Feminism

[Apple Cider]

If anyone wants to dig into what modern sex criticality encompasses, a lot of it is just dealing with negotiating consent in a patriarchal world, why pornography largely and harmfully focuses on heteropatriarchal norms and espouses violence, dealing with sex and sexual content as survivors/victims, how much of sex is tied up with power dynamics, use of sex as control, and how rape culture operates, too. Sex positivity focuses a lot on women's ability to make sexual choices and enact sexuality in a way that is healthy and healing for themselves. 

 

I really do like to focus on power dynamics and some of the more negative aspects that sex CAN have due to heteropatriarchal norms. Societal structures have made navigating and creating sexual content for ourselves really difficult because we're still so entrenched in shit. 

[itsamoose]

What do people mean when they say they are sex positive vs sex critical/sex negative?  I've only ever heard these terms referenced loosely by people, and usually as a kind of catch all to justify whatever opinion they are espousing.  Those terms tend to come up when discussing pornography, but beyond that I can't help but feel they tend to get used in lieu of explanation, kind of like how people preface their political opinions with I'm a Liberal/Conservative/Libertarian/etc.

[Argobot]

Sex positive/sex negative are holdovers from the 80s, when 'The Sex Wars' was a main focus of feminism. Some feminists were staunchly against pornography and even sided with conservative religious groups in an attempt to have it banned. That's the sex negative group. Today, most feminists have a more nuanced view of the issue and don't want a blanket ban of all pornography. That's why I feel sex negative is an outdated term because it doesn't describe the more complex attitudes that are present today. Unless a woman directly calls for the removal of all porn and sexual agency, I don't see how it's reasonable to label her as sex negative. 

[Apple Cider]

A lot of times it's a fast way to give people a rough yardstick on your feelings, even when it encompasses a really huge set of beliefs and they are endlessly nuanced. A lot of sexual politics gets debated in feminism anyways but sex positivity is a term that's become more popular without really a good term for people who look at a different set of issues from that. I wouldn't even say I'm NOT sex positive but it's generally not my area of interest or focus for my politics. Overall, I think sex criticality is a better broad term.

[tberton]

So in general, for my work, I use "sex criticality" to encompass the whole she-bang.

 

This is a fascinating and wonderful conversation. But I would be remiss if I didn't point out how amazing this pun is. It's early in the year, but it will definitely be in the running for my POTY 2015.

[CollegeBaby]

If anyone wants to dig into what modern sex criticality encompasses, a lot of it is just dealing with negotiating consent in a patriarchal world, why pornography largely and harmfully focuses on heteropatriarchal norms and espouses violence, dealing with sex and sexual content as survivors/victims, how much of sex is tied up with power dynamics, use of sex as control, and how rape culture operates, too. Sex positivity focuses a lot on women's ability to make sexual choices and enact sexuality in a way that is healthy and healing for themselves. 

 

I really do like to focus on power dynamics and some of the more negative aspects that sex CAN have due to heteropatriarchal norms. Societal structures have made navigating and creating sexual content for ourselves really difficult because we're still so entrenched in shit. 

 

What sources (websites/books/activists/organizations) would you consider reflective of your attitude of the sex industry?

[Bjorn]

Unless a woman directly calls for the removal of all porn and sexual agency, I don't see how it's reasonable to label her as sex negative.

 

And that's exactly why I have such an issue with the phrase. It's grossly inaccurate.

What do people mean when they say they are sex positive vs sex critical/sex negative?

You're right in that sex positive tends to be a phrase whose meaning can shift in some ways depending on who uses it. When I use it, I'm meaning the freedom to engage (both legally and as free as possible from social stigma) in most kinds of sexual activity that are consensual. Obviously there are caveats, as there are kinks people have that are truly dangerous to themselves or their partners. It's also a philosophy of being open and non-judgmental about the kinds of sex people like having, even if you aren't interested in it.

As an example of things people would describe as sex critical/negative would be having the opinion that sex work, as society currently exists, can't be consensual because it exists within the framework of a male dominated culture (the patriarchy), and so almost always seeks to cater to men's desires. They would say women aren't really making a free choice to go into sex work, society has created a situation in which some women see no other option but sex work. A sex positive person might say that if a woman tells you she is making an informed choice for herself, then you need to shut the fuck up and listen to her, because lecturing women about validity of their choices is something the patriarchy does, not something feminists should be doing to women.

The sex work side can get really, really complicated, getting into all sorts of different intersectional type issues. Race, poverty, culture, religion, stigma all come into play in talking about what it means to be a sex worker in our society. Pro and anti sex work opinions both have some valid points, but both tend towards a hyperbole of trying to nuke the opinions of the other side too.

Aaaaaand, the sex work question (because of its complexity and controversy) often ends up derailing conversations about sex. Kind of like how it is the easy example I went with. There are lots of areas that the positive/critical sides agree on. Things that might include consensual kink, poly relationships, destigmatizing gay sex (even with marriage equality growing, a lot of people still think gay sex is "icky") , quality sex education, swinging, easy access to the birth control of their choice, recognizing asexuality, supporting trans folk, legal and easy access to abortion, etc.

[Apple Cider]

I cannot really furnish this list at the moment because I am at work and don't have my bookmarks on hand but off the top of my head, I believe strongly in listening to sex workers, both who work in good and also terrible environments. It is their lives, so I follow their lead on how to look at modern mainstream pornography and other varities of sex work. There's a great deal of larger contexts to what makes sex work what it is, and I feel like that's a good place to examine versus coming down on SWs for trying to navigate it to make a living. 

[Apple Cider]

Aaaaaand, the sex work question (because of its complexity and controversy) often ends up derailing conversations about sex. Kind of like how it is the easy example I went with. There are lots of areas that the positive/critical sides agree on. Things that might include consensual kink, poly relationships, destigmatizing gay sex (even with marriage equality growing, a lot of people still think gay sex is "icky") , quality sex education, swinging, easy access to the birth control of their choice, recognizing asexuality, supporting trans folk, legal and easy access to abortion, etc.

 

I support all of this, actually! 

 

The note about "no consent in patriarchal world" - while I think Dworkin's pronouncement on that was very broad, I think it's a really interesting starting place to think about consent and how it might not be as cut and dry as "NO" - especially when saying no can have really huge consequences or when you feel compelled to say yes for a variety of reasons. But it also largely ignored that sometimes you're not dealing with men sexually, etc.

 

As far as a list, I cannot really furnish at the moment because I am at work and don't have my SFW bookmarks on hand but off the top of my head, I believe strongly in listening to sex workers, both who work in good and also terrible environments. It is their lives, so I follow their lead on how to look at modern mainstream pornography and other varieties of sex work. There's a great deal of larger contexts to what makes sex work what it is, and I feel like that's a good place to examine versus coming down on SWs for trying to navigate it to make a living. 

[Deadpan]

I support all of this, actually! 

 

Well it's a good list of good things.

 

I wish I was more knowledgeable about actual sources or guides for this stuff, but a lot of it, for me, has come from listening to various feminists rant on Twitter for a long time. Which includes you, so, uh, thanks?

[Apple Cider]

No problem, that's basically where I learned most of this stuff too. Listening to real life women talk about the real stuff that affects their lives is a great source of perspective.

[Bjorn]

If not for a lot of the badass women in my life (particularly the lady and a handful of friends who are super interested/obsessed with the sex side of feminism), I wouldn't know jack about a lot of this territory. So yeah, follow awesome women on social media and read the stuff they write and link to.

And I can't credit my partner enough with having educated me over the years. But that said, her knowledge and her opinions have shifted quite a bit over the last 10 years even. There is so, so, so much cultural baggage we all carry around in regards to sex and sexuality, that even someone who thinks their opinions are very well informed and who try to be open minded can be constantly re-evaluating what they think because of how long it takes to even try and de-program all the crap that our parents, schools, media and culture drilled into our heads for the first 20 years of our lives.

The point of mentioning that is that if you go down a road of reading about this stuff, and you feel confused or conflicted, that's totally fine. People who have spent many, many years thinking, reading and writing about this stuff still often feel confused or conflicted at times about various specific topics in it. The Internet, unfortunately, tends to lead us towards taking firm stances on everything rather than acknowledging personal conflict or confusion. Particularly if you start reading personal accounts from sex workers, you can run the gamut from reading heart breaking stories of abuse to uplifting stories of women attributing sex work to be their salvation.

[Apple Cider]

A lot of what is tough about unraveling a personal opinion on sexual politics in feminism is just how incredibly personal and complicated relating TO sex is as an individual, especially as a feminist, especially as survivor and there's not NEARLY enough spaces where you can really talk about this at length.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Hearing a bunch of people's thoughts and reactions with the potential to engage with them is why I think twitter is great and GG gave me the impetus to mass follow a bunch of people who I otherwise don't hear enough from, I recommend it to anyone who feels like they don't understand this that well. Especially because hearing a bunch of people can give you a broader range of ideas to draw on.

[chummer]

Hearing a bunch of people's thoughts and reactions with the potential to engage with them is why I think twitter is great and GG gave me the impetus to mass follow a bunch of people who I otherwise don't hear enough from, I recommend it to anyone who feels like they don't understand this that well. Especially because hearing a bunch of people can give you a broader range of ideas to draw on.

 

Agreed! I feel like Twitter specifically has challenged me to both reexamine a lot of my thinking and be more compassionate.

[CollegeBaby]

I don't know. I've generally considered myself sex-positive in the "sex is nice and pleasure is good for you" framework that formed a reaction to the conservative and second wave feminist ideas that sex is shameful or that sex was an entirely patriarchal tool. But I acknowledge that there are massive issues with the way the sex industry is operated that is a hold over from patriarchal, heteronormative structures. Something that has become really concerning to me is the relationship between trans women and sex work.

 

-Trans women take up sex work at a much higher rate than cis women because of cissexist prejudice that leaves them little other option to make a living.

-Trans women who become sex workers are burdened with added stigmas from whorephobia that further distance them from societal acceptance.

- In areas where sex work is outlawed it leaves them vulnerable to increased violence from clients who may call "trans panic" as a defence.

-Trans women are not fully accepted as women in the sex industry. They are marketed as "shemales", "trannnies" and "ladyboys" that delegitimise them, objectify them and treat them as sexual oddities for fetishists.

-Trans women and crossdressing men are not always differentiated.

- Pornography misrepresents the way trans women experience their sexuality since it is targeted primarily for straight men, particularly in the expectation that they ejaculate despite HRT making this almost impossible.

- Pornography routinely plays out scenarios of trans women tricking men into thinking they are having sex with cis women and then being horrified by their genitals, giving trans women the label "trap".

- Being an industry heavily responsible for the visibility of trans women - pornography cements transmisogyny that circles back to my first point.

 

In short, fuck this planet.

[Apple Cider]

I think sex criticality works best, for me at least, when it is a mixture of personal freedom but structural awareness and accountability. There's no way you can espouse sex posi stuff across the board without acknowledging that sex (whether work or just personal) is absolutely impacted by literally everything else women deal with - ableism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, racism, misogynoir, and especially rape culture. 

 

Even rape culture itself is incredibly whitewashed - much of the face of rape statistics is a white woman, when women of color, notably indigenous women/First Nation women experience a 1 in 2 or 1 in 3 rate of abuse and rape vs. the 1 in 6 statistic most often quoted. There's also the fact of the matter that dealing with the police is just not really an option for most women, but definitely not for women of colour, especially if you are queer or trans.

[CollegeBaby]

Right, I see your point. Even though I support sexual liberalisation I do think there are a number of problems that wont be solved by it, and there are some things that are possibly made problematic by it. I guess I never felt like I needed to adjust the terminology, as how I define my ideology is not that important to me. Perhaps most of these things are a result of the fact that modern feminist conversation is still dominated by white, cis privileged women.

 

To be honest I'm not even convinced this is entirely solvable under a capitalist framework. I generally consider myself a social democrat, but I doubt sometimes, and this is a question significantly above my level.

[Apple Cider]

Oh, I absolutely feel the same. But it doesn't hurt to talk about it and ease the ideological burden in the meantime, put some things into action. 

[Gwardinen]

Somewhat relevant announcement from Intel. We'll see how successful it is.

[Bjorn]

Speaking of the intersections between sex work, culture, religion and stigma: Meet Mia Khalifa, the Lebanese Porn Star Who Sparked a National Controversy.

[Brannigan]

link is broken

[Bjorn]

link is broken

 

Fixed. 

 

 

[Bjorn]

This video might be very mildly NSFW, as it features a drawing of a naked woman throughout, but it's pretty fascinating/horrifying. Titled: Designing a perfect woman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVpHo_Ci2ck

[Problem Machine]

This video might be very mildly NSFW, as it features a drawing of a naked woman throughout, but it's pretty fascinating/horrifying. Titled: Designing a perfect woman.

wasn't this an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force?