[SSEX BBOX] is an ambitious documentary project, headed by Priscilla Bertucci. Their goal is to explore sex-positive communities in San Francisco, São Paolo, Berlin, & Barcelona (hence, the SS BB in the name) and explore the different ways that people in these locations are examining and discussing sexuality. By looking at how people are using sexuality as a means for social change, [SSEX BBOX] will help connect different movements and offer inspiration for new ideas.

Priscilla Bertucci and Carol Queen at the SSEX BBOX premiere

I’ve spoken with sexologists from around the world and one of the challenges we face is that cultural differences and variations in language make it hard to translate concepts from one country to another. [SSEX BBOX] aims to bridge some of those gaps and show us different approaches to some of the same questions, as well as to demonstrate the various topics of interest in different locations.

Their goal is to post 15 episodes every two weeks, along with subtitles in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and German. Right now, Episode 1 in English has been released, with others in the works. I was honored to be one of the people they interviewed me for this one, along with Jessi Fischer, Dossie Easton, Maymay, Chris White, and others.

You can get more info about the project on their website, and follow them on facebook and twitter @SSEXBBOX. They also have a really great magazine, available online here. And if you want to contribute to the project, they’re looking for funding, art or writing submissions, and volunteers.

Here’s episode 1, for your viewing enjoyment!

See you there!

Sex Positive Discussion Panel
Lisser Theater, Mills College, Oakland, CA
January 27, 7-10 pm, $7.50
Purchase tickets and find location info here
The Mills College Community Health Resource Center is proud to present our second annual Sex Positive Discussion Panel! This year, our speakers are:

Charlie Glickman
Krista Smith
Dossie Easton
Shilo Mccabe
Jiz Lee
with more to come

This year’s theme is consent. How do we give and get consent? What does this mean in terms of BDSM? How do we enact consent when dealing with sexual assault? How can consent be eroticized?

One of the things that Kesler points out (rightfully, I think) is that the word empowerment has been co-opted by a variety of people and forces that don’t have our best interests at heart. Rather than the original definition as “a multi-dimensional social process that helps people gain control over their own lives,” it’s often used in ways that control, limit, and shame people for their choices. For example, I see a lot of articles and debates online about whether a particular sex act or body modification practice is empowering. I think that highlights how little we understand what power is.

Some Definitions of Power

In Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority, and Mystery, Starhawk describes three types of power: “power-over,” which is domination and control; “power-from-within,” or personal ability and spiritual integrity; and “power-with,” which has to do with social power or influence among equals. While I think that those are useful definitions, I also find that power-over, power-from-within, and power-with seem like distinct experiences to me. Using the same base word and changing the preposition attached to it masks the fact that they have some fundamental differences.

I much prefer to think of power-over as control or force because that’s what it’s really about. Power-over is a process of making people do what you want them to do, whether it’s what they want or not. There might be a degree of regret or the controller might not care, as long as they get what they want. At its most extreme, this manifests as slavery and rape (among other things).

Most of us move through our days navigating these dynamics of control in a variety of ways. One of the mechanisms of privilege is being able to exert more control over others than is exerted over us, though few of us are entirely free from being controlled. And of course, when we have internalized the ways in which we’re controlled, we might not even see our chains. When we lack the language to describe them and when we can’t imagine any other possibilities, it’s much harder to get free of them. Newspeak, the language created by the Party in Orwell’s 1984, is the best illustration of that I’ve ever seen.

This notion of control lines up pretty well with Starhawk’s definition of power-over, but I find that the mechanisms of that are very different from power-from-within, or what I think of as empowerment. Empowerment isn’t about controlling other people or getting them to do what you want. Instead, it’s the ability to respond to their actions in whatever way you choose. It’s being able to consider their desires as information that you include in your decision-making process, and then acting in whatever way is most authentic to your own needs, goals, and wants. I also recognize that there are some people whose authentic desires are better left unmet.

Asking the Wrong Question

From this perspective, the question of “are blowjobs/porn/open relationships/etc. empowering?” makes no sense because the empowerment doesn’t come from the action. Instead, being empowered means you can make your own choices and then go from there. In many ways, it’s a blend of Starkhaw’s power-from-within and power-with. First, we figure out what actions will be aligned with our personal integrity and authenticity. Then, we (often) engage in communication and negotiation with another person (or other people) before doing whatever it is we want to do.

For example, if you’ve been told that giving blowjobs is not acceptable, then choosing to do that can be the result of your empowerment. On the other hand, if you’ve internalized the idea that you have to give your partner blowjobs, then empowerment could mean that you choose to not do it. In these cases, the actions are very different, even though the underlying processes of empowered decision-making might have been similar.

But the difficulty is that those motivations are often invisible. How can you tell that someone who wants to give a blowjob or get spanked or try anal sex is doing it because it’s what they genuinely desire? In a world in which our likes and dislikes are shaped and limited by the world around us, how do we know whether our choices are empowered or not? Most people will say that they’re making their own choices, even as they move with the herd. I’ve seen this happen around sexual decision making often enough to wonder if there’s any way to know for sure.

I’ve decided that, on a good day, the most that I can do is assess it for myself. Empowered choices leave me feeling joy. Not just the pleasure of the moment, but an ongoing sense of happiness when I reflect back on them later. Empowered choices result in a lightness in my heart, a feeling of satisfaction with myself and pride (not to be confused with arrogance). Even when the experience wasn’t what I’d hoped it would be, I don’t second guess myself. Instead, I take it as an opportunity to grow and use that information for the next time.

There’s a much different sense than I get from making decisions in order to comply with external directives. Those situations often result in feeling like I’m settling for less than I want or deserve. They’re making the best of a bad situation or accepting the lesser of two unpleasant options. Afterward, I might feel sadness, regret, or shame. Instead of a lightness in my heart, I feel heavy or compressed. And sometimes, I might talk about how amazing my decision was in order to convince myself and others that I’m pleased with how things turned out. Instead of feeling joy, I’ll act happy, but the mask doesn’t fool anyone except, perhaps, myself.

Where this can get even trickier is that if I’m talking with someone who’s triggered or squicked or simply confused by my choices, it can be hard for them to see past their discomfort and believe that my choice was empowered. They might not believe me when I tell them that I feel joy around it. Or they might tell me that I’m kidding myself, that I’ve bought the cultural messages that encourage or force people to act in certain ways. I’ve seen this play out in plenty of discussions, both in-person and on the internet.

How Do We Know?

This topic has come up in my personal life lately because my partner loves to cook and bake, while I really dislike it. I can do it, but I’m much happier with our division of labor: she cooks and I do the dishes. And although we both enjoy this dynamic, there was a time when we had some resistance to it. We talked quite a bit about the socio-cultural messages that define cooking as women’s labor and discussed whether we were buying into that or reinforcing them.

whisk and measuring spoons not included

One day we realized that actually, Elizabeth enjoys cooking and that’s ok. She likes reading cookbooks and figuring out the chemistry behind food. She loves getting kitchenware as presents, so I got her a saucier and a cookbook for Solstice this year. (The pan, not a professional chef.) And we decided that it doesn’t matter that traditional gender roles dictate that women cook. In our house, we do plenty of things that break down or ignore those messages. The fact that Elizabeth gets joy out of cooking is what matters, so we stopped worrying about it. If she didn’t enjoy it, it would likely lead to resentment and that would be a problem, but we’d find ways to deal with it. Most likely, we’d split the cooking more evenly, just like we do with the house cleaning.

This experience makes it easier for me to understand why some people have concerns about empowerment and sexual decision-making, especially for women. There’s intense pressure to have sex in specific ways. Lots of people are cajoled or convinced or forced to do things that they don’t want to do, so it can be hard to see past that and accept that other folks actively choose to do the exact same activities. And for women in particular, the mixed messages that one hears create situations in which it seems like no matter which way one goes, empowered sexual choices are impossible.

Making things even more complex is that it’s often hard to determine the relationship between the person and the act from the outside. It’s not always possible to know what that is without asking them about it and creating a safe space for them to give an honest answer. And much of the time, our agendas get in the way of that. When we pay attention to their stories and set aside our preconceived notions, we’re more able to honor their choices and their empowerment. Or we can bring some fierce compassion to the conversation and support them as they explore their experiences and look for ways to make different choices in the future.

A Fictional Perspective

In his classic 1951 science fiction story And Then There Were None, Eric Frank Russell described a planet that had been settled by the Gands, a group that created two tenets for maximizing personal freedom: Mind Your Own Business and Freedom- I Won’t. The first one highlights the idea that as long as someone’s actions don’t involve or affect you, it’s none of your concern. I don’t actually think that applies to Earth 2011 because I believe that we have an ethical responsibility to serve as allies to people who are being harmed. But in the story, genuine and authentic freedom was woven into the lived experiences of every single person through the second one, which I think changes the utility of that maxim.

The second one points out that freedom isn’t simply the ability to choose what to do. It’s also the freedom to say no, or in Russell’s story, I won’t. He illustrates it elegantly because freedom means being able to say both “I won’t do that” and “I won’t not do that,” as you choose. It means having the capacity to identify all of the possible choices and the room to make your own decision. It means the ability to say no, yes, maybe, tell me more, or anything else. It means having both the option to do something and the option to not do it.

This is what’s often missing from discussions of whether a particular sexual act is empowering or not. Arguing about whether anal sex or sex work or performing in porn or non-monogamy is empowering is pointless because the question isn’t whether those things are or aren’t. The question is what the relationship is between the person doing it and the act. Do they see it as one of several choices they can make? Are they dealing with any coercion if they choose otherwise, including the threat of social stigma, physical/emotional/sexual violence, or shame? Do they truly have the freedom to say “I won’t” without fear of reprisal? No matter how it looks from the outside, the only person who can actually make that assessment is the person making the choice. Defining it for them or in contradiction to what they say is the height of arrogance.

Of course, this gets more complex in the real world. What about the situation in which a partner says that they’ll end the relationship if they don’t get what they want? Is that a boundary or an ultimatum? How do we know whether they’re exercising their own freedom to say “I won’t” or trying to limit the other person’s ability to say “I won’t”? Each and every situation is unique, so I don’t have any answers. But I think that this way of thinking about it helps us frame the questions that need to be asked.

What Next?

I’m hardly expecting this post to change the ways in which people debate fight about whether a sexual practice is empowering or not. But I am going to exercise my freedom to say that I won’t get caught up in them anymore. I might point out that the arguments are missing the point, or I might not. I’ll see when I get there. But if you find yourself getting pulled into these sorts of disagreements, I invite you to step back. Though of course, you’re welcome to say “I won’t.” In the words of one of Russell’s characters, that’s freedom, isn’t it?

In my experience, the more we develop the capacity for self-possession and empowerment, the more we can support other people and bear witness to their individual paths, even when they look totally different from our own. That’s one way for our individual empowerment to expand and change things on a larger scale. I don’t think it’s enough to only work on my own empowerment, but I do think that’s the first step. Or as Thorn Coyle phrased it, put your own oxygen mask on before helping others.

I find that the more I move through the world as a sexually empowered person, and the more I share my experiences with the people around me, the more inspired they become to lean into their own edges and discover how to overcome the barriers to their own empowerment. I owe a debt to the elders of my communities who modeled for me what it means to be relentlessly yourself, and I do my best to pay it forward and pass it on. And in the meantime, if it means that we can fuck the way we truly want, then I’m ready for that revolution.

One of the difficulties that I’ve faced in discussing sex-positivity with some folks is that there are two different lenses that a lot of people use when talking about these issues. Some use an entirely personal lens, as in “I like doing this thing, or I find it empowering, so that makes it OK.” And others look at things entirely from the perspective of the larger patterns of culture, politics, and social dynamics. In my experience, the former is more likely to come from folks who identify as sex-positive and the later is more likely to come from certain branches of feminism, especially radical feminism. It’s no wonder that these two groups never seem to agree- even when using the same words, the underlying meanings are so different that discussions often go nowhere or turn acrimonious.

I see a lot of value in both perspectives. For example, our sexual and relationship choices are deeply affected by our individual experiences and desires. Those are so diverse that any attempt to discuss sexuality without acknowledging those complexities can lose relevance, and unfortunately, a lot of people make sweeping statements that disregard them. That seems to be an especially common practice of people who want to focus on the larger socio-cultural issues. Examples of people whose lives don’t fit the larger patterns are often ignored or are described as being in the minority and so can be disregarded. I think that’s especially problematic when there isn’t any reliable data on how common those experiences are, since selection bias and confirmation bias skew our perception of prevalence.

On the other hand, we each participate in and contribute to the overarching culture that then influences each of us. It seems disingenuous to say that my sexuality is only a personal issue, just as it seems disingenuous to say that choosing to eat fast food isn’t participating in agricultural monoculture. Many of our sexual decisions affect how we move through the world and what impact we have on other people.

As I said on Facebook, I find it more useful to switch back and forth between these different lenses since I find that sexuality is really a recursive process that can’t be understood fully by looking at the pieces in isolation. Our sexual experiences are both individual AND situated in a larger context. The choices we make are both personal AND often have an effect on other people.

So let me make this more applicable. When I talk about assessing the value of a sexual act or practice by looking at consent, pleasure, and well-being, I think that tool needs to be applied on both a personal scale and on the contextual level. For example, if someone enjoys exhibitionism and showing themselves off to strangers, do they get the consent of their viewers? Are they exposing themselves on the street to strangers, going to a swingers party, or filming themselves and uploading it to a tube site (where, presumably, people are choosing to see them)? The context of their actions is directly relevant to examining the consent, pleasure, and well-being of the people affected by their behaviors.

But I think that this can also be applied on a larger scale. Some people will argue that when we porn is we participate in a system that harms the performers (although it’s almost always framed as a system that harms women, since male performers are generally left out of those debates). I fully recognize that there are some porn producers who treat their performers badly. There are some producers who don’t care about the well-being of the people they film, who treat them disrespectfully, and who think of them as disposable. I’ve spoken with performers who have had those experiences and I think it’s dishonest to pretend that it never happens. At the same time, there are porn producers who treat performers as people worthy of respect, whose needs and desires are important, and who cultivate positive relationships with them. I’ve spoken with performers who have had those experiences, and I also think it’s dishonest to pretend that they don’t exist.

Now, we could discuss how prevalent each of these situations is, as well as the other sorts of experiences along that spectrum. We could debate what conditions are needed to minimize the former and maximize the latter. We could ask the performers and the producers what their needs and goals are in order to inform that conversation. And we can analyze the social, economic, and political factors that create the contexts that surround those situations. That’s a whole different project. But for now, let’s start with the postulate that some commercially-produced, sexually explicit media is produced in ways that neglect the well-being (and pleasure and consent) of the performers and some is made in ways that foster them.

Given that, we can then ask some really interesting questions: When people watch porn, what are the effects of their actions on the performers? Do they make choices that are comparable to buying fair-trade food, or are they making choices that are analogous to buying food that was made by forced labor? When they make those decisions, what kinds of business practices are they supporting? In what ways are they encouraging producers to behave toward their performers? Are there ways in which their choices about porn influence their sexual desires, how they act toward the people in their lives, and what they think of and act towards people (especially women) in general? Or are they sticking their heads in the sand because it’s too uncomfortable to acknowledge the impact of their actions? Are they selfishly choosing to indulge their desires at the cost of someone else’s well-being? And what about their own well-being?

From an ethical perspective and from a sex-positive angle, I think these are really important things to ask. These kinds of explorations are hindered by the incessant arguments about which lens, the personal or the political, is more important. They are both essential because they’re both part of the puzzle.

So I think I need to expand my definition of sex-positivity to include that larger frame. I still believe that consent, pleasure, and well-being are the core elements (at least, until someone suggests adding another one), and I think it’s not just the participant’s experiences that need to be considered. The consent, pleasure, and well-being of the people who are affected by each individual’s choices are also important. I don’t think that there are any easy answers there, but I do believe that this is a useful starting point because it opens up the conversation. We can discuss what the relationships are between our personal decisions, our actions, and our participation in larger socio-political patterns. And we can do all of that without ignoring either of the useful perspectives that can inform all of this.

In light of all of this, I’m experimenting with some different ways to phrase things. At the moment, I’m trying out “sex-positivity is the perspective that the relevant measure of a sexual act or practice is the consent, pleasure, and well-being of the people who do it and the people who are affected by it.” It’s not as much of a soundbite as my previous iteration, but it’s a lot more accurate. As a general principle, it seems to work. Of course, the process of putting that into practice is where things get complicated, especially when there are competing desires, interests, and needs. I don’t think that this is anything other than a starting point, and once the general principle has been described, it becomes a bit easier to develop tools and practices that support it.

Since I’m just trying this language out, I’d love to hear suggestions. If anyone reading this has a suggestion, feel free to comment below.

I’d like to thank Meghan Murphy (and the folks who joined in on Facebook, who I won’t name out of respect for their privacy) for engaging in this conversation with me and for challenging my views with respect and care. I hope that she gets as much from reading my words as I do from hers.

As I’ve said before, I think that the only relevant criteria for assessing a sexual act or practice is the consent, pleasure, and well-being of the people involved. While that may sound simple, there’s a lot more to it than may be immediately apparent. After all, consent is really only meaningful when one has the ability to make a fully empowered decision. That’s limited by what options people are aware of (sex education!) and believe are open to them, among other things. If you’ve been taught that you have to have sex in a certain way, or that your partner will leave you if you don’t have sex, or anything else that restricts your ideas about what sex is supposed to be, that can shape your capacity to consent. But to take it even further, in a world that offers remarkably restricted ideas of what “sexy” is, how do you know that your desire to do those things is authentic? At what point can you say for sure that your decision is genuinely yours and not influenced by media representations of sex? Exploring these questions is, I think, both a sex-positive and a feminist act. And I feel sadness that two groups of people who offer such useful and complementary tools for looking at these questions end up arguing, instead of finding ground for meaningful dialogue.

One place where we might begin looking for this common ground is the issue of “well-being.” The fact that one has a particular desire or fantasy doesn’t necessarily mean that acting upon it is going to support their well-being. For example, a man might have fantasies about being sexually dominant. To the degree that that comes from his internalizing the “Act Like a Man” Box, enacting those desires may actually hinder his well-being rather than fostering it, especially if he’s performing dominance in order to comply with the rules of masculinity. In his book Arousal: The Secret Logic of Sexual Fantasies, clinical psychologist Michael Bader points out that we each have different motivations for our fantasies, even when the narratives of the fantasies might be similar. Without knowing what the backstories are, any interpretations we make are going to be at least partly the result of our own projections, which is a notoriously inaccurate tool. In my experience, rather than describing what’s actually going on for someone else, those projections are likely to express our own Shadows.

I think that it’s often worth asking “how do these desires or practices support well-being?” I can’t answer that for anyone else- that has to come from each individual. All I can do is make room for people to explore that for themselves. Unfortunately, a lot of people either assume that “if I enjoy it, it’s ok” or judge someone without finding out what their motivations really are. In my view, both of those are often manifestations of arrogance.

When people argue that the fact that they enjoy something is sufficient justification for doing it, they often neglect the question of their well-being (or that of the people affected by their choices). People do all kinds of things that feel pleasurable and that are harmful to themselves or the people around them, and in my view, a sex-positive response is to challenge that. Meanwhile, it can be just as much of a problem to assume that everyone who does those things is ranking their pleasure above their own or other peoples’ well-being. Ignoring the diversity of motivations and experiences that people have, even when they engage in the same sexual practices, isn’t going to help, either. We  need to be able to hold onto both pieces, if we’re going to get anywhere.

So where does well-being reside? How do we know whether someone’s choices are fostering it or not? And what do we do with that information? Those are some of the really important (and fascinating) questions to explore. I would love to have those sorts of conversations with Meghan- she’s smart, insightful, and articulate. Unfortunately, she also seems to oversimplify what I’m saying about sex-positivity, or at least, that’s how it seems to me. I’d like to be able to hold onto both the individual experiences AND the socio-cultural factors that shape our lives (and that we contribute to through our actions) as part of that discussion. If Meghan or anyone else is up for that, I’d enjoy that.

Update: Meghan responded to my comment and raised a really important question:

How do you decide where and when ‘well-being’ begins and ends? And how does, for example, pornography and prostitution contribute to the well-being of women at large, even if it, according to some, benefits individual women?

That is exactly the kind of question that I want to explore. I don’t think it’s up to me to “decide where and when ‘well-being’ begins and ends” for anyone but myself, although I would find the conversation around it really useful.

Bee starts off pointing out that one of the problems with what many people think of as sex-positive communities is that there’s often a reactivity to the overboundedness that has been imposed on sexuality. I agree with her that a lot of people who say they’re sex-positive have judgment towards folks with concerns or squicks about a particular sexual act, which only reinforces and perpetuates the cycle of judgment. But Bee doesn’t get that a big part of the problem is the result of how people “express objections to” a particular sexual act.

There’s an important difference between saying “I don’t enjoy that” or “I don’t understand what draws people to that” and saying “that sexual act is bad/sick/wierd.” When someone expresses an objection to a sexual practice, there’s often a theme of judging the people who do it and of saying that there’s something wrong with them for enjoying it. Even if it’s not intentional, that judgment is still likely to come out. Bee doesn’t seem to understand that while reactivity to that judgment is unfortunate, it’s also understandable given how much shame people have received for their sexual desires.

As I’ve written many times, sex-positivity is the idea that the only relevant measure of a particular sexual act, practice, or desire is how the consent, pleasure, and well-being of the participants are cared for. And the two pillars that reinforce sex-negativity are the Myth of the Normal and the idea that there are ways that anyone’s sexuality should be. The more we can let go of the idea that there is such a thing as “normal” sexuality that people “should” enjoy, the more we can let go of sex-negativity.

It’s not a surprise that a lot of people get confused around this. Even Jensen, who usually has a more nuanced understanding, seems to not get it:

I think the whole notion of it is absurd. The notion of a “Sex Positive” category or a sex-positive feminism is truly ridiculous since no one I know of in these arenas is sex negative. The only people who might be truly sex-negative are extreme religious fundamentalists who believe that sexual conduct is somehow inherently shameful.

First off, there are a lot of people besides extreme fundamentalists who believe that sex is shameful. Like the Catholic Church. Want another example? The all-too-common practice of slut-shaming rests on the idea that women who have sex are dirty and that certainly isn’t limited to “extreme religious fundamentalists.” Or how about the ways in which queers are asked to desexualize themselves in order to gain acceptance? When two men kissing gets a negative reaction in settings where male/female couples can kiss without reprisal, at least part of the cause is likely to be sex-negativity. Given how pervasive these sorts of things are, I think it’s pretty clear that it’s not just “extreme religious fundamentalists” who express sex-negativity.

Further, maybe Jensen would do well to talk with some therapists about how their clients feel about sex. Any therapist worth their fee can tell you that many, many people feel shame for their perfectly benign fantasies and desires, simply because they’ve internalized the belief that anyone who wants to do those things must be sick. Unless he’s going to argue that being a feminist somehow automatically absolves you of that shame, I don’t see how he can reasonably argue that there are no sex-negative feminists.

Even people who have few negative feelings about their own sexualities can still have negative feelings about other people’s sexual desires or practices. It’s easy to say that you think sex is good. It’s a lot harder to honor, value, and celebrate someone’s sexuality when you find it challenging, confusing, or triggering. And speaking from personal experience, I’ve had plenty of feminists (and non-feminists) judge or try to shame me for my sexuality because of their own issues around it to buy what Jensen is selling.

The reason I find this so frustrating is that there are many ways in which he & I are on the same page:

The question now is: How does one fashion a healthy, sexual culture and the question I use to frame that is to ask: “What is sex for?” Sex has a role in human life. Obviously it has a basic role in procreation but it’s much more than that. The question is, and at any given point in time, sex can mean many different things and what do we want it to mean?

To ask that question is not to impose a single answer, it’s to recognize that not all forms of sex are consistent with healthy, human relationships.

Yes, this. I take it a bit further when I suggest that one way to find the answers to the question of “what do we want sex to mean?” is to ask about the consent, pleasure, and well-being of the participants, but we’re pretty much in alignment, I think. But then, they take the conversation here:

Lili: When one looks at the tone of many of the comments following articles about porn use, one can really get a sense of the contention and hostility. So it leaves me wondering: Whom does it really serve to create distinctions like “sex positive”? Why even create the distinction?

Bob: Well, it serves the people who want to undermine critique by labeling any critique as being “sex negative”. That’s the only function it serves as far as I can tell, which is why I don’t use the terms and don’t accept the terms in conversations or debates I might be in.

While that might be one use for the term for some people, it’s not the only one. One of the historical roots of sex-negativity was the idea that sex is inherently sinful or shameful unless it was validated by procreative sex within the bounds of heterosexual, monogamous marriage. While that has changed over the last century or so, what we’ve mostly done is shift the boundaries. For example, when van de Velde published Ideal Marriage in 1926, his suggestion that non-intercourse sexual stimulation was acceptable (provided that it led to intercourse) was groundbreaking. That’s only 85 years ago, which isn’t a long time compared to how long sex-negativity has been around.

Over the last century or so, we’ve seen some pretty significant shifts in terms of what kinds of sex are considered acceptable and which aren’t, but the fact that we’re still discussing things like how many partners someone can have before she’s a slut, or whether it’s possible to respect someone and have casual sex with them, or whether there’s something inherently oppressive about anal sex shows that we’re still stuck on the idea of categorizing sexual acts or desires as good or bad. The very notion that a sex act can be good or bad in and of itself is simply the current iteration of sex-negativity because it locates the value of sex in the activity rather than in the experiences of the individuals who do it.That’s like saying that sandwiches are good or bad without reference to the personal tastes of the people who eat them. It’s much more productive to ask how a given individual feels about what they do and make room for a diversity of responses, instead of judging the acts themselves.

Now, I do think it’s worth asking a question that a lot of feminists bring up: in a world that pressures people to make certain choices around sexual expression, how do we know what our authentic desires are? But at the same time, I find it rather telling that Bee is so honest about her judgment:

When I do raise the question in conversation, it’s not uncommon to get a considerable amount of pushback from women, who’ll say, “No, I do love walking around in a see-through dress with no underwear on in public”, or “I love when I know my man is out enjoying himself at strip clubs” or any of these statements which I have to admit, sound bizarre to me. [italics added]

Right there, where she admits that what turns someone else on sounds bizarre to her: that’s sex-negativity. It’s not the fact that she doesn’t get what makes those things appealing to others. It’s not the fact that she’s not drawn to them. It’s the fact that she says that they’re bizarre that makes it sex-negative. If she had said “…any of these statements which I have to admit, I just don’t understand,” I wouldn’t say that this is an expression of sex-negativity because she’d be owning her confusion instead of labeling other people’s desires. And while she toned it down by saying that they sound bizarre rather than being bizarre, it’s still an expression of judgment instead of taking responsibility for how she feels. It’s ironic that it happens in the same interview in which Jensen claims that sex-negative feminists don’t exist, which I really take to mean that he doesn’t have a really good grasp on what sex-negativity means.

I think that’s what I find so frustrating about him. I can add one word to his question about body image to make it a really relevant question about sex-positivity:

How do we shape [sex] lives that are sensible, sane and consistent with both physical, emotional and mental, long-term health?

And again, when he talks about authentic desire, he and I are really in agreement:

The other question is, “How much of that comes from authentic desire?” and ‘authenticity’ is a difficult word in this context because all of our desires are in some sense, conditioned by society. I’m not sure anybody has individual, authentic desires. What I come to desire is always going to be, in part, shaped by the society around me. But we have to be able to ask, “How are those social pressures sometimes healthy, or unhealthy? How are they sometimes connected to domination/ subordination dynamics in oppressive systems like patriarchy?”

So in a lot of ways, I do agree with him that feminism can be very much in alignment with sex-positivity. But where it falls down is when people arrogantly judge others and in the use of shame and disgust to try to sway people, both of which are unfortunately common in discussions with feminists, in my experience. Those are the mechanisms of erotophobia and I believe that’s a big reason why some people equate feminism with sex-negativity. I have difficulty imagining how one can create a truly liberatory set of sexual ethics if you’re using tools that create and reinforce sexual shame.

The difficulty for anyone who wants to ask questions that challenge people’s sexualities is that shame is so pervasive that it’s really easy to accidentally trigger it, causing all sorts of defensive reactions including attacking the questioner. So if you’re going to ask those questions, as many feminists do, it’s a lot more productive to learn about how shame works and then adapt your inquiry to minimize how likely you are to trigger it. (Some good places to start are here, here, and here.) It’s also really useful to learn how to compassionately inquire or set boundaries instead of attacking or blaming someone.

In any case, given that Bee wanted to explore sex-positivity, I think that she would have done better to have found someone who has something to say about it beyond the claim that it doesn’t exist. Since Jensen is one of her mentors, I assume that she already knew what he had to say on the topic and I can’t help but wonder why she asked him for his take on it. So here’s an open invitation to her, or to Jensen, or anyone else. I think that sex-positivity has a lot to offer feminism and I’m always happy to talk about these issues. You can get in touch with me anytime.

There was a time when I believed that when it comes to sex, we should all tap into our sexual authenticity. And while I think that’s mostly true, I started thinking about the fact that I’ve never come across anything that applies to 100% of the human race. So I’ve been sitting with the question of what the limits to advocating sexual authenticity might be.

On the “pro-authenticity” side of the equation, I certainly recognize that many, many people live lives of sexual desperation as the result of being shamed for their sexualities, their gender expressions, and their desires. I see people whose restricted (or non-existent) access to accurate, non-judgmental information about sex has limited the choices that they can imagine, which shapes their thinking about what is possible to them. I see relationships where partners are so worried about hurting the other or about “making” the other go away that they become too scared to speak up about what they want, and often (rather ironically) create the very situation that they were trying to avoid. And I’ve witnessed plenty of amazing transformations as folks learn how to tap into their authentic sexual selves and discover how to share that with their partners. Even when it leads to major changes or the end of a relationship, many of those people have said that it was worth paying that price in order to make the shifts that they needed in order to become who they wanted to be. I can’t deny the power of tuning into authenticity for many people.

And yet, I also can’t help but think that when sex educators, relationship coaches, and therapists advocate that process without considering that it might not be of universal benefit, we overstep. For example, there are some people who, for whatever reason, genuinely enjoy causing non-consensual pain. Some might suggest that that’s the result of trauma, or insufficient attachment in childhood, or any of a number of causes. As people move through healing, they can tune into a deeper wisdom and stop reacting to their pain by hurting others, at least much of the time. But what about the people who, for no cause that they or anyone else can identify, prefer to hurt than to pleasure? What about the people who, when they embrace who they really are, turn out to be people that harm? What about the sociopaths of the world?

This rather thought provoking letter from a self-identified sociopath and the response got me wondering about this. If, as some people claim, sociopaths are 4% of the population, what does it mean to advocate for tuning into authenticity?

I find this question quite challenging. On one hand, I really do believe that many of the problems that lots of people face are connected to the belief that they need to be someone who they aren’t. The pain, fear, and shame that result are profound and as a sexuality educator, I’ve helped many people learn how to let that notion go and discover pleasure, happiness, and love. On the other hand, I think I (and my colleagues) have a responsibility to acknowledge not everyone makes the world a better place when they tune into their authentic selves. What happens with that?

So far, the only guideline I can think of is the same one I use when I talk about sex-positivity. When someone expresses their genuine self, if that leads them to ignore another person’s consent, pleasure, or well-being, then I think that’s a place to set a limit in the advocacy for authenticity. I don’t see any easy answers for how those limits are decided upon or enforced. All I’m suggesting it that it’s important to be clear-headed about the fact that sometimes, that needs to happen. It would be reassuring to come up with some sort of system, but my sense is that this is one of those times in which we need to develop principles that we can apply in each situation, rather than a set of rules.

A piece of this is that, as I grow older, I let go of the belief that all people are inherently good, deep down. Back in my hippie-fairy days, I really wanted to believe that the pain that we cause others and ourselves is always the result of our own wounding and that, if we could each heal from that, we’d be able to stop treating each other so badly. I still believe that one of the main reasons we injure others is in response to our own pains, but I don’t think that’s the only motivation. I find that to be a much scarier idea, because it means that it’s not always something that can be influenced or fixed. But I’d rather look at it clearly than hide behind my desire to feel safe. And if someone isn’t willing or able to restrain themselves in order to prioritize the consent, pleasure, and well-being of another person, then I think that’s a reason to intervene.

I have a lot of colleagues and friends who offer coaching, counseling, and workshops with the goal of helping their clients tune into and express their authentic selves. Most of the time, I think that’s just fine. I also challenge them (and myself) to think about where we make room in their work for the fact that nothing works the same way for everyone and that for some people at least, we’re better off when they don’t tap into their genuine selves.

My understanding of sex-positivity rests on the notion that the only relevant criteria for assessing a sexual act or practice is the pleasure, consent, and well-being of the people who choose it or who are affected by it. Of course, that’s easy to say and hard to practice, since it requires setting aside one’s internalized sex-negativity as well as one’s personal preferences and squicks. It’s also difficult to do because it’s a principle that must be applied in each unique situation, rather than an easy-to-implement rule.

So with that in mind, I want to take a look at the definition used by the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls:

Sexualization occurs when

• a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics;
• a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness (narrowly defined) with being sexy;
• a person is sexually objectified—that is, made into a thing for others’ sexual use, rather than seen as a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making; and/or
• sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person.

All four conditions need not be present; any one is an indication of sexualization. The fourth condition (the inappropriate imposition of sexuality) is especially relevant to children. Anyone (girls, boys, men, women) can be sexualized. But when children are imbued with adult sexuality, it is often imposed upon them rather than chosen by them. Self-motivated sexual exploration, on the other hand, is not sexualization by our definition, nor is age-appropriate exposure to information about sexuality.

From a sex-positive perspective, I can get behind much of this. When someone’s value is reduced to their sexual attractiveness, when sexy is defined in ways that exclude so many people, when people are treated as sexual objects (outside of the context of a specifically negotiated and consensual exchange), and when sex is imposed on others, we reinforce sex-negativity, sexual violence, and shame. And while I’d prefer if they’d phrased it as “any one can be an indication of sexualization, ” I do think it’s important to recognize the multiple directions that this can come from.

At the same time, given that sexual exploration is often motivated by both internal and external factors, I think it’s an oversimplification to make it seem as if it’s easy to determine that a particular person’s actions are self-motivated, especially if we don’t ask them. And we don’t actually know what “age-appropriate” means when talking about sex education, both because different children develop at different rates and because simply asking the question of what childhood sexual development looks like means risking being labeled a pedophile.

Unfortunately, in the quest to protect children from anything having to do with sex, people often create the circumstances that put them at more risk. In fact, so many of the ways that we respond to the challenges that we face around sexuality end up reinforcing the very problems that we’re trying to address that I can’t help but wonder if many of the anti-sexualization folks are doing it again. I’d really like to see more people critiquing and taking a stand against the narrow and limited views of sexuality that reinforce sexualization without resorting to shaming tactics that also reinforce sex-negativity. I’d like to see them advocating for a wider definition of what sexy is instead of attacking the one that dominates the discourse. I’d like to see them celebrating all bodies and advocating for sexuality education that teaches about consent, decision-making, and discovering about one’s authentic desires. I’d like to see them promote media literacy projects and help parents gain the language to talk with their children. I’d like to see them acknowledging that young people are active participants, even as their ability to make choices is shaped by their developmental stages. And I’d like to see more people advocating for both the freedom to be sexual in whatever way they choose AND the freedom from having any version of sexy imposed on them. It’s only freedom if you can say no as well as yes.  Those are the kinds of things that help young people resist limited and limiting examples of how to be.

Other folks have pointed out the many flaws in the anti-sexualization movement’s rhetoric (see Onscenity for a great overview). It’s hard to get good information about this phenomenon when we each have a different set of experiences, and when we can’t really agree on what sex is (much less what “sexual” means). There’s also the issue of confirmation bias- how can a researcher code images as sexual or not without their individual sexuality influencing them? And then, there’s the question of whether they’re projecting a squick reaction instead of identifying something more general. I have to wonder how much of their concerns are because of discomfort with young people’s sexual expressions.

Yet, I still can’t discount everything that they say because I see some of the same patterns. I see how we’ve distilled “sex” into this one form that has no room for so many of the pleasure and joys that we can experience. I see how some young people try to make themselves fit a mold instead of celebrating their individualities. For that matter, I talk with plenty of adults who face the same struggles. Yes, I know lots of people also resist these representations, but the fact that they have to resist them worries me. These are hardly new dynamics. But as our culture has shifted into an attention economy, we’re inundated with more images that demand that we notice them. That changes the playing field in ways that we won’t understand for a while.

I don’t have any answers to many of these questions. All I know is that I’d like to see more people approaching with more sex-positivity and less shaming. I don’t think we’ll see any real answers until that happens.

It drew a lot of comments — many of them angry and frustrated — and opened my eyes to a lot of different perspectives on the issue. Ultimately, the debate revealed that something I thought was cut-and-dried turned out to be a lot more complex than I’d imagined. My opinion was challenged and my attitudes changed by the experience.

But he then goes on to write about how the sex-positive world isn’t living up to its stated goals when it doesn’t make room for straight, white, cisgender men (hereafter referred to as SWCM) to talk about various topics. Now, on that point, I fully agree with him- I think it’s not only appropriate but also important for SWCM to talk about these issues because the world isn’t going to change until they get on board with it. I think that men need to talk about sexism, white folks need to talk about racism, cisgender people need to talk about transphobia, and straight people need to talk about homophobia.

At the same time, I think that Hulme misses the point. If he wanted to actually model sex-positivity while both recognizing and responding to his privilege as a SWCM, he would have done better to have learned about the topic BEFORE sharing his opinion with the world. I’m glad that he was open to hearing other perspectives and that he was willing to shift his ideas. And I also feel anger that he felt qualified to share his opinions without having done that research first.

The world tells queers, people of color, transgender people, and women (and all of the people in the intersections of those overlapping categories) that their opinions and experiences don’t count. And the world tells SWCM that their ideas, beliefs, and experiences are important and that they deserve to share them with everyone else. So when he writes that “when we signed up to be a part of the sex-positive community, we were supposed to leave our skin color, sexuality and gender at the door. What matters here are words and opinions; not what continent your ancestors were from, or what is swinging (or not) between your legs,” he gets it exactly wrong.

He gets it wrong because sex-positivity doesn’t exist separately from race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or anything else. In a world in which some people of color are labeled as sexually out of control (and need to be contained), in which people with disabilities are seen as non-sexual and childlike, in which women are cast as sluts or virgins, in which queers are labeled as sexual predators when they do the same things that SWCM do, in which transgender and genderqueer people are called freaks, there is no way to talk about sex-positivity without understanding how it connects to every other form of oppression that exists. The idea that we can leave those things at the door is emblematic of the very privileged position that only someone whose identity is labeled as the norm can take.

What Hulme needs to do before he writes is to talk with the people whose experiences he wants to discuss. And when I say “talk with,” what I mean is “ask questions about what they experience and then listen to what they say.” Or he could do some research and learn about the issues. There’s no shortage of articles, blogs, and books about all of these topics. The ability to speak about other people from a place of ignorance is the problem, and he has a responsibility to learn about what he’s talking about first.

As I said, I’m glad that he’s clearly open to hearing different perspectives and changing his mind. Hulme could be an amazing ally for folks who aren’t SWCM if he started modeling that for other SWCM. He could support SWCM by helping them understand how these issues work. And he could show that it is possible for SWCM to learn to deal with their privilege more constructively.

I really understand his frustration since, while I’m queer, I am white and cisgender and male. I understand how difficult it is to have anger around being seen as the enemy. I get why he said this:

The refusal to recognize me as an individual and instead judge me as nothing more than a tick in some demographic survey box. These people act like I don’t have thoughts, emotions and experiences of my own — that I’m controlled by some giant remote tuned into the frequency of my skin color, sexuality and gender.

But the way to respond to that is to show people that you understand how race, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression, etc. work. You need to unpack the white privilege knapsack, the heterosexual privilege knapsack, the cisgender privilege knapsack, the male privilege knapsack, and come to recognize that while you had no choice about whether you were handed these things, you also have the privilege of getting to choose to deal with them. Folks who aren’t SWCM don’t have that choice. Ever. So when he suggests leaving these issues at the door, he’s recreating and reinforcing the problem because he’s a member of the only group that gets to set them aside.

I fully support Hulme in continuing to talk about issues of sexuality and gender. And I challenge him to learn how to do it from a place of understanding instead of privilege. I challenge him to take the time to talk with people before talking about them. And I challenge him to understand that while he’s frustrated that people “judge [him] because [he's] white, straight and cisgender male”, that is so much smaller than the ways that people who aren’t SWCM are judged. I challenge him to see that the fact that talking about these topics runs the risk of triggering people who have been hurt, rendered invisible, and shamed. I challenge him to learn how to speak on these issues with a gentle touch because of that.

Sex-positivity needs SWCM as part of the conversation. We need everyone’s perspective and experience. And the only way that can happen is if SWCM learn how to deal with the intersections of social inequities, privilege, and sexuality.

Breanne Fahs PhD from Arizona State University approaches sex-positivity from the understanding that true liberation requires both “freedom to” and “freedom from.” While this maps easily onto the idea that the ability to freely consent rests on the ability to freely say “no”, I find that it offers a better way to unpack some of the issues around sexuality. For example, it means that ideally, we would each have the freedom to explore our sexual desires and fantasies, while simultaneously having freedom from anyone (including our partners) imposing theirs on us. We can have the freedom to enjoy any sexual activity we choose, as long as others have the freedom from being forced or coerced into participating. Neither freedom to nor freedom from is more important than the other- they are equally necessary in order to create real sexual freedom.

Understandably, most communities of erotic affiliation have focused on the freedom to side of that equation in response to the legacy of not being allowed to engage in their sexual practices. But the way to find balance is to seek the center, rather than bouncing back and from from extreme to extreme. I think it’s time for people to learn how to hold onto both of these pieces.

One of the many things that I like about this perspective is that is creates a language that clarifies some of the tricky things about the sex work debates. From this angle, I can say that I believe that all adults should have the freedom to engage in transactional sex (whether the transaction is based on money, gifts, or intangibles) AND that all adults should have the freedom from having it forced upon then, either as the result of economic forces or the actions of other people (i.e. sexual slavery, trafficking, etc.) For that matter, I believe that all adults should have the freedom to to engage in commercial domestic or agricultural labor while also having the freedom from having it forced upon them. (Anti-sex-trafficking activists generally ignore the existence of people trafficked for agricultural or domestic labor, just as they ignore the existence of male sex workers and female clients.)

When we start exploring the issue through this lens, we can see that the real solution to trafficking isn’t ending sex work, both because there has never been a society that has managed to do that no matter how harsh the punishments, and because that prioritizes the freedom from over the freedom to. Instead, we can ask questions like:

What systems need to shift to give people the economic options to not have to become sex workers out of desperation? After all, banning sex work isn’t going to change the fact that for many people, it’s the best or the only way for them to survive or to improve their lives. I know quite a few sex workers who put themselves through college with one day of work per week or who are able to feed and clothe their children. Lacking the option of sex work would have kept them from being able to improve their lives. Unless people have viable alternatives, taking sex work away is cruel.

Is a legal response the most effective way to support people’s freedom from being forced into sex work? I don’t think I need to explain that there’s a differential impact of the legal system on women, queers, people of color, transgender people, and other oppressed/marginalized groups. I understand that some of the anti-sex work folks will argue that sex work contributes to the systems that perpetuate the economic and legal inequalities that force some people into sex work. But I’m not convinced that attacking those very people is an effective solution. At best, it’s ineffective and at worst, it revictimizes many of the people who need our help the most. I challenge anyone who has advocated for a police response to sex work to experience being arrested and tried by the legal system before suggesting it as a viable answer.

Assuming that one stipulates that some people want the freedom to engage in sex work (although most anti-sex work folks don’t, in spite of the clear evidence), how can we distinguish them from the people who deserve the freedom from having it forced on them? This is probably one of the hardest questions to answer because there are no easy solutions. Two people could be doing very similar things with very different experiences. And when it comes down to it, how many of us really have the freedom to engage in work that we find satisfying, sustaining, and supportive? I understand why so many anti-sex work activists want to sweep this one under the rug- it’s hard to develop policies and procedures when not everyone fits a particular profile. And yet, what I’m asking requires the ability to see sex workers as individuals with diverse motivations, experiences, needs, goals, and hopes.

When we make a sweeping statement about how “all sex workers are like this…” we remove their individuality and their diversity in favor of forcing them into a category. And while that isn’t the same way that, for example, sex workers who are trafficked or coerced have their power taken away, both actions deny them their full humanity. Anti-sex work activists would do well to at least acknowledge that some people do, in fact, choose to be sex workers for a variety of reasons instead of rendering them invisible.

Can sex workers and anti-trafficking activists work together? Although the relationship between these two groups has been adversarial so far (mostly, as far as I can tell, as the result of anti-trafficking folks making sex workers’ lives and livelihoods harder), I think that they could actually become a powerful influence if they could work together. People who are sex workers by choice have a strong incentive to end trafficking because of the effects that trafficking has on their labor, their interactions with clients, and the general perception of sex workers. Further, they could be some of the strongest allies of the anti-trafficking movement because they are much more aware of who’s doing what than anyone not directly involved in sex work can be, at least on the individual level.

For that to happen, the anti-trafficking contingent is going to have to stop claiming that all sex workers are trafficked and take the first steps towards reconciliation. Of course, they’ll have to learn to listen to the people that they claim don’t exist. Given that the anti-trafficking crowd has attacked, shamed, and misrepresented sex workers, it’s on them to take the first steps toward creating alliances. Stopping their misinformation, exaggerations, and misrepresentations would be a good start.

Why aren’t there more answers?

You’ve probably noticed that I don’t have any specific answers to many of these questions. That’s because I don’t think that my answers are going to be effective or relevant. The best way to find solutions is to engage in genuine dialogue with the people affected by the situation. Any approach to changing sex work or ending trafficking that doesn’t include sex workers at every step of the process will be ineffective, irrelevant, and/or disempowering. Having a single former sex worker who’s vehemently opposed to the business (as some anti-trafficking organizations do) isn’t enough- there are many different experiences and unless we can integrate a representative sample of that range, any response is going to be limited in its effectiveness.

As much as I’m familiar with more aspects of sex work than most people who haven’t done it, I try to not be so arrogant as to think that gives me the authority to make decisions on their behalf. My opinions are definitely not more important than those of the people who are or have been sex workers. I prefer to focus on supporting sex workers and the people who want to make the world a better place by creating space to engage in this work and suggesting what questions might need to be answered. Thinking you know better than the people who live it is arrogant and there’s no place for that in creating genuine change.

If you aren’t and have never been a sex worker, I suggest taking some time to set aside your assumpti0ns and beliefs about how the business works, who does it, who clients are, how sex workers and clients interact, and what needs to happen. Try listening to the people who are doing it. Try listening to their advocates. Learn about the many different ways that people engage in sex work- there’s a lot more to it than you realize. Once you develop a wider understanding, you’ll be a much better ally. This is a good place to start.

I’m really grateful to Dr. Fahs for offering her perspective. I think it creates room to develop a more nuanced understanding of sex in general, and sex work in particular. I also find that offers a better way to unpack some of the competing elements in order to find a balance point. By making room for both freedom to and freedom from, we can start learning how to hold onto both pieces in order to find more effective and compassionate strategies for sex-positivity.