Sex Radical Sex Radical, I'm Your Sex Radical.

sex-positive, and just down right sexy.

Yeah, the title has terrible prosody, but I like it anyway.

Sometimes, I forget that the words I use (usually specific usually to kink/feminism/poly talk) aren't part of everybody's vernacular. That sounds real snotty, but what I mean is: I use these words so much, that I forget they're customized, specialized, niche-type words.

Out at the bar last night (which is a post for another time; fucking non-monogamy is so much fucking god damn fun), and I was talking about what kind of porn I like. I used the word "sex-positive," and then again later when I was talking about das blog. And the guy I was out smoking with asked me, very simply, very straightforward: "I've heard you use that word a couple of times now, and I don't think I understand what it means."

I tried (and sort of failed) to explain it. I said something along the lines of "oh, well, it's looking at sex, and sex expression/sexuality, in a way that challenges the dynamics we usually assume go along with sex, like... like, for instance [and here, I was talking about sex positive porn], the assumption that the scene is over when the man comes. What he came on a lady's tits and then she rubbed it all over while getting off? And why does it have to be a lady and a man in the first place?"

And while I think that's all included in sex-positivity, I think that's super specific to my brand, my leanings of sex-positivity.

Whereas the word, as its core? The belief, boiled down to a simple, sexy reduction? Is this:

Sex. Is. Good. For. You. Sex is fun, bodies are hot, people are (for the most part) pretty great, and pretty great to sleep with. It isn't something we should hide or be ashamed of, and it should never be an obligation, a payment, or a means of assault.

It is, basically, thinking that sex is positive.

For me, sex-positivity and feminism are pretty interconnected, which is in part where the whole "challenging of sexual norms/conventions" comes in, and makes my own personal definition of sex-positivism: "yes, sex is awesome, but look at how much of our world doesn't think so. Clearly, I should do something about that." With a little time on wikipedia, I found that the rest of the world also noticed this, about thirty years ago, and that there's a whole movement about it. I think I already knew that, somewhere in my brain, but it was cool to see. Yeah, sex is fun, and a part of being human, and wait, we have all these fucked up beliefs about how women should be sexual, about what should be acceptable as clothing, sex-acts, behavior, about how your actions as a woman, sexually, translate to a certain definition of your personality.* And hey, isn't all that just sort of... bullshit? Yeah, yeah. Somebody should do something about that. Start a movement or something...

* I recently took "the slut test" on okcupid. And while there's... a lot of shitty things about okcupid, this test was... particularly bad. I'm not sure what else I was expecting, but it asked all kinds of questions - not only about your sex life, but about your childhood, your relationship with your dad, etc. Pret-ty gross. And the worst part? I only scored something like 65% Slut! Somehow, I think maybe, we're using the word differently... and that okcupid doesn't know what it's missing with my particular brand of slut-hood. Oh well. Their loss.

I think my favorite part of that wikipedia article was reading about the different names for sex-positive feminists. I'd like to take this moment to identify as a sex-radical feminist, mostly because that word makes it sound like I have super radical sex. Which, most of the time, I do, but... well, it's nice to have it in a title.

Anyway. That's sex-positivity, now defined, in case you were wondering, or curious, or think these things are interesting like I do. And it's good to define the things we talk about, both because it helps in discovering new ways it all fits together, and because it serves as a reminder that words do, in fact, have meaning. And if you're using a word like it's important to you (which admitedly, sex-positive is, to me), then you're going to look pret-ty dumb if the hunky guy at the bar asks you for a defintion, and you blabber on for a while about something vaguely related but ill-articulated.

So that's the moral maybe. Learn your words! It makes for better flirting!

- The Good Girl, Feminist Sex-Radical since 1987.