Sex-positive movement
Encyclopedia
The sex-positive movement is an ideology which promotes and embraces open sexuality with few limits. 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. The sex-positive movement advocates sex education and safer sex as part of its campaign." The movement makes no moral distinctions among types of sexual activities, regarding these choices as matters of personal preference.
. His hypothesis was that some societies view sexual expression as essentially good and healthy, while other societies take an overall negative view of sexuality and seek to repress
and control the sex drive.
Like Reich, some contemporary advocates of sex-positivity define their philosophy in contrast to sex-negativity, which they identify as the dominant view of sex in Western culture and many non-Western cultures. According to these advocates, traditional Christian views of human sexuality define traditional Western values in relation to this subject. Thus, such proponents of sex-positivity claim that under the Western, Christian tradition, sex is seen as a destructive force except when it is redeemed by the saving grace of procreation, and sexual pleasure is seen as sinful. Sexual acts are ranked hierarchically, with marital heterosexuality at the top of the hierarchy and masturbation, homosexuality, and other sexualities that deviate from societal norms closer to the bottom. Medicine and psychiatry are said to have also contributed to sex-negativity, as they may, from time to time, designate some forms of sexuality that appear on the bottom of this hierarchy as being pathological (see Mental illness
). However, Western societies which predate Christian influence, such as ancient Greece, have often endorsed forms of sexuality that strongly conflict with Christian beliefs.
The sex-positive movement does not in general make moral or ethical distinctions between heterosexual or homosexual sex, or masturbation
, regarding these choices as matters of personal preference. Some sex-positive positions include acceptance of BDSM
and polyamory
as well as asexuality
, transsexuality
, transgender
ism, and other forms of gender transgression
in general. Most elements of the sex-positive movement advocate comprehensive and accurate sex education
as part of its campaign.
Some sex-positive theorists have analyzed sex-positivity in terms of intersection of race/culture, gender, sexuality, class, nationality, and spirituality. Farajaje-Jones (2000) highlighted the connection between white supremacist ideology and what he termed "erotophobia
".
Several definitions of sex-positivity have been offered by sexologist Carol Queen
:
The term free love has been used since at least the 19th century to describe a social movement
that rejects marriage
, which is seen as a form of social bondage, especially for women. According to this concept, the free union
s of adult
s are legitimate relations which should be respected by all third parties whether they are emotional or sexual relations. In addition, some free-love writing has argued that both men and women have the right to sexual pleasure. In the Victorian era
, this was a radical notion. Later, a new theme developed, linking free love with radical social change, and depicting it as a harbinger of a new anti-authoritarian, anti-repressive pacifist sensibility.
While the phrase free love is often associated with promiscuity
in the popular imagination, especially in reference to the counterculture of the 1960s
and 1970s
, historically the free-love movement has not advocated multiple sexual partners or short-term sexual relationships. Rather, it has argued that love relations that are freely entered into should not be regulated by law. Thus, free-love practice may include long-term monogamous
relationships or even celibacy, but would not include institutional forms of polygamy
, such as a king and his wives and concubines.
Laws of particular concern to free love movements have included those that prevent an unmarried couple from living together, and those that regulate adultery
and divorce
, as well as age of consent
, birth control
, homosexuality
, abortion
, and prostitution
; although not all free love advocates agree on these issues. The abrogation of individual rights in marriage is also a concern—for example, some jurisdictions do not recognize spousal rape
or treat it less seriously than non-spousal rape. Free-love movements since the 19th century have also defended the right to publicly discuss sexuality and have battled obscenity
laws.
In the 20th century, some free-love proponents extended the critique of marriage to argue that marriage as a social institution encourages emotional possessiveness and psychological enslavement.
During the 1960s, shifts in regards to how society viewed sexuality began to take place, heralding a period of de-conditioning in some circles away from old world antecedents, and developing new codes of sexual behaviour, many of which are now integrated into the mainstream.
The 1960s heralded a new culture of "free love
” with millions of young people embracing the hippie
ethos and preaching the power of love
and the beauty of sex
as a natural part of ordinary life. Hippies believed that sex was a natural biological phenomenon which should not be denied or repressed. Changes in attitudes reflected a perception that traditional views on sexuality were both hypocritical and male-chauvinistic.
Sexual liberalisation heralded a new ethos in experimenting with open sex in and outside of marriage, contraception
and the pill, public nudity
, gay Liberation
, liberalisation of abortion
, interracial marriage
, a return to natural childbirth
, women's rights
and feminism
.
Celibate
hippies were not critical of others who chose the paths of “free love” and “sexual liberalisation”. In the late seventies and eighties newly won sexual freedoms were exploited by big business looking to capitalize on a more open society, with the advent of public pornography
and hardcore.
Historian David Allyn
argues that the sexual revolution was a time of "coming-out": about premarital sex, masturbation, erotic fantasies, pornography use, and sexuality.
, Andrea Dworkin
, Robin Morgan
and Dorchen Leidholdt
, to put pornography
at the center of a feminist explanation of women's oppression (McElroy, 1995). This period of intense debate and acrimony between sex-positive and anti-pornography feminists during the early 1980s is often referred to as the "Feminist Sex Wars
". Other sex-positive feminists became involved not in opposition to other feminists but in direct response to what they saw as patriarchal control of sexuality. Authors who have advocated sex-positive feminism include Ellen Willis
, Susie Bright
, Patrick Califia
, Gayle Rubin
, Carol Queen
, Avedon Carol
, Tristan Taormino
, Diana Cage
, Nina Hartley
, and Betty Dodson
, who could be regarded as the grandmother of the movement.
non-fiction
narrative written by Dossie Easton
and Janet Hardy
. It is credited with raising awareness of the possibility of consensual non-monogamy
as a lifestyle, and providing practical guidance on how such long-term relationship
s work and are put into practice.
criticized the concept as utopian and simplistic. Johansson argues that all societies regulate sexuality in one way or another, and traces back the idea of "sex-positive" societies to the inaccurate and idealized notions held by some ethnographers of the South Pacific
as a kind of sexual paradise. In his view, even a society that took a wholly positive view of sexuality would still be challenged with regulating sexual behavior in such a way as to avoid sexually-transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancy, and other potentially negative outcomes of sexual interaction.
Overview
The terms and concept of sex-positive (or, alternately sex-affirmative) and sex-negative are generally attributed to Wilhelm ReichWilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...
. His hypothesis was that some societies view sexual expression as essentially good and healthy, while other societies take an overall negative view of sexuality and seek to repress
Psychological repression
Psychological repression, also psychic repression or simply repression, is the psychological attempt by an individual to repel one's own desires and impulses towards pleasurable instincts by excluding the desire from one's consciousness and holding or subduing it in the unconscious...
and control the sex drive.
Like Reich, some contemporary advocates of sex-positivity define their philosophy in contrast to sex-negativity, which they identify as the dominant view of sex in Western culture and many non-Western cultures. According to these advocates, traditional Christian views of human sexuality define traditional Western values in relation to this subject. Thus, such proponents of sex-positivity claim that under the Western, Christian tradition, sex is seen as a destructive force except when it is redeemed by the saving grace of procreation, and sexual pleasure is seen as sinful. Sexual acts are ranked hierarchically, with marital heterosexuality at the top of the hierarchy and masturbation, homosexuality, and other sexualities that deviate from societal norms closer to the bottom. Medicine and psychiatry are said to have also contributed to sex-negativity, as they may, from time to time, designate some forms of sexuality that appear on the bottom of this hierarchy as being pathological (see Mental illness
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
). However, Western societies which predate Christian influence, such as ancient Greece, have often endorsed forms of sexuality that strongly conflict with Christian beliefs.
The sex-positive movement does not in general make moral or ethical distinctions between heterosexual or homosexual sex, or masturbation
Masturbation
Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
, regarding these choices as matters of personal preference. Some sex-positive positions include acceptance of BDSM
BDSM
BDSM is an erotic preference and a form of sexual expression involving the consensual use of restraint, intense sensory stimulation, and fantasy power role-play. The compound acronym BDSM is derived from the terms bondage and discipline , dominance and submission , and sadism and masochism...
and polyamory
Polyamory
Polyamory is the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved....
as well as asexuality
Asexuality
Asexuality , in its broadest sense, is the lack of sexual attraction and, in some cases, the lack of interest in sex. Sometimes, it is considered a lack of a sexual orientation...
, transsexuality
Transsexualism
Transsexualism is an individual's identification with a gender inconsistent or not culturally associated with their biological sex. Simply put, it defines a person whose biological birth sex conflicts with their psychological gender...
, transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
ism, and other forms of gender transgression
Genderqueer
Genderqueer is a catch-all term for gender identities other than man and woman, thus outside of the gender binary and heteronormativity...
in general. Most elements of the sex-positive movement advocate comprehensive and accurate sex education
Sex education
Sex education refers to formal programs of instruction on a wide range of issues relating to human sexuality, including human sexual anatomy, sexual reproduction, sexual intercourse, reproductive health, emotional relations, reproductive rights and responsibilities, abstinence, contraception, and...
as part of its campaign.
Some sex-positive theorists have analyzed sex-positivity in terms of intersection of race/culture, gender, sexuality, class, nationality, and spirituality. Farajaje-Jones (2000) highlighted the connection between white supremacist ideology and what he termed "erotophobia
Erotophobia
Erotophobia is a term coined by a number of researchers in the late 1970s and early 1980s to describe one pole on a continuum of attitudes and beliefs about sexuality...
".
Several definitions of sex-positivity have been offered by sexologist Carol Queen
Carol Queen
Carol Queen is an American author, editor, sociologist and sexologist active in the sex-positive feminism movement. Queen has written on human sexuality in books such as Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture...
:
Sex-positive, a term that's coming into cultural awareness, isn't a dippy love-child celebration of orgoneOrgoneOrgone energy is a theory originally proposed in the 1930s by Wilhelm Reich. Reich, originally part of Sigmund Freud's Vienna circle, extrapolated the Freudian concept of libido first as a biophysical and later as a universal life force...
– it's a simple yet radical affirmation that we each grow our own passions on a different medium, that instead of having two or three or even half a dozen sexual orientations, we should be thinking in terms of millions. "Sex-positive" respects each of our unique sexual profiles, even as we acknowledge that some of us have been damaged by a culture that tries to eradicate sexual difference and possibility.
It’s the cultural philosophy that understands sexuality as a potentially positive force in one’s life, and it can, of course, be contrasted with sex-negativity, which sees sex as problematic, disruptive, dangerous. Sex-positivity allows for and in fact celebrates sexual diversity, differing desires and relationships structures, and individual choices based on consent.
Free Love
Social movement
Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change....
that rejects marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
, which is seen as a form of social bondage, especially for women. According to this concept, the free union
Free Union
A free union is a union between two persons that lacks any publicly recognized bond .-Roman Catholic criticism:The Roman Catholic Church argues that the phrase "free union" is misleading. The Catechism of the denomination raises the question of what "union" can mean in the phrase "free union"...
s of adult
Adult
An adult is a human being or living organism that is of relatively mature age, typically associated with sexual maturity and the attainment of reproductive age....
s are legitimate relations which should be respected by all third parties whether they are emotional or sexual relations. In addition, some free-love writing has argued that both men and women have the right to sexual pleasure. In the Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
, this was a radical notion. Later, a new theme developed, linking free love with radical social change, and depicting it as a harbinger of a new anti-authoritarian, anti-repressive pacifist sensibility.
While the phrase free love is often associated with promiscuity
Promiscuity
In humans, promiscuity refers to less discriminating casual sex with many sexual partners. The term carries a moral or religious judgement and is viewed in the context of the mainstream social ideal for sexual activity to take place within exclusive committed relationships...
in the popular imagination, especially in reference to the counterculture of the 1960s
Counterculture of the 1960s
The counterculture of the 1960s refers to a cultural movement that mainly developed in the United States and spread throughout much of the western world between 1960 and 1973. The movement gained momentum during the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam...
and 1970s
1970s
File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...
, historically the free-love movement has not advocated multiple sexual partners or short-term sexual relationships. Rather, it has argued that love relations that are freely entered into should not be regulated by law. Thus, free-love practice may include long-term monogamous
Monogamy
Monogamy /Gr. μονός+γάμος - one+marriage/ a form of marriage in which an individual has only one spouse at any one time. In current usage monogamy often refers to having one sexual partner irrespective of marriage or reproduction...
relationships or even celibacy, but would not include institutional forms of polygamy
Polygamy
Polygamy is a marriage which includes more than two partners...
, such as a king and his wives and concubines.
Laws of particular concern to free love movements have included those that prevent an unmarried couple from living together, and those that regulate adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
and divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
, as well as age of consent
Age of consent
While the phrase age of consent typically does not appear in legal statutes, when used in relation to sexual activity, the age of consent is the minimum age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts. The European Union calls it the legal age for sexual...
, birth control
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
, homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
, and prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
; although not all free love advocates agree on these issues. The abrogation of individual rights in marriage is also a concern—for example, some jurisdictions do not recognize spousal rape
Spousal rape
Marital rape, also known as spousal rape, is non-consensual sex in which the perpetrator is the victim's spouse. As such, it as a form of partner rape, of domestic violence, and of sexual abuse. Once widely condoned or ignored by law, spousal rape is now repudiated by international conventions and...
or treat it less seriously than non-spousal rape. Free-love movements since the 19th century have also defended the right to publicly discuss sexuality and have battled obscenity
Obscenity
An obscenity is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious...
laws.
In the 20th century, some free-love proponents extended the critique of marriage to argue that marriage as a social institution encourages emotional possessiveness and psychological enslavement.
1960s and onwards
In general use, the term "sexual liberation" is used to describe a socio-political movement, witnessed from the 1960s into the 1970s. However, the term has been used at least since the late 1920s and is often attributed as being influenced by Freud's writing on sexual liberation and psychosexual issues.During the 1960s, shifts in regards to how society viewed sexuality began to take place, heralding a period of de-conditioning in some circles away from old world antecedents, and developing new codes of sexual behaviour, many of which are now integrated into the mainstream.
The 1960s heralded a new culture of "free love
Free love
The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...
” with millions of young people embracing the hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
ethos and preaching the power of love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
and the beauty of sex
Sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
as a natural part of ordinary life. Hippies believed that sex was a natural biological phenomenon which should not be denied or repressed. Changes in attitudes reflected a perception that traditional views on sexuality were both hypocritical and male-chauvinistic.
Sexual liberalisation heralded a new ethos in experimenting with open sex in and outside of marriage, contraception
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
and the pill, public nudity
Public nudity
Public nudity or nude in public refers to nudity not in an entirely private context. It refers to a person appearing nude in a public place or to be seen from a public place. It also includes nudity in a semi-public place, where the general public is free to enter, such as a shopping mall...
, gay Liberation
Gay Liberation
Gay liberation is the name used to describe the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement of the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s in North America, Western Europe, and Australia and New Zealand...
, liberalisation of abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
, interracial marriage
Interracial marriage
Interracial marriage occurs when two people of differing racial groups marry. This is a form of exogamy and can be seen in the broader context of miscegenation .-Legality of interracial marriage:In the Western world certain jurisdictions have had regulations...
, a return to natural childbirth
Natural childbirth
Natural Childbirth is a philosophy of childbirth that is based on the notion that women who are adequately prepared are innately able to give birth without routine medical interventions. Natural childbirth arose in opposition to the techno-medical model of childbirth that has recently gained...
, women's rights
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
and feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
.
Celibate
Celibacy
Celibacy is a personal commitment to avoiding sexual relations, in particular a vow from marriage. Typically celibacy involves avoiding all romantic relationships of any kind. An individual may choose celibacy for religious reasons, such as is the case for priests in some religions, for reasons of...
hippies were not critical of others who chose the paths of “free love” and “sexual liberalisation”. In the late seventies and eighties newly won sexual freedoms were exploited by big business looking to capitalize on a more open society, with the advent of public pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
and hardcore.
Historian David Allyn
David Allyn
David Allyn, Ph.D. is Director of Education for New Jersey SEEDS , an organization serving high-achieving, low-income students....
argues that the sexual revolution was a time of "coming-out": about premarital sex, masturbation, erotic fantasies, pornography use, and sexuality.
Sex-positive feminism
Sex-positive feminism, also known as pro-sex feminism, sex-radical feminism, or sexually liberal feminism, is a movement that began in the early 1980s. Some became involved in the sex-positive feminist movement in response to efforts by anti-pornography feminists, such as Catharine MacKinnonCatharine MacKinnon
Catharine Alice MacKinnon is an American feminist, scholar, lawyer, teacher and activist.- Biography :MacKinnon was born in Minnesota. Her mother is Elizabeth Valentine Davis; her father, George E. MacKinnon was a lawyer, congressman , and judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit...
, Andrea Dworkin
Andrea Dworkin
Andrea Rita Dworkin was an American radical feminist and writer best known for her criticism of pornography, which she argued was linked to rape and other forms of violence against women....
, Robin Morgan
Robin Morgan
Robin Morgan is a former child actor turned American radical feminist activist, writer, poet, and editor of Sisterhood is Powerful and Ms. Magazine....
and Dorchen Leidholdt
Dorchen Leidholdt
Dorchen A. Leidholdt is an activist and leader in the feminist movement against violence against women. Since the mid-1970s, she has counseled and advocated for rape victims, organized against "the media’s promotion of violence against women", served on the legal team for the plaintiff in a...
, to put pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
at the center of a feminist explanation of women's oppression (McElroy, 1995). This period of intense debate and acrimony between sex-positive and anti-pornography feminists during the early 1980s is often referred to as the "Feminist Sex Wars
Feminist Sex Wars
The Feminist Sex Wars and Lesbian Sex Wars, or simply the Sex Wars or Porn Wars, were the acrimonious debates within the feminist movement and lesbian community in the late 1970s through the 1980s around the issues of feminist strategies regarding sexuality, sexual representation, pornography,...
". Other sex-positive feminists became involved not in opposition to other feminists but in direct response to what they saw as patriarchal control of sexuality. Authors who have advocated sex-positive feminism include Ellen Willis
Ellen Willis
Ellen Jane Willis was an American left-wing political essayist, journalist, activist and pop music critic.-Biography:...
, Susie Bright
Susie Bright
Susannah "Susie" Bright is an American writer, speaker, teacher, audio-show host, and performer, all on the subject of sexuality....
, Patrick Califia
Patrick Califia
Patrick Califia , born 1954 near Corpus Christi, Texas is a writer of nonfiction essays about sexuality and of erotic fiction and poetry. Califia is a bisexual trans man.-Biography:...
, Gayle Rubin
Gayle Rubin
Gayle S. Rubin is a cultural anthropologist best known as an activist and influential theorist of sex and gender politics. She has written on a range of subjects including feminism, sadomasochism, prostitution, pedophilia, pornography and lesbian literature, as well as anthropological studies and...
, Carol Queen
Carol Queen
Carol Queen is an American author, editor, sociologist and sexologist active in the sex-positive feminism movement. Queen has written on human sexuality in books such as Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture...
, Avedon Carol
Avedon Carol
Avedon Carol is an American-born feminist, anti-censorship, and civil liberties campaigner and a researcher in the field of sex crime, residing in England...
, Tristan Taormino
Tristan Taormino
Tristan Taormino is a feminist author, columnist, sex educator, activist, editor, speaker, and pornographic film director . She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with her Bachelor's degree in American Studies from Wesleyan University in 1993...
, Diana Cage
Diana Cage
Diana Cage is an American lesbian-identified author, essayist, radio personality, cultural critic, and performer. Her work examines sexuality, feminism, and LGBT issues.- Career :...
, Nina Hartley
Nina Hartley
Nina Hartley is an American pornographic actress, pornographic film director, sex educator, feminist, and author.-Early life:...
, and Betty Dodson
Betty Dodson
Betty Dodson is an American sex educator, author, and artist. Dodson held the first one-woman show of erotic art at the Wickersham Gallery in New York City in 1968. She left the art world to teach sex to women...
, who could be regarded as the grandmother of the movement.
The Ethical Slut
The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures. is an English languageEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
non-fiction
Non-fiction
Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...
narrative written by Dossie Easton
Dossie Easton
Dossie Easton is an author and family therapist based in San Francisco, California. She lives with her partner in West Marin, California.She is a nonfiction author and poet...
and Janet Hardy
Janet Hardy
Janet W. Hardy is a writer and sex educator, and founder of Greenery Press. She has also been published as Catherine A. Liszt and Lady Green. She is the author or co-author of ten books, and frequently collaborates with Dossie Easton....
. It is credited with raising awareness of the possibility of consensual non-monogamy
Polyamory
Polyamory is the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved....
as a lifestyle, and providing practical guidance on how such long-term relationship
Interpersonal relationship
An interpersonal relationship is an association between two or more people that may range from fleeting to enduring. This association may be based on limerence, love, solidarity, regular business interactions, or some other type of social commitment. Interpersonal relationships are formed in the...
s work and are put into practice.
Criticism
Philologist and gay historian Warren JohanssonWarren Johansson
Warren Johansson was a philologist, author and a leading American gay scholar during his lifetime. He was founding member of the Scholarship Committee of the Gay Academic Union.-Biography:...
criticized the concept as utopian and simplistic. Johansson argues that all societies regulate sexuality in one way or another, and traces back the idea of "sex-positive" societies to the inaccurate and idealized notions held by some ethnographers of the South Pacific
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
as a kind of sexual paradise. In his view, even a society that took a wholly positive view of sexuality would still be challenged with regulating sexual behavior in such a way as to avoid sexually-transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancy, and other potentially negative outcomes of sexual interaction.
See also
- AntisexualismAntisexualismAntisexualism is opposition or hostility towards sexual behavior and sexuality. In pre-modern times, antisexual social movements were usually expressed in religious terms, but they now often have a secular social reform agenda...
- Center for Sex Positive CultureCenter for Sex Positive CultureThe Center for Sex Positive Culture or CSPC is a non-profit, membership-based organization located in Seattle, Washington. It organizes events and provides space for several different sex-positive subcultures, notably BDSM, swinging, and polyamory groups. It caters to both heterosexual and LGBT...
- Feminist Sex WarsFeminist Sex WarsThe Feminist Sex Wars and Lesbian Sex Wars, or simply the Sex Wars or Porn Wars, were the acrimonious debates within the feminist movement and lesbian community in the late 1970s through the 1980s around the issues of feminist strategies regarding sexuality, sexual representation, pornography,...
- Free loveFree loveThe term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...
- Sex magicSex magicSex magic is a term for various types of sexual activity used in magical, ritualistic or otherwise religious and spiritual pursuits. One practice of sex magic is using the energy of sexual arousal or orgasm with visualization of a desired result...
- Sex-positive feminismSex-positive feminismSex-positive feminism, also known as pro-sex feminism, sex-radical feminism, or sexually liberal feminism is a movement that began in the early 1980s...
External links
- Center for Sex Positive Culture
- National Association For Sexual Awareness & Empowerment
- NVSH, Dutch Society for Sexual Reform (in English)
- Society for Human Sexuality
- Center for Sex and Culture
- Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality
- Woodhull Freedom Foundation
- The Institute for 21st Century Relationships, promotes open marriage acceptanceOpen marriage acceptanceThe lack of social acceptance for open marriage deals with the generally negative attitudes toward open marriage in Western societies, the reasons for those negative attitudes, and the consequences of those negative attitudes for couples in open marriages....
- National Coalition for Sexual Freedom
- Black Funk, a sexual cultural center for people of color