Having Sex Positivity

Lately, it seems like anything and anyone can mention sex and earn the label ‘sex positive’: social-media apps, celebrities and ‘girl bosses’, brands selling intimacy products. But when applied in such a variety of contexts, the idea of sex positivity seems to almost lose its meaning – or at least, its definition gets muddied.

Just as businesses and brands liberally use terms like ‘diversity’ and ‘equity’ to appeal to ethically conscientious consumers, “the same thing is happening with either individuals, celebrities, endorsements, organisations or companies saying that they're more sex positive”, says Emily Prior, executive director of California-based NGO Center for Positive Sexuality. While some “definitely are”, she adds, others “use it as a buzzword to get people in the door”.

But how can you tell the difference, when there’s no single, agreed-upon definition for sex positivity? While sex educators, academics, sex workers and pornography directors all tend to agree that the liberal use of the term indicates both taking advantage of a buzzword and a true embrace of its ethos, based on the context, they all have slightly different interpretations of what it means and where it came from. Depending on whom you ask, sex positivity encompasses everything from anti-racism to male nudity in the movies.

Across the board, however, those who talk about sex positivity note that at its core, the term is about openness to a variety of sexual orientations, interests (or lack thereof), identities and expressions. They find that the term has evolved to become both more popular and more nuanced over time, and that its influence extends well beyond the realm of sexuality into society at large.

The (many) origins of sex positivity
While many credit the Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich with coining the term ‘sex positivity’ in the mid-1900s, as part of his discourse on sex as a healthy aspect of humanity, other groups embraced a sex-positive ethos well before he did.

“In the 1920s, there were already communities like ballroom culture in Harlem, New York, and feminists of the Village who were part of sex positive and queer communities,” says Swedish erotic filmmaker Erika Lust. Their experiences have just “often been left out of discussions”, she says.  READ MORE