I hope you're not bored of me saying this yet, but I've just had a[nother] bit of an epiphany. (Hey, epiphanies are great things! They represent the crystallization of an understanding you've felt instinctively, but couldn't previously put explicitly into words). I've long been critical of the sex-positive movement, which adheres itself to feminism, despite my own sex-positive identity. This is because my personal definition of sex-positivity too frequently clashes with the attitudes I see expressed by "official" sex-positives. Case in point: the SexPositive subreddit lists near the top of its description two links to blatantly sex-negative articles (that don't even attempt to hide the fact that they are sex-negative) under the guise of being "sex critical". (In truth, the subreddit's header has more to say about sex-negativity than what sex-positivity actually is).
Maybe I've been biased by this one subreddit's curious choice of linkage, but then you have the widely applauded sex-positive feminist and Youtube vlogger Laci Green harping cringe-ily on the evils of "sexual objectification" (and why it's perfectly fine for women to do it to men). I'm sure there are some good strains within sex-positive feminism, especially as it stands in opposition to the kind of notorious feminists who denounce pornography, but I fear that, growing out of a very critical and fractured ideology, it may yet have too many ties to a very conservative and politically correct outlook, especially on the subject of sex. I am reminded of the debacle that was Atheism Plus - ostensibly a natural and admirable evolution of the atheist movement, by attaching a rational, nonreligious approach to issues of social justice. Yet, it quickly devolved into a hypersensitive echo chamber of trigger warnings and safe spaces, where no real authentic discourse (especially about sex) could take place.
Which is how I feel about this "sex-critical" approach to sex-positivity. It's not born out of a belief in the positive potential of human sexuality, but is rather infected by a politically correct culture of sexual abuse and trauma (like most of feminism). In its overzealous emphasis on the importance of consent (which - don't get me wrong, is of critical importance), it seeks to ally with religious conservatives in the battle to sweep sex back under the rug, and keep it out of the public conversation, lest anyone be "triggered" and have to relive a trauma they might have experienced. Whether intended or not, this conveniently sets up vanilla sex behind closed doors as the ideal (hence the religious' interest), and things like pornography and prostitution as contributing to people's sexual dysfunction (however untrue that may, in actuality, be).
It's a matter of prioritizing safety over liberty. The establishment position on sex-positivity is to view sex as a chaotic force, and try to encourage more positive experiences by mitigating the damage that it will inevitably do. It's a position that seems born of a sex-negative framework. Whereas I see sex-positivity not as a battle of attrition to raise ourselves out of the red, but as a drastic paradigm change built upon the foundational belief that sex, approached properly, can (and should) be a positive and uplifting force in our lives. Perhaps my perspective skews more towards idealism, but I have little patience for trying to fix the symptoms of a diseased society, when the only truly effective solution I can see is a complete overhaul.
tl;dr - I've encountered some sex-positives who are really just another iteration of faux-progressives - conservatives who self-identify as liberals, but want to control society to make it safer and therefore less free.
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