Guardian article: Sex-positive feminism

[yetanotherusernameAgain]

Interesting article in today's Guardian:

'It stopped me having sex for a year’: why Generation Z is turning its back on sex-positive feminism
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/feb/02/it-stopped-me-having-sex-for-a-year-why-generation-z-is-turning-its-back-on-sex-positive-feminism

This sums it up well:

"... the “sex-positive” label is becoming outdated in a culture where old constraints on sexual behaviour are gone but the threat of male violence endures."

Although there's an interesting example of how the increase of porn-influenced sex isn't necessarily because it's the type of sex men want:

"Recently, she counselled a man who had been choking his girlfriend during sex for years. It was only when the girlfriend mustered the courage to say she didn’t like it that he admitted he didn’t like it, either. They were both, it turned out, going along with what they thought the other one wanted, and each secretly wishing the other would make it stop."

I'm not sure that I believe this story about a couple choking when neither wanted it. For that to be true it would have to be true that most pornographic videos involve choking. If you have never watched pornography you might believe that, but if you have then it doesn't make sense.

The idea is that all pornography is the same, and when people copy it they all end up doing the same thing and being violent to each other. Pornography is very diverse and this partially accounts for the diversity of people's inclinations today.

When I was a teenager people liked to show off their lovebites. This was an area of reddened skin where supposedly your partner had clamped on to you with their mouth in the heat of passion. I'm glad that went out of fashion, but pornography isn't to blame for people's stupid fashions.

Well, I hope the article is right and this non-sense finally ends.
Women are already dying because of ”kink” and sexualising children/women trying to look prepubescent.
Where could this escalate anymore?

I think the article is largely right as far as it goes, but I'm not convinced that the sex

thing seeming inadequate is just or even mainly about violence. Even where that isn't a factor, the logic of sex positivity doesn't work for many women and men, but especially women. It basically says, sex is a great and fun recreational activity, there is no need for hang-ups or to take it too seriously, feel free to be very casual with it.

Well, sorry, but that does not work for many people, but that philosophy makes it very difficult for those who do want to see it as more weighty or serious. If we look how we think about rape, it's indicative - if sex is just fun and not that big a deal, rape is more like not paying for parking rather than a very serious crime. There is a disconnect. Being pushed for pornographic sex is shitty, but so for many is the expectation that sex happens quite early on in the relationship, the third date or whatever.

The term sex positivity is a real mind-fuck though. The implication being that if you aren't down with what they propose as normative you are sex negative, and who wants that?

The term sex positivity is a real mind-fuck though. The implication being that if you aren't down with what they propose as normative you are sex negative, and who wants that?

I don't think that is true. There isn't a normative these days. That's a good thing. If you don't like sex don't have sex, but don't call women who do sluts. If you think that sex is for relationships that's fine, but don't look down on women who don't think that.

There have always been women with a casual attitude to sex. There will always be women who want to save it for marriage. Think of all the people who go to church or mosque. There will always be men who will try it on and say to a woman that she is frigid or sex negative for not wanting the same as him.

@jennywhitehorses

The term sex positivity is a real mind-fuck though. The implication being that if you aren't down with what they propose as normative you are sex negative, and who wants that?

I don't think that is true. There isn't a normative these days. That's a good thing. If you don't like sex don't have sex, but don't call women who do sluts. If you think that sex is for relationships that's fine, but don't look down on women who don't think that.

There have always been women with a casual attitude to sex. There will always be women who want to save it for marriage. Think of all the people who go to church or mosque. There will always be men who will try it on and say to a woman that she is frigid or sex negative for not wanting the same as him.

It’s important to call out prude, frigid, ”vanilla”, virgin shamers. Or people who think it’s stupid to be celibate.

Yeah, I really don't think live and let live is the general scene. People might accept theoretically that some individual has different tastes, but that is supposed to be a matter of tase only, not a matter of observing things like how sex positivity affects society generally, and it certainly won't stop men dating a woman who doesn't want sex after the third date from considering that problematic.