Hi, I'm Nadine Thornhill, sexuality educator, and today I want to talk to you about
sex positivity. So sex positivity is
you can call it a philosophy or a framework.
It's just a way of looking at sex.
And I want to talk about it today, because it really is the foundation for all of the work that I do and how I
approach my work. There's actually a lot to sex positivity.
It's a lot more than I can get into in one video without putting you all to sleep,
so this is just going to be the basics.
We're really just scratching the surface.
But I am going to link to a couple of articles in the description box below,
so if you want to do more reading or get into it a little bit deeper,
that's the place to go. Sex positivity is sort of a specific way of looking at sex and sexuality and all of the related
experiences and expressions we have around that as human beings.
And in order to talk about sex positivity
I need to talk first about a different philosophy or perspective called, that's often called sex
negativity. Sex negativity is a belief that
sex and sexuality are
inherently
bad.
That at its core
sex and sexual expression and sexual experiences and anything related to that is
dangerous, that it will corrupt us in some way or
that it will diminish us it will make us less somehow.
Sex negativity isn't about never having sex or saying that every type of sex is
unacceptable, but its priorities are very much rooted in
protecting ourselves and protecting others from this ever-present danger that sex presents and oftentimes it seeks to do that
by trying to determine the very specific ways in which sex and sexuality and sexual expression are
safe, and okay, and acceptable. Many people will say that North America is rooted in
a sex-negative tradition or that we come from a sex-negative culture and many people also feel that
sex negativity is
restrictive in a lot of ways, so here are just a few examples. So when it comes to sex itself
there's usually a specific type of sex between specific types of people that are held up as the ideal. Like here in North America
that's usually sex between people who are heterosexual,
monogamous,
of a certain age
and ideally married, often in a sex negative culture the farther away
people's sexual desires or personal expressions stray from that ideal the more that they're
marginalized or stigmatized. Sex negativity often promote certain forms of discrimination. For example, in North America
there's a lot of ageism around sexuality. People who are elderly
children and younger teenagers are generally expected not to have any sexual feelings,
sexual expression or interest in sexuality whatsoever.
Meanwhile we expect that all young and middle adults should be having sex.
They should be having sex with a partner and they should be having that sex on a regular basis.
Not too much,
not too little,
certainly not not at all:
a regular basis. We do understand and accept that
sexuality can be very alluring and compelling and we will design these highly artificial
representations of sexual expression. They're very narrow and that are very limited and we will use that
content often to sell things, often things that actually have nothing to do with sexuality whatsoever.
And we're okay with it, because it's making us money. At the same time
we're taught that is highly taboo to talk about our actual bodies or to be open about our actual sexual feelings or experiences.
And in a sex negative culture when something bad or unpleasant does happen to you as there was of some sort of sexual activity,
like, for example, you get an STI. Instead of reacting the way we normally would when someone gets sick and just saying, "Oh, man!
That's too bad. I'm really sorry you don't feel well."
We have this judgemental reaction like, "Well,
you had sex, sex is bad and so are you and that's why this happened to you."
I would definitely say that growing up a lot of the messages and lessons
I got around sexuality were pretty sex negative. Um, I came of age in the 80s
and this was when the aids epidemic first hit and people were pretty freaked out.
So I heard some highly negative things about sex
and they definitely affected the way that I thought about sex and the way that I engaged with sex in my life.
But then, years ago when I started working at Planned Parenthood in
Ottawa. I was introduced to the concept of sex positivity and that
wha, that kind of changed everything now.
I was in a training and when the facilitator first mentioned the term to me it sounded like, oh, this philosophy is about
having lots of sex and how more sex is better than less sex and all sex is great and wonderful.
But the facilitator gave us an article to read by another sex educator Charlie Glickman we've mentioned before and
I'm gonna post a link to that full article in the description box,
you can read it.
But I just wanted to read for you right now
the part that really resonated for me.
In the training our facilitator actually made us go back and read that paragraph and substitute "sex" and "have sex" and when we did that
my mind was sort of simultaneously blown and
yet I felt completely at peace all of a sudden. I thought yes, yes
looking at sex in this way makes so much sense for me, um, and
this is, this is the way for me moving forward.
I also love the food analogy and I tend to use a lot of food for sex analogies in my own work
and I think that's probably why. So I've been working as a sexuality educator for almost a dozen years now
and so many of the questions and concerns that I hear from people
basically boil down to, "Am I normal or is my child normal?", and that's really understandable
coming from a sex negative culture, because sex negativity basically tells us that
there, that there is a normal and that if we can just figure out what the normal is,
everything around sex and sexuality will be okay, and that's the space in which we're safe that normal is safe
and that normal is the same for everybody. As a sex positive educator
I am not concerned with whether anyone is normal, actually I don't believe
that there is a normal. What I am concerned with when someone comes to see me is,
"Are you okay?",
because I do believe that there is at least the potential for everyone to be okay and
even happy in their sexuality, and so that's my focus. What do you need? What do I need?
What do we each need to be Okay?
And I also believe that everyone's okay is their own, so that what's okay for me
sexually is probably not going to be exactly like what's okay for you sexually and as a sex positive educator
I just try to accept that there are all sorts of different sexual expressions and experiences.
And there's so much more to say about sex positivity and
I'm sure I will be talking about it a lot.
I use the term sex positive and sex positivity constantly in my work.
But I just wanted to do this sort of little introductory
101 type video, so that when I say those words you have some idea of what I mean. I'm curious
what are some of your beliefs and philosophies about sex? Where did you learn about sex? Who influenced you?
Let me know in the comments,
I'd love to hear from you. If you enjoyed this video then you can give it a thumbs up, you can also share it with
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Alright, I will be back at you with another video on Friday, until then enjoy your week and I will see you soon. Bye
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