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and follow us at sex ed debunked on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Hi, and welcome to Episode Six of sex ed debunked a podcast about comprehensive sex ed, sex positivity. And my personal disappointment when I found out feel good Inc isn't a sex shop.
We're your hosts, Christina Chan, and curly. Thanks for tuning in. Today we'll be talking about the myth that being sex positive is radical, radical.
So before we we get into why it's a myth, I think we probably need to do a refresher on what it means to actually be sex positive. We use this term a lot on this podcast we already have. But now that we're doing a whole episode on it, let's operationalize to use the academic term. Very good,
very good with that, the way I personally operate operationalized sex positivity. And the way it's operationalized in the literature, and the research is a couple of ways one, being confident in who you are sexually, to having what they call sexual self esteem, which is similar, but that also takes into account what they call sexual self efficacy, which, overall, taking away all the academic terms, it basically means that you can own your sexuality without guilt or
shame. It doesn't point to any particular sexual activity, sexual behavior, sexual predilection, it's simply competence in your sexuality without shame or guilt.
So, I mean, at its core, that it just means being sex positive means that everyone you know, regardless of gender, regardless of age, regardless of sexuality has the right to consent and pleasure and healthy relationships and confidence in their sexuality.
Exactly. And what however, that is defined by the individual.
So that doesn't seem like it should be terribly controversial, right? I mean,
honestly, I didn't think so. But we had wanted to talk about positive sexuality that's been on our schedule to talk about this in the podcast, but your dad sent me an article from the New York Times that really kind of brought this to the forefront. And I felt that we kind of needed to address it sooner rather than later. Because the article in The New York Times was an opinion piece. And it was entitled, why sex positive feminism is falling out
of fashion. And I felt that it was taking a negative spin on sex positivity. And I wanted to kind of correct that for not just young people, older people, all people because the article suggested that sex positivity has come out of disfavor with the younger emerging adults set because it has taken on an aura of requiring women in particular, to be hyper sexual, to want everything to want sex all the time, casual sex, kinky sex, all the whole spectrum.
Whereas sex positivity is really intended to mean being comfortable in your sexuality and not any type of requirement to be hyper sexual or erotic all the time. And it troubled me that this opinion was out there. And I wanted to reframe sex positivity as something that we all can embrace as humans.
So I think it's good here to talk a little bit about and I'll just talk touch on this because I studied Women's Studies in undergrad but sex positivity or at least sexual liberation was a big part of second wave feminism. So second wave feminism had moved away from things like voting rights, which was very much first wave feminism, and then focus more on you know, sexuality, reproductive rights, just kind of women's agency in general.
And so that's where this focus on women's positivity are people with phobias, positivity about using their bodies for good and for pleasure. So sex positivity To be clear, though, is not feminism explicitly. No, it's it's its own construct. And so I think another thing that could be problematic with this article is why sex positive feminism is falling out of favor because it does sort of conflate the two and being sex positive and being a feminist are not necessarily
the same thing. And also the reason why sex positivity was a big part of the second wave of feminism was because it was a reaction to feminine As to anti feminism that, you know, ignored the reality of woman's actual desires and made women feel like they weren't allowed to be sexual beings. So one thing that came up in this article that I was definitely frustrated with when I reviewed it was the idea that it's all about erotic license, which is what you're talking about with my kink and
sex work and whatever. But it can be that there's a spectrum and it can go anywhere from erotic license and kink to on the other side of it, like just confidence in your sexuality,
or or confidence in your asexuality, it's it's about your own sexual identity and being positive about it. Sex positivity is an attempt to counter the culture around shame around sex. And that's why it's applicable to men, women, all genders, because what we're talking about here from from men, is a sex positivity around sexuality is allowed to be emotional. It's allowed to be about intimacy, it's allowed to
be about closeness. The culture tells men that sex is supposed to be about you know, wham, bam, Thank you, ma'am. So sex positivity is not just a feminist thing. It is most definitely a people thing.
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. So I mean, we'll share that link to the article, maybe, or we'll show the name of the article. We don't want to give it extra clicks. But I think that's it, but I think it's
worth analysis. And it is one of the biggest takeaways from the article that the points that they made was that I'll just read a quote from it says, quote, liberal feminism, you know, tells young girls that hookup culture is liberating conditioning them to think that if you don't have extreme kinks at a young age, then they're boring and vanilla and an encourages them to get into sex work the minute they turn 18 No,
no, no, no, that's not true. And I think that's just a classic case of like, in fighting about something that should be obvious, like sex positivity, just the even just the term, in and of itself should be something that's not controversial. You should feel positive about your sex life, or your lack of sex life, and your sexuality or your lack of sexuality, like it's just another instance of Be confident in who you are. So sex positivity matters, but let's talk about why it matters
academically. Because I think that it always helps when there's a piece an opinion piece like that out there to not just say like, no, that's dumb, but also really get into why sex positivity matters. It's obvious, you know, that it's good to view sex as a good thing. But why from an academic perspective?
Well, from an academic perspective, there is a growing body of research. And you say, Yes, I did. Thanks for saying that. But it's a research is very, it's it's making an effort to look at different sexual orientations, men, women, non binary and talk about issues like sexual satisfaction, sexual well being, sexual self esteem, and how those traits states impact mental health and psychological well being. Not just a physical thing, not just Oh, sex is good, it feels good,
it makes you happy. But having confident sexuality actually enhances the whole sexual experience from beginning to end. And one of the things to really point out is sex positivity does not point to any specific sexual act at all. sexual behavior includes kissing, touching, just being next to someone can be sexual. So sex positivity doesn't have to embrace. Oh, I like this kind of sex. I like oral sex. I like freaky deaky, sex, none of that
cool term. But this article implies that so many, particularly young women think that because of the porn industry, this is how they're supposed to be. This is what sex positivity means. And it's not what it means. It means sexual competence, without shame, or guilt. And I'm gonna say that over and over again, because it's really about letting go of what the guilt the society has placed on, on all of us.
I think to that point you just touched on about like young women or, you know, young people. Sex positivity also is cross generational. It's not, it's not just for 18 year old girls. No, it's like, and that's a really reductive way that the article has approached it, too. It's, I mean, you this is what your your research was on.
Yeah, yeah. So I'll tell you a little story. So I was getting my master's degree in psychology at Rhode Island College of shout out to Rhode Island College. And I did my master's thesis on the connection between sexual satisfaction and wellbeing for women. And I was fortunate enough to convince my advisor to do it in a very large room. It was amazing. But grandpa my dad, because your thesis doing a larger Yes, the defense the
whole defend got it. Okay. So I had 80 people watching my thesis, defense, on sexual satisfaction and well being for women. Part of that research involved a large survey of several 100 women and also interviewing women one on one about their sexuality. And because my dad, your grandpa, really values learning, right, and he really values higher education, high school teacher, he came to my thesis, he drove up from New York to come to see my thesis defense.
And, sorry, you and I are academic nerds. So for anyone who doesn't know what a thesis defense, it's it's the research that you do that sort of culminates your degree. And when you do a defense, you give a presentation on the research that you conducted. So in this case, the study and the interviews, and then the results of that study and where you found significance, and then it's about an hour and a half, two hours of question and answer
from your committee board. And at the end of it, they determine whether you've passed or failed. And it's sort of how your entire program wraps up.
Exactly, it is definitely the culmination of a couple of years of really hard work. Because I was fortunate enough to have a really large room, I actually had many students and many professors attending which I had so many questions, and it was so amazing to hear the response of the curiosity about how sexual satisfaction and well being are connected. But getting back to the cross generational part, your grandpa, who was almost 80, at the time, listen to what, in some ways for him was a rather
radical. And I know we're saying we're breaking the myth of sex positivity is being radical today. But for him, it was because part of what I talked about was the subjective sexual satisfaction, the individual feeling of satisfaction, that was not dependent on being in a relationship. And that was the piece that grandpa struggled with, how can you talk about sexuality outside of relationship? Don't you have to love someone? Don't you have to
be committed to someone? And what was really striking about the whole thesis defense, and the attendance by my dad, was he asked questions, because he really wanted to know the answers. And he heard me.
So what did you say to him when he asked because I think that's very much a generational thing is, is, you know, how do you explain that you can be sex positive with or with it without having a committed partner?
Well, what I explained to to dad, your grandpa, was that so many people think that sexual satisfaction and relational satisfaction are the same, especially for women. But whether or not you're sexually satisfied in your own body, in your own skin, in who you are, is really, really dependent on your sexual self esteem, and the confidence and the trust you have in who you
are. Because unless you have that, you are not going to be satisfied in relationship, because you're going to be dependent upon the person that you're with, to be the one satisfying you. So sex positivity gets back again, to you figuring out who you are as
a sexual being. And, you know, kind of goes back to the episode a couple of weeks ago, on, on coming out into everyone, every sexual orientation, however you are, whether you're asexual, demisexual, pansexual, we should all go through this period of figuring out who we are sexual sexually, so we can let go of shame and be positive, however, we land on the spectrum of vanilla to sprinkled to multicolored the end of the day, you want to be positive about that sexuality.
And how did grandpa respond to that?
Well, you know, Grandpa, he listened. He's very thoughtful. He was very thoughtful. And you
don't have to have an opinion on right away. We're not doing this episode, because we're like, and now you must agree with us. We're doing this episode, because having these conversations and being candid about the questions that are around these conversations is really important. And also, I think it's great to acknowledge that grandpa had a very reasonable age gap, and still
ask the questions. And I remember for me, just brief aside but I remember that when we went out to dinner after you did pass her a, one of the other questions that grandpa asked about was going beyond two genders and understanding like gender beyond the binary. And I remember for myself that that was such an amazing moment of, you know, he could have just shown up to your defense and said, Good job, thanks, good, good work, let's go out to dinner and never speak of it
again. But grandpa continued to ask questions. And that's what we want to continue to encourage people across generations to do to like, I know our first couple episodes, were very much targeted towards a younger audience. And like parents, though, coming out episodes were maybe a little bit older. But we want to remind people that the purpose of this podcast is to encourage questions and encourage feedback and encourage you to step outside your comfort zone a little bit and say, tell
me more about that. I want to learn more about that. So thank you, Grandpa for for being such an open minded guy. I really appreciate that. I did want to say though, that I'm sure that one of the most common responses To this, this idea of sex positivity, this idea of you don't have to have a committed partner I'm sure some of the feedback about that is, so are you saying that you should have casual sex? Is that what sex
positivity is? Is it saying you don't have to be in a committed relationship, you can have sex with multiple partners, you're allowed to be fluid. So does that mean sex positivity equals casual sex?
It could, if that's if that's, if it's consensual, and if that's something that you enjoy, but what it's really saying is sex positivity is encouraging a healthy sexuality, however you define it, it starts with an understanding of yourself, of your body of communication with a partner, if you're going to be with a partner, and it's affirmative over a lifespan. And it's a learning experience over over a lifespan to that we're not set in who we are. As grandpa is a great evidence of at 80 he's
still learning. And myself in my 50s, I'm still learning as well. And so if casual sex is, is what you what you like, and you can be safe, and we will have an episode on of, of safe sex, and we'll also have an episode on on consent. Given those two things. The piece of the New York Times article is that it doesn't require casual sex doesn't require you to like hook up sex. Sex positivity, is being sexual. Lee confident in your own skin, I
got to tell you, that doesn't sound terribly radical.
Not at all. And you know, also it includes you know, polyamory, open relationships, people who decide to be asexual, who are a romantic or a sexual Well, they are asexual, but they're allowed to be now, right? There was a time where now point being that you don't
necessarily decide to be any kind of sexuality.
But maybe you do. Maybe you decide to identify that way. Maybe you've always felt that way in your skin. But you're but you're licensed now to be sex positive, positive, allows you to say that out loud. And that's, that's something that the younger generation is learning how to do and learning how to identify how they are.
I thought that was a really good distinction. Yeah, you are away, you might identify a certain way to yourself, but part of sex positivity is feeling confident, and outwardly identifying. I think that's really, actually a great distinction. So it's a lifetime, it's a lifelong journey. That without as well as with all good education, being sex positive requires reassessment, right?
It does. And I think when we were talking about this the other day, it's much like, it's much like you try to develop a good, healthy lifestyle and everything else, trying to have a better diet, trying to get more exercise while trying to be positive in your sexuality is much like any other self care. It takes effort, and it takes intentionality. But it also results in wonderfully fabulous benefits for yourself healthy
mentally, emotionally. And it's well worth the effort to try to keep working towards it, sex positive frame of mind,
and this is still the focus of your research, right? You're still continuing to do research all the time to look at these connections between sex and well being sex positivity. Yeah,
yeah, I'm working on my dissertation. And I'm finding very, very consistent prior research that talks about the sexual satisfaction and its connection to well being and, and I think we'll go into that in more detail in another episode, because it has so many different layers, especially with respect to relationship status, and age and sexual orientation. But for today's episode, I can affirmatively state that the research is completely consistent across ages and across orientations.
That being sex positive and having a healthy sexual satisfaction is going to improve your well being overall.
Cool. And we'll post some resources in the episode description too, so that you can take a look at some of those studies as well. But today's myth was that sex positivity is radical. And I think to that we say it's not radical to want satisfaction, not radical to want pleasure. Nope. It's not radical to want confidence, not radical to emotional connection, not at all not radical to want physical closeness, not radical to want body autonomy. there's actually nothing radical about it.
So that's another myth.
All right. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of sex ed debunked. If you have any questions about today's episode, or you want some additional resources, feel free to shoot us a message at sex ed debunked across the socials or shoot us an email at sex ed [email protected]. Thank you for tuning in.
Have a positive day.
Hey.
Thanks for tuning in for this week's episode of sex ed debunked. During the course of our podcast, we have limited time together, which means that unfortunately, many identities, groups and movements may not be represented each week. The field of sexuality and gender orientations, identities and behaviors are changing and growing rapidly, and we remain committed to being as inclusive as possible. Please remember
that all of us, including us, are learning in this area and may occasionally slip up. We ask that we all continue to be kind to one another so that we can create a truly inclusive and accepting environment. As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to us at sex ed debunked on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Sex Ed debunked is produced by trailblaze Media along with myself Shannon Curley and Christine Curley from trailblaze
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