It's not about the orgasms: on the importance of sex positivity

(Trigger warning: brief discussion of rape culture)

Occasionally, I run into people who ask me why I feel compelled to talk publicly about sex all the time. (Often, these people are my older relatives.) Partly, it’s that I’m a very open person. My close friends all know that there’s basically no such thing as “too much information” with me, and anyone I’ve talked to for more than ten minutes has probably heard some ridiculous story involving some kind of young person shenanigans. But my openness about sex goes way beyond my lack of personal boundaries. I talk about sex because I’m a huge fan of sex positivity as a force for social good.

Sex positivity, for me, is all about destigmatizing sex. It’s rooted in the belief that sex is something natural, and that however you’re choosing to be sexual (monogamous or not, regardless of your gender or your partner’s gender, with as many or as few people as you’d like) is perfectly fine. As long as what you’re doing is between consenting adults, you’re good. And if you’re asexual or choose to abstain from sex for personal, moral, religious or any other set of reasons, that’s perfectly fine too (as long as you don’t try to legislate compliance with your particular breed of morality).

A lot of people have talked a lot about the benefits of sex-positivity when you’re actually having sex with people. I’ve found in my own experience that feeling comfortable with your sexual desires leads to better communication and way more fun in bed. My friend has an awesome list of sex tips based on our experience  together that reflect this idea pretty well if you’re not sold yet. But that’s not what I want to talk about right now, because the importance of sex positivity goes way beyond having good sex.

Being sex positive is a deeply political act with hugely important consequences. In a culture which stigmatizes sexual activity, female pleasure, non-heterosexual orientations, trans* people, bodies which don’t conform to beauty ideals or gender expectations and a whole host of other things, having mutually fulfilling sex with another person sometimes feels like a revolutionary act. In this context, sex positivity hasn’t just given me lots of good orgasms. It’s also the reason I’ve been able to have healthy, successful relationships, love and respect myself and my body, remain STI-free and help friends out in tricky situations. I don’t say this as a “Look at me, I’m doing everything so well!” I say it because I think it’s important to recognize what people are attacking when they try to make moral arguments about sex, and how much sex negativity spills over into mental and physical health.

By teaching that desire is normal and fine and that women can be sexual, sex positivity moves away from the conquest model of sex. Popular culture often promotes the idea that sex is a conquest—men are pursuing women, women are being coy and shy and demure. Women are expected to fend off male advances; men are expected to be aggressive and know that women often say no when they mean something else. Unsurprisingly, this cultural construct directly leads to sexual assault (and also ignores non-binary identities and non-heterosexual relationships). If men are taught that no doesn’t mean no, and if women are taught that they should give in to men, problems are going to ensue. This is something that the anti-sex crowd doesn’t like to acknowledge, but promoting the idea that sex=bad also contributes directly to rape culture. If all sex is bad or immoral, then non-consensual acts just become another form of immoral conduct. There are religious traditions where all sex outside of marriage is considered immoral—doesn’t matter if it was consensual or not.

Sex positivity, in contrast, promotes what I would call a communication model of sex. Because I was taught that my body and my desires were okay, I’ve always felt comfortable articulating what I want and need in sexual situations. When I had partners who wanted to go further than I did, I was able to bring it up with them. On the rare occasion that someone hasn’t respected my boundaries, I’ve been able to articulate that clearly and unambiguously, and it’s generally resulted in an immediate apology. When I wanted to be sexual with people, I felt confident enough in my own desires to talk about it with them (instead of adhering to Cosmo’s advice to just slap some handcuffs on your guy in bed without any conversation). When I’ve had partners propose things in bed that seemed weird to me, I knew enough to talk it out with them instead of saying, “OMG WHAT YOU LIKE THAT GROSS!” Not surprisingly, my long-term relationships have benefitted from this communication. I’ve been able to enjoy good sex in an environment where I felt comfortable saying something if things weren’t working out.

This confidence also translates into physical health realm. Not being ashamed of sex means I haven’t been ashamed to seek out medical care when I need it. (I’ve also been privileged enough to have access to high-quality, affordable medical care for my whole life.) I’ve gotten comprehensive STI testing every year and felt comfortable seeking out medical care for things like yeast infections. I’ve asked questions about birth control and abortions, been able to choose methods of preventing pregnancy that were right for me, and checked in regularly with my gynecologist and sexual partners about those methods. The fact that I am able to do that is thanks to decades of fighting for reproductive healthcare. The fact that I feel comfortable doing it has a lot to do with the way I was raised to think about sex.

As a spillover benefit, the fact that I’m vocal about these issues means that friends seek me out for advice. I’ve given advice to friends dealing with everything from broken condoms to pain during intercourse. I’ve helped multiple people get emergency contraception when they needed it. And I know that I’ve been helped immensely by the presence of other sex positive people in my life. I’ve sought out advice from my friends for all kinds of things like this, and I’m better off and healthier for it.

I have a decent number of friends who are uncomfortable with sex—some of them think it’s something wrong, others just think it should be private and not openly discussed. And while I respect those opinions, I think a public conversation about sex is essential, especially as long as we live in a culture which stigmatizes the act itself and those who enjoy it. Talking openly about sex isn’t about bragging, and it isn’t about having amazing orgasms. It’s about health, both physical and mental. It’s about preventing unwanted pregnancies. It’s about promoting body positivity and fighting rape culture. It’s about declaring—unambiguously, clearly, proudly—that this is my body, and I’m going to enjoy all of the things it can do.

PETA, sex and vegetarianism

PETA has a long history of objectifying women in their ads. In addition to the charming billboard at left, they've been known to dress women up as chickens, pigs and other animals (always in bikinis) and leave them outside in cages. In one case, they made giant styrofoam trays like the grocery store meat ones and saran-wrapped bikini clad chicken women to them, supposedly to illustrate the evils of factory farming.

So I really shouldn't have been surprised when they came up with this. It's the casting video for their rejected Super Bowl commercial, featuring a bunch of conventionally attractive, skinny women in bikinis "playing" with vegetables.

I think the video speaks for itself, so I'm not going to spend a bunch of time ranting about objectifying women. Obviously the claim at the end, that "studies show vegetarians have better sex" is deeply flawed. Vegetarian are far more likely to be well-educated, liberal, feminists, health-conscious and a host of other things which are correlated with better sex lives, so implying that vegetarianism is somehow responsible for this is shaky as best.

Mostly, I'm angry about the way PETA chooses to promote their message. By focusing entirely on external reasons for being vegetarian, PETA does nothing to make people think critically about what they eat. Marketing vegetarianism as another way for women to lose weight plays on existing female insecurities about attractiveness and conventional beauty standards, and it does nothing to make people think about the problems with meat production. By blindly promoting vegetarianism without engaging in critical dialogue about our food system, PETA is making two unfounded assumptions: that being vegetarian is always better for the environment and animal welfare than eating meat, and that opting out of the system will somehow improve it.

These are both dangerously simplistic assumptions to make. There are many cases in which eating meat is sustainable and a good idea--when it's local and responsibly raised, when you're in an environment where herding has evolved over thousands of years and is better for the land than agriculture would be (eg. the Masai in Eastern Africa), when vegetarian food is grown with pesticides on land which was formerly rainforest  (eg. tofu in many cases). Even if being vegetarian is better in most cases, there's nothing sustainable about gardenburgers or any of the other processed, packaged fake meat products that so many vegetarians rely on for protein.

Even worse than this, though, is the idea that going vegetarian will change factory farming or the industrial food system. I'm not saying that acting conscientiously doesn't matter--there's personal value and discovery to be had in efforts to be aware about your own consumption. There's a reason I eat the way I do and try to buy used books, used clothes and not consume at levels that many American do. But with global meat consumption growing every year and the industry spending so much time marketing itself and convincing people to buy its products, people going vegetarian is not going to make a huge dent in the system. If you personally want to be vegetarian, go for it, and more power to you. But far more important than that personal choice is a choice to actively work towards ending factory farming. And that's really what PETA should be talking about.