The Ordinary Extraordinary blog
The Ordinary Extraordinary blog
Being sex-positive
With all the stammering confusion people seem to be experiencing (especially recently) as they try to understand the ever-opening world of sexual and emotional freedom, we thought it might be a good time to review one of the best ways to see things in a comprehensive, “big tent” way. Between trying to comprehend that polyamory is not polygamy, and that what Newt Gingrich was pursuing between his wife and mistress was not an open relationship, and that allowing same-sex marriage won’t inexorably lead to a man marrying four goats, the general public is whipping its head to and fro so swiftly that it can gain no sustained understanding of how reasonable the pursuits of those affected really are. Those bringing polyamory into the light, those advocating same-sex marriage, those fighting for LGBT rights: they’re striving for civil rights, plain and simple. As a wise poly woman once said, “Giving blacks the vote, women the vote, contraception—it’s all a slippery slope to a place of better social justice and acceptance.”
So what’s this comprehensive, “big tent” way in which we should all try to view things? It’s the old-and-yet-dewy-fresh concept of being “sex-positive.” And with that, it’s off to Wikipedia for the overview: “The sex-positive movement is an ideology which promotes and embraces open sexuality with few limits. Sex positivity is ‘an attitude towards human sexuality that regards all consensual sexual activities as fundamentally healthy and pleasurable, and encourages sexual pleasure and experimentation. The sex-positive movement is a social and philosophical movement that advocates these attitudes.’ . . . The movement makes no moral distinctions among types of sexual activities, regarding these choices as matters of personal preferences.”
The vast majority of people view homosexual sex as somehow lesser than heterosexual sex, view the love pursuits of the polyamorous as less noble than those of the monogamous, view bisexuals as confused and indecisive, and view transgender people as freaks to be tolerated or not. If these are the starting points in trying to understand or empathize with another human’s mind or heart, how far can they really progress?
Back to Wikipedia: “. . . some contemporary advocates of sex-positivity define their philosophy in contrast to sex-negativity, which they identify as the dominant view of sex in Western culture and many non-Western cultures. According to these advocates, traditional Christian views of human sexuality define traditional Western values in relation to this subject. Thus, such proponents of sex-positivity claim that under the Western, Christian tradition, sex is seen as a destructive force except when it is redeemed by the saving grace of procreation, and sexual pleasure is seen as sinful. Sexual acts are ranked hierarchically, with marital heterosexuality at the top of the hierarchy and masturbation, homosexuality, and other sexualities that deviate from societal norms closer to the bottom.”
Such views are only strengthened by the more regressive of our politicians and social commentators. They’re just working whatever angles they can to forward their ends. And often they’re fighting their own fears of a more progressive, enlightened world.
Those of us forwarding the proposition of personal freedom and societal acceptance do need to keep alert to countering blips of popular backwardness (such as the recent Newt Gingrich nonsense) but we must also try to appeal to people more directly in our daily lives. Blacks gained civil rights not only through protest and large-scale action but also through their influence on those in their social circles. Narrow-focused people often need to personally know a black man to come to accept all blacks, or need to have a lesbian niece to realize that homosexuals are human. So let’s not cower and let’s not just shout. Let’s be that witty polyamorous couple, that astute transgender girl at school, that advocate for same-sex marriage who plays tennis with the Republican. And let’s talk plainly about what’s in our hearts and minds—that’s what has the deepest resonance with those trying to understand concepts they haven’t yet fully grasped and are very likely fearful of. The open-minded parent loves his or her gay son as much as the straight one. That’s how society must come to view those of different persuasions: as equal in love, worth, and respect.
Sex-positivity is as much about having an open mind to a wider world as it is being sexually liberated.
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Saturday, January 28, 2012