My Sex Positive Credo

When I introduce myself as a sex-positive women, many people have no clue what I'm talking about. When I recently disclosed this to a professional, he looked at me and said, "Well, that sounds nice. It has the word, "positive" in it. Must be a good thing."  The western world is changing today. Relationships do not look like they did even 20 years ago! One of my mentors said something profound to me over dinner one day. She said, "You are part of a sexual revolution."  I was stunned by her comment. But, it was very true. With this sexual and relationship revolution, it is important to have a common language that everyone can understand. Fortunately, there are several well-recommended books out there about open relationships, polyamory, and kink. For my purposes, I wanted to offer the definition and description that resonates most with me - the sex-positive credo I aspire to live by. Remember that each sex-positive person you meet might carry a unique perspective and construct for what sex-positive means to him/her/they. There are no wrong answers. However, in every version, there are core tenets and ideals. I believe the following description hones in to these core ideals and is all encompassing.

What Is Sex-Positivity?

Sex-Positivity is an attitude towards human sexuality that regards all consensual sexual activities as fundamentally healthy and pleasurable, and encourages sexual pleasure and experimentation. The sex-positive movement is a social and philosophical movement that advocates these attitudes. (Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-positive_movement on June 3, 2015)

The way I see it, sex-positivity refers to 1) an attitude towards sex 2) a self-identity 3) a community of like-minded people 4) a specific form of sexual expression (ie. kink, swinging, polyamory, and/or various forms of openness). It also refers to a set of ethics and values that guide you within the lifestyle, or while engaged in a specific activity.

How You Know You Carry A Sex-Positive Stance?

If you have ever felt like you did not fit the heteroxist, monogamous mold, you are probably leaning towards a sex-positive stance. Do you feel an insatiable need to explore various styles of sexual expression? Do you feel like you may feel more comfortable exploring alternative sexuality? Do you desire more sexual freedom in your life? You are not alone. There are communities of people that feel the same things. They feel the need to push the envelop and have the freedom to choose the direction of their relationships and sexual life. 

Here are some other indicators you carry a sex-positive stance:

• If you desire giving yourself personal pleasure

• If are you interested in bonding in intimate, various ways with others (even with the opposite sex)
• If you strive towards your own spiritual growth
• If it has always felt natural to you to be non-monogamous
• If you find that sex plays a part in enhancing emotional and physical health

From a sex-positive view, you should be able to explore all these elements freely without judgment. Your only responsibility is to stay as safe as possible. Sometimes you cannot avoid certain risks. Then, you mitigate the risks by educating yourself, becoming self-aware, and taking various precautions with sexual activity.

Identifying as Sex-Positive Does Not Give You The Right to:

• Have sex with whomever, whenever/where-ever you please
• Assume that an open person will have sex anywhere with anyone without a sense of ethics, values, and previously established agreements
• Make other people uncomfortable with your sexual advances
• Disregard others comfort, sense of safety, boundaries, needs, and wants
• Ignore a "No" to a request for sex, intimacy, or other social interactions
• Dishonor, disrespect, and/or discount others in any way, shape, or form.

Some people will claim to identify as sex-positive, but they have no sense of ethics for their actions, thoughts, and overall choices. This is not sex-positive. This is just believing you can do whatever you want without any human decency.

Physical and Emotional Safety is Key to Making this Lifestyle (or perspective) Work!

Safety means many things to me. It means creating a physical space that is comfortable, supportive, loving, and respectful. Likewise, it is creating an emotional space between partners that is loving, supportive, and based on mutual respect and honor. At the core of safety is informed consent. The persons or people involved must be aware of what they are getting involved into and mutually consent to whatever transpires (depending on the context). On one end of the spectrum we might be talking about swinging or engaging in kink scenes. On the other side of the spectrum, we might be talking about choosing to embrace a more polyamorous relationship structure. The partners involved must consent to all conditions, agreements, and negotiations. If not, it is no longer a sex-positive framework. It is no longer safe.

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As you can see throughout my post, to subscribe to a sex-positive lifestyle is to fully embrace sexual freedom, sexual experimentation, and a wide spectrum of sexual practices. In fact, these things are are normal part of being human. There is, however, an underlying assumption that you engage in such activities and lifestyles with a sense of personal accountability, personal ethics, regard for others, the promotion of safety, and mutual informed consent. Without these to set a foundation, a big piece of the sex-positive puzzle would be missing.

I will be offering more information and links to this topic in upcoming weeks