Honestly, I wish I had a better understanding of all the various social forces in play so I could better locate the source of the problem and then explain it to you. Conservatives, liberals, religious fundamentalists, radical feminists, the list goes on. I'm just one person living a fairly isolated life, so I don't know what groups hold all the power in this world, and what beliefs their manifestos contain. But it seems like the moral conservatives consistently find a way to take everything with positive meaning in this world and corrupt it to their petty ends. They did this with feminism. Sex-positivity is no exception.
Actually, I was surprised when I learned that sex-positivity itself was born out of the feminist movement. I began considering myself to be sex-positive before that, and it just never occurred to me that it had anything to do with the gender wars. It's appropriate, considering all the sex-negative (and anti-feminist) shit that gets spouted by people calling themselves feminists, and that gives the public at large their idea of what feminism (incorrectly) stands for. Certainly, railing against the anti-porn feminists and such is entirely in line with the sex-positive mindset; I just don't see any reason to restrict it to a feminist viewpoint, when it could be holistically humanist, or something like that.
That anti-porn comment is telling, though. Nowadays it seems that the "sex-positive" community has been infiltrated by ultra-PC liberals (who are paradoxically moral conservatives), who would argue that pornography is an unethical form of sexual expression. These are people who are so caught up in the divinity of the technical concept of "sexual consent". Ideally, consent is a great thing - and its antithesis is rape, which is about the most sex-negative act you could conjure. But these people are too caught up on an artificial legal designation of consent, and their worship of the concept is blinding them to the great variety of human sexual behavior. They would have you believe that you must obtain consent before fantasizing about another person sexually!
Honestly, I can understand the twisted rationalizations for this belief, but I don't see how it could possibly be considered to be "sex-positive". Sex-positivity has seemingly taken on this poisonous approach in that "good" (and thus, ethical) sex can only be had in specific forms between specific people. It's all about the social cohesion between two adult, fully-informed partners bringing their genitals into union. This entirely eliminates asocial sexuality, which is a wholly ablist (discriminatory against those who have a disability - especially of the social variety, like myself) perspective. And do these people even realize that they're denying adolescents the possibility of a healthy sexual awakening due to the arbitrary and inhumane fact that "consent" is not a human right but a privilege granted by the government only to certain persons?
It's disgusting, but above all, it's not sex-positive. Sex-positivity doesn't mean "if it feels good, do it". Of course! Just because an act violates your uptight definition of what constitutes "consent" doesn't mean that it's unethical. People seem to use this argument to imply that sex-positivity encompasses a sex-negative criticism of human sexuality. That's insane! No, not all sex is sunshine and rainbows, and being sex-positive doesn't mean that all sex is good. Rather, a better ideal would be one similar to the Wiccan Rede - updated to: "an it harm none, do what feels good".
Believing that sex is some phantom force of violation and intrusion - that even thinking about someone in a sexual way without first gaining their explicit, verbal consent, is entirely sex-negative! Sex-positivity isn't about all the conservative bullshit that the church preaches. It's not about "only between committed partners in the bedroom with the lights on" either. It's about a base, fundamental belief that sex is a positive force, a natural part of life, and an activity with a huge pleasure potential. Encouraging sexual shame and paranoia is antithetical to this.
Now, believing in the positive aspect of sexuality doesn't mean that every instance of sexuality is, in fact, positive. I understand that. But believing that every instance of sexuality is negative until every person involved seeks the magical key to the gateway as determined by policy makers and pseudo-intellectuals isn't sex-positive! I believe in the positive aspect of sexuality. Most so-called sex-positive persons don't seem to, however. They are liars and hypocrites and they are not sex-positive. True sex-positive individuals are extremely rare in this fucked up, diseased sexual world we live in. And I'm sick of seeing moral conservatives spout their beliefs and claiming to be sex-positive! Where are the true sex-positives in this world?
