Thursday, September 13, 2012

Sex is Great.



My last two posts were on sexuality. “Sexuality” is often what people say when they mean sex but they want to sound professional.

I hope those posts were written with a sex-positive feel. That’s also something I tried for in an earlier post on “complementarianism” in the bedroom. Now I want to write about exactly what sex-positivity is and why I think it’s something to keep in mind.

Sex-positivity begins with the presumption that our culture has a negative attitude to sex. That’s a hard presumption to sustain. After all what is our culture? Is there one culture to the world, or Australia or even Bendigo (where I live)? I don’t think there is, so I want to step away from this general statement that our culture has a negative attitude to sex.

Instead I’d rather say that there are negative attitudes to sex amongst my own social networks which are unremarkable. By passing uncommented on they receive a broad tacit approval. I look around and in this regard my social networks seem typical of my local community, my country and what the U.S.A. and U.K. at least look like on T.V. Let me give an example that you also might be familiar with;

When my daughter was just born (literally days old) a member of my extended family said that we would need to get a shotgun to keep the boys away when she was older. What they were trying to say was that she looked beautiful. I find it completely pervy that to do that they had to age a just-born infant until they were of sexual age. Her infant beauty was best expressed to this man in a sexual context. That’s part of the pedophilic and sexist gaze that women have to deal with in our society. Why can’t they just be beautiful babies? But that’s not the objection I want to focus on right now.


I’m asking, in the hypothetical future why am I shotgun blocking my child’s sex-life anyway? It’s true that sex has dangers and that as a parent I will want to protect my child from those dangers when they loom. However sex also has pleasures. As a parent I want my child to enjoy her body and her life including her hypothetical future sex life. When my child’s future sexual attractiveness is contemplated why then are we supposed to go to the dangers of that first in our heads?

By contrast what if my child had have kicked into the air causing everyone to exclaim that they would have a big future in footy. People make those kind of lame predictions around infants. I’m prepared to speculate that per capita more people are injured playing football than are injured having sex. However the first place people would have gone in their minds wouldn’t have been the dangers of footy. Instead people would have imagined the joys of footy. In fact for those for whom footy means a lot they wouldn’t have been thinking about footy so much as just imagining their toe connected perfectly to the ball. Just the word Footy would have triggered a whole swell of positive memories not wariness at all.

Confession time; I’m not a footy fan. Hence it’s not a great metaphor to stick with. I do however love climbing trees. For me just the words “climbing trees” are like a sonic massage of my joy glands in the way that the word footy might be for you. Climbing trees is even more dangerous than footy though. Everyone either breaks something climbing trees or comes awfully close or they just aren’t that into climbing trees. But such danger is not my first thought.

Thinking about the dangers of climbing trees is important. It’s important to the joy of tree climbing even. You won’t after all make it to the top where the best view is, if you fall down halfway. You might have to cease your tree-climbing while a broken arm heals.  It’s unlikely but you might die and never climb a tree again. However any thought of danger only makes sense in the context of the joy of tree-climbing.  The joy is the point to considering and avoiding the danger.

When our first thought is of the dangers not the joy of tree climbing then the meaning of both joy and danger change. We might as well put fences around climbable trees or chop them all down, or stand between them and our children with a shotgun. Even the joy of tree climbing has become a danger itself as it just tempts us to climb anyway - bad, bad joy.

That thought makes me sad and angry. In fact in response I am playing a movie in my head involving my heroic liberation of trees for the climbing. Fences are torn away. Axes and shotguns are broken over my knee. Children cheer. It is a very kick-ass movie.

Sex-positivity is just applying this kind of attitude (to climbing trees) to sex. Dangers are considered in the context of joys rather than joys treated in the context of danger. Sometimes this is justified as “natural”. I don’t care for “natural” as a justification. It’s a very woolly term which makes no sense if like me you see nature as morally neutral. I don’t think because we can’t breathe water that scuba diving is some sort of perversity of the natural order for example. Likewise I’m not interested in cultivating a “natural” attitude to sex or defending sex-positivity as natural.


For me the only argument for sex-positivity is well… positive sex. Just like with footy or climbing trees I’m not really thinking about sex here. I’m just imagining my toe connecting perfectly with the ball metaphorically – if you know what I mean. If for you sex has been a negative experience then I would respect your emphasis on its dangers. That makes sense. But my experience of sex has sometimes been even better than climbing trees. It makes sense that I recall its joys for their own sake.

To do that however puts me at odds with those cultural elements which are sex-negative. The more those elements are around me the more my sex-positivity is a reactionary stance. I have to become a sex-rebel. That creates a problem.

Reactionary stances have a lot of energy behind them. They’re angry and frustrated. That makes them especially attractive to hijackers who want to use that energy. All positions can be hijacked. Look at the way the desire to feel successful is hijacked by marketers of luxury goods or how greed is hijacked by political parties to get re-elected. Reactionary positions can be co-opted in the same way but are often even more useful to their hijackers because they are regularly being ignited by what they react against. Lots of enthusiastic energy keeps being generated.

Reactionary movements also can lack self-confidence and the language to express themselves. Sex-positivity is a prime example. If you grew up like me then you are grew up surrounded by almost entirely cautionary messages about sex. You and I were also not given the language to say why this is wrong. This is a hijackers perfect opportunity. They can provide the language that puts them at the centre of any solution to the problem of sex-negativity.

One great hijacker of sex-positivity is the sex-industry. This broad grouping of businesses making toys and porn, selling sexual services or running workshops on sexual activities are not in my mind evil. Some of them are trading what they believe are quality products and services.  Some are definitely not though. Some are the worlds worst employers as well. However good or bad they are businesses. They are almost entirely motivated by profit. To the extent that they are telling you that your liberation from sex-negativity requires you feeding that profit warning bells ought to go off. They are co-opting sex-positivity for their own ends.


Let’s be really clear. There is absolutely no need to watch DVDs, read magazines, learn jargon, buy expensive gear, attend conferences and trade fairs, or join on-line forums in order to embrace the joy of tree-climbing. These commercial activities are not climbing trees. Nor are such things necessary to be sex-positive. To labor the point they are not sex. You can even dislike all those things and be hugely sex-positive. Porn merchants will try and tell you otherwise but they are trying to sell you porn.

Some other hijackers of sex-positivity are actually some spiritual and religious movements. I have encountered people who argue that their faith adherants are the only true sex-positives and that if sex-positivity is my goal then I should follow their teachings about sex, buy their books, attend their workshops, buy more books and so on. There seems to be almost as much money changing hands here as in the sex-industry. Once again though, these are not all evil people. In fact they are not even all motivated by profit but sometimes genuinely by concern.

However there is no need to understand a theology of tree-climbing. You do not have to have a metaphysical opinion on the tree before you ascend one for the love of it. Tree climbing has its own joys accessible on their own. Anyone who steps between the tree and you and claims their complicated mumbo-jumbo must be grasped for tree climbing-positivity’s sake is co-opting that stance for their own movements goals. Anyone who steps between sex and you and claims their religion must first be grasped for sex-positivity’s sake is doing the same.

On that last point please put everything I have to say about sex in the same category. It is not necessary to read my blog to explore a positive sex life. As I’ve gotten older I’ve grown resistant to attempts to hijack my sex-positivity. However there is  also a “natural” tendency to become a hijacker ourselves as we get older. There is such powerful energy behind sex-positivity. It is tempting to harness this energy to other causes -in my case, feminism. I’ve seen it harnessed to promote veganism for goodness sake. Maybe feminists and vegans do have better sex. However sex has its own joys – all on its own. You don’t really need to position yourself in a grand theory of gender or give up meat in order to find those joys.

I actually think that the pursuit of the joys of sex will lead us to make healthier decisions in the rest of our lives. However I wouldn’t want to make a religion out of it either. If we go down that route we re-open the door to all the hijackers to complicate matters again. Perhaps the other part of sex-positivity is this; It’s not a way to be cooler than everyone else, its not the salvation of our souls, it’s certainly not the answer to everything. Its just sex. And that’s good enough.

Enjoy. 



5 comments:

  1. Tony, I heartily am a believer in sex-positivity as well!

    I think your "tree-climbing" analogy is not a good one though.

    The joy of climbing trees is that you can at any moment pick a tree and climb it. As you said, this is dangerous and exciting and potentially harmful, which is part of the thrill and the joy. You may climb the tree for the enjoyment of onlookers, but in the end, even if no one is around, you can have a blast because tree-climbing is really all about your own joy.

    This is wonderful and true when it comes to tree-climbing, but is actually a horrible way of thinking about sex.

    Sure sex is fun and exhilarating, but that's where the analogy stops for me.

    Sex is not just about my own risky enjoyment. It is fundamentally about another person, namely the person you are enjoying sex with. When sex is as impersonal as tree climbing, you get guys looking at girls (and visa versa) as something to conquest for personal satisfaction.

    Tree climbing might be a joy for you but is it for the tree? Well, we don't think about the tree really. We enjoy it's beauty and majesty. We don't want to chop it down. But in the end, we climb it because we want to climb it. It is non-consensual.

    I guess this is part of the risk. We're not meant to climb trees. We're not made to climb trees. Climbing trees is dangerous for us land-dwellers. But like scuba diving and walking on the moon, that's what makes it fun. The riskiness of the wrongness.

    As you wrote, "Thinking about the dangers of climbing trees is important. It’s important to the joy of tree climbing even." But if we see the joy of sex being wrapped up in the danger of it, then again we risk not considering the partner that we are actually having sex with. Why, if the risk is important to the joy, would we encourage condom use or not just jumping into bed with anyone you meet or not cheating on your present sexual partner! Why not? To put fences around such practises makes you out to be a party-pooper.

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  2. Well, for me, the joy of sex is not wrapped up in the risk. It's wrapped up in the safety.

    Sex is not for me about my own joy, but about the shared joy of my wife and I in the context of a life-long commitment to each other. It is a celebration, an expression of that bond and commitment, where we share our bodies in a way that is complete and free and vulnerable, because we have committed to sharing our lives completely and freely and vulnerably.

    In marriage, sex is not supposed to be risky. There is not supposed to be a risk of STDs or comparisons or unwanted pregnancies or desertion. There is safety, and that safety brings joy.

    You may not have had many negative sexual experiences, but I am staggered that you think that "per capita more people are injured playing football than are injured having sex." Maybe physically that's true, but not emotionally.

    Sex is powerful and can be used for great good or great evil. It can bring great joy or great pain. Footy and climbing trees can't get you into to too much trouble, but treating sex like tree-climbing might... just ask the many footy players who have found that out!

    My analogy for sex is fire. Fire is beautiful and powerful and can keep you warm, but, if you don't treat it with respect or are careless it can be devastatingly destructive. A fire in the fireplace is a joy, a fire a metre or so out of that, is a disaster.

    You wrote, "there is no need to understand a theology of tree-climbing. You do not have to have a metaphysical opinion on the tree before you ascend one for the love of it. Tree climbing has its own joys accessible on their own. Anyone who steps between the tree and you and claims their complicated mumbo-jumbo must be grasped for tree climbing-positivity’s sake is co-opting that stance for their own movements goals. Anyone who steps between sex and you and claims their religion must first be grasped for sex-positivity’s sake is doing the same."

    I agree that the joy of sex is very simple and very natural. But if you cheated on your partner because you were walking down the street and saw another "tree" that you wanted to climb just for the joy of it, I don't know if that would make her feel any better.

    The God that I know is the God that made sex feel so good. He is also the God who instructs me to value sex as more powerful and meaningful than tree-climbing. He teaches me how to not just think of my own joy, but use sex to love and serve and bless my wife. And that is not "natural". You look at the natural world expressed through other species and they do treat sex as tree-climbing (maybe primarily driven by a desire to procreate rather than experience joy). In the natural world rape and even gang rape is the norm.

    I am grateful that God has given those made in His image the privilege of treating sex with deeper value and in doing so, we get to experience deeper joy.

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  3. Firstly to clarify, the tree is not representing the other person in my metaphor of sex. Similarly I suppose that when you say that fire is your metaphor for sex you don't mean that the flame is the other person either, or the kindling. Instead you mean that fire requires respect lest it be dangerous like sex.

    Secondly when I say that thinking about the danger of tree climbing is important to the joy of it I didn't mean to suggest that the danger is itself part of the joy. As I go on to explain, the dangers (like falling) wreck our enjoyment so even when focusing on the enjoyment of sex we have a reason to avoid the danger. Similarly an STD can cramp your sex life. I know some people find danger a turn on but I don't myself.

    I hope this allows you to see that I wouldn't extend my metaphor to suggest that wanting to have sex with another person other than my partner is akin to spotting a nice tree to climb. My partner is not my favorite tree. :) She is another person climbing the tree with me. The tree is our sex life or even our sexuality that we are exploring.

    Now it still just a metaphor -not to be taken too far. (I don't mulch to benefit my sex life for example). I chose it largely to capture the type of joy I think we can approach sexuality with. I think we should also accept that you can't walk another person up a tree. You have to let them climb it themselves.

    Simon, I disagree that you are a believer in sex-positivity. You seem to hold sex in a positive regard (with important caveats) but sex-positivity is a word with a specific history and meaning that goes beyond just that. I don't think your position reasonably fits inside it. I don't think for example you would encourage people to explore their sexuality - to climb it themselves.

    Instead you believe that sex is more dangerous than footy, better represented by the metaphor of dangerous fire and properly approached cautiously and according to a particular narrow set of lifestyle choices. I would presume (big presumption) you would teach obedience to those lifestyle choices rather than promote negotiation and navigation by people of a broad range of options according to general principles of respect for each other. I might be wrong but if not then I wouldn't call that sex-positivity.

    One last point is that you seem to have forgotten sex that occurs on our own - masturbation. I wouldn't do that - although that's not to say that there isn't a qualitative difference when others are involved. Furthermore I would say there is another qualitative difference when the other person is someone you deeply love. I guess I would see these as connected to each other still.

    If there is a flaw to the whole climbing a tree metaphor for exploring ones sexuality is that it maybe overemphasises our seperate explorations (ie. through masturbation). Each climber may be doing their own thing. I don't mean to do that either. Perhaps while we're throwing around metaphors I would add dancing as a good one.

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  4. I do like dancing as a metaphor.

    I'm sorry you see me as not positive towards sex - although you seem to only have two boxes. Your box (which is of course positive) and any other box that is more restrictive (that is of course negative).

    You say I wouldn't encourage people to explore their sexuality. But I absolutely would.

    You say I think of sex as a "dangerous fire and properly approached cautiously and according to a particular narrow set of lifestyle choices." Sheesh! If that isn't loaded with emotive and biased adjectives I don't know what is!!

    My primary adjective for sex is not "dangerous". My primary approach to sex is not "cautious". My primary lifestyle choice in regard to sex is not "narrow".

    Well, I guess it is to you, but then again your understanding and rules around sex may seem narrow to some.
    You believe, I presume, that sex should only be performed with someone who is consenting? Shock horror! And you'd probably expect them to be of some particular age? Gasp! And you possibly think that people shouldn't cheat on their partners, even if the adultery is committed with a consenting adult? How narrow minded! And you may have reservations about some sexual practises that may seem to you unhealthy? How prude!

    Get off your libertarian high horse and see your position for what it is.

    In any case, if you want t see me as conservative and you as libertarian, then that's fine! Sexual freedom has brought huge amounts of pain into this world and I am quite happy to defend what I believe to be God's good design and instruction for sex. It brings joy and freedom and safety and the deepening of love and commitment.

    Another analogy could be a fish in water.

    The fish is designed to be in water. It flourishes in water. It has wonderful freedom in water.

    You could look at it that way, or you could say that the fish is enslaved to the "narrow" restrictions of living in water. The fish should be able to be in the water or be on the land if it wishes. That's real freedom!

    Well, you can ask any beached whale, that that theory doesn't hold water!

    True freedom comes when we are where we are supposed to be. Sex in marriage is wonderfully free, and there are very few rules when you are enjoying God's good gift of sex within the good boundaries he has given us.

    As for the exact term of "sex-positivity" I don't really know what you mean by it. It seems it's a completely subjective word used by those who simply want to define sex negativity. Just like words like "sexual health" or "sexual freedom" I guess.

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  5. Simon, you'll find I have defined sex-positivity in this blog. It's not completely subjective. I also say in my last comment you can be positive towards sex but not a believer in sex-positivity.

    "Sex-positivity begins with the presumption that our culture has a negative attitude to sex."
    Perhaps you share this presumption? Your comments seem to emphasise an objection to cavalier attitudes to sex. How do you see negativity operating in the world? That's the focus of sex-positivists.

    "Sex-positivity is just applying this kind of attitude (to climbing trees) to sex. Dangers are considered in the context of joys rather than joys treated in the context of danger. "
    Perhaps you agree with this? You state that you would encourage people to explore sexuality. That's pretty much core sex-positivism there. So perhaps you are a sex-positivist. Or perhaps you are playing funny buggers with the word "explore". Tell us more.


    Simon, I don't know why you are not owning what seems to me to be absolutely smack in the middle of conservative views - Fish freedom metaphors aside. You are adding your own moral negative to the word narrow though. Do you honestly believe that "narrow set of lifestyle choices" is not a fair representation of only approving sexual expression between a married man and woman? (Which is your position right?)

    If your experiences of sexual freedom (which you say has brought huge amounts of pain into this world) have been such that you have a wariness towards sex and want to emphasise boundaries around it then I repeat:
    "If for you sex has been a negative experience then I would respect your emphasis on its dangers. That makes sense."

    I have gone too far if I have made you feel bad for this and I apologise. We have to move from our experiences forward. But I don't think you should hijack the term sex-positivity like I referred to is done in my post.

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