeply problematic for us, and it leaves us a legacy yet today. Look at online dating and "hookup culture" - Tindr was created by two guys (and from the looks of it, not nice guys). The idea that women can either be sidelined by some other woman who is more willing than they are, or they can play the man's game on the man's rulebook, is a fool's choice. Even for women who do legitimately find value or meaning in hookup culture, it's vital that we understand that we are participating in a game that plays by rules that are deeply patriarchal in their design."http://kittystryker.com/blog/posts/what-i-mean-when-i-say-im-sex-critical/
"I mean, in a lot of ways, I think I probably am actually sex positive, and would actually argue that many people who identify as sex positive but aren't critiquing the oppressive systems they're perpetuating within their communities are actually not. But that's really exhausting, and that's fighting a giant movement of happy hippies who get really ugly and mean when you tell them they can't have their "pimps and hos" parties without hurting people or that it's not inclusive to only ever show one standard of beauty- slender, white, cis, feminine, young- on all their event flyers. I'm pretty sure my critique could go on and on, but here's a start to what I mean, at least, when I say "sex critical"."https://www.feministcurrent.com/2014/04/11/the-divide-isnt-between-sex-negative-and-sex-positive-feminists-its-between-liberals-and-radicals/
"To clarify - 'sex negative' and 'sex positive' are relatively useless terms with regard to discussing feminist approaches to issues of sex and sexuality. The terms convey the message that 'sex positivity' equals support for a vision of sex and sexuality that is defined by patriarchy and one that is primarily libertarian. What's defined as 'sex positive feminism' tends to translate to: non-critical of the sex industry, BDSM, burlesque, and generally, anything that can be related to 'sex. Non-judgement' is the mantra espoused by so-called 'sex-positive feminists', which is troubling because it ends up framing critical thought and discourse as 'judgement' and therefore negative. Since I tend to see critical thinking as a good thing, the 'don't judge me'/'don't say anything critical about sex because it's sex and therefore anything goes' thing doesn't sit well with me.'
'Sex negative,' on the other hand, tends to be ascribed to feminists who are critical of prostitution, pornography, strip clubs, burlesque, BDSM and, really, sex and sexuality as defined by patriarchy and men. The reason that feminists are critical of these things is because they want to work towards a real, liberated, feminist understanding of sex and sexuality, rather than one that sexualizes inequality, domination and subordination, is male-centered, and is harmful and exploitative of women. To me, that sounds far more 'sex positive' (from a feminist perspective, anyway), than blind support for anything sex-related, because sex."
"I know for certain that many have used these labels in order to intentionally misrepresent and discredit radical feminist theory (and, actually, feminists in general - see: ye old "man-hating prude" trope) and scare women away from forming critiques of the sex industry, lest they be labelled "anti-sex;" and I also know that, as a result of this intentional misrepresentation, many women have legitimately bought into these ideas."https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/kelly-rose-pflugback/women-sexual-empowerment-_b_4058018.html?_guc_consent_skip=1588957666&guccounter=1
For people who face more obstacles in the path towards reclaiming and realizing their sexuality, this sort of uncompromisingly positive and monolithic view of sex can come off as anywhere from frivolous to brutally alienating. During the long period of my life in which I felt that I was completely incapable of having any kind of healthy manifestation of a sex life, I often felt wracked by the guilt of not being a "good" feminist.
[...]
If we wish to construct a feminism that is truly "sex positive," it must address the myriad forms of oppression that violate women's lives and bodies on a global scale. "Freedom in society can be measured by distribution of orgasms," reads another slogan of Wallace's Cliteracy project - a statement that seems almost painfully ludicrous when we consider the millions of women worldwide whose freedoms, sexual and otherwise, are devastated on a daily basis by state violence, environmental degradation, poverty, racism, and the wide variety of other hardships women must tackle in the contemporary world, in addition to a lack of sexual gratification. Women's sexual empowerment is not an issue which can be separated from broader struggles for gender justice, and in order to support its realisation, we must fight collectively for serious social and political change with the same passion and uncompromising desire we bring to our bedrooms."https://www.theaproject.org/content/problem-sex-positivity
"Just as queering and cripping are processes - not identities - that challenge compulsory heterosexuality and ablebodiedness, as well as homonormativity and normalised disability movements, is it possible to challenge sex positivity without eliminating it? It is then important to stop viewing sex negativity as insulting and take into account that these feminists criticize sex on political and not moral grounds. There is a difference between positivity while addressing sex/sexuality and in claiming that all consensual, harm-free sex is positive. I am for the former."
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"I do think as feminists we're fighting for too many things right now. Like, there's some feminists that are like, "We wanna be in charge of stuff and we wanna get paid the same." And then there's other feminists that are like, "We wanna free the nipple on Instagram." It's like, "Hey, can we focus? I know she's more fun, but can we focus?" It's like if during the Revolutionary War, if some soldiers were like, "We wanna be independent!" and then other soldiers were like, "We wanna free the nipple on Instagram!" You'd be like, "Yeah, maybe England should stay in charge of you. You sound like you'd be fairly irresponsible." Also just logically, we focus our attention and power on one thing. We're much more likely to get it accomplished. So, personally, I think we should go after equal pay. But if all the women voted, and we got on the same page, and we wanted to go after nipple, fine, I'll fight nipple, I'm a team player. It's just hard for me to even believe that that was a woman's idea. Sounds like a man infiltrated a meeting and he was like, "We gotta get these nipples on Instagram! Did you hear we can't? It's not fair... for the women. You know me, my main concern is the women." [exhales] "It's why I call 'em 'the women.'" And the whole debate is men are allowed to have their nipples on Instagram; women aren't. Well, here's an easier solution. Just get male nipples off of Instagram. I've never seen a man's nipple and been like, "Oh, now my day's better. Boy, do I love looking at those useless skin tags." We gotta focus! We gotta focus on what we're fighting for."
- Michelle Wolf
