Moving Toward Sex Positivity

Many of us carry feelings of shame related to our bodies, intimacy, and sex. Shame can alienate us from being fully present with sexual desire and feeling comfortable and confident to act upon it. Shame and guilt can also push us to act in ways that feel inauthentic to us, such as saying yes to sexual acts or dynamics that we do not enjoy or that we are uncomfortable with (or saying no to things that we are interested in or excited about!). Moving toward a sex-positive mindset is difficult when we have a shame-base mindset, and the first step is understanding the role of shame in our lives.

Is Shame Ever Helpful?

Shame is a prosocial emotion that indicates to others that we recognize we have done something horribly wrong. This is helpful when we have done something horribly wrong such as maligning someone else for our own gain, destroying something cherished by someone else, or causing some other kind of harm. It shows others that we are aware of the gravity of our actions and that we would like to change our ways and engage in repair. But shame is not helpful when we feel it about things we cannot control or that are morally neutral such as our bodies, our attractiveness, or our desires (or lack thereof). When shame targets these core elements of our being, we are left feeling endlessly alienated, unlovable, and unworthy, making it incredibly difficult to connect with others.

What is Sex Positivity?

Sex positivity is about decoupling shame and sexual desire. The goal of a sex positive mindset is to empower ourselves to have a healthier relationship with our sexual desire, whether that be through embracing our desire and acting on it to connect more deeply with others, or accepting its absence and finding ways to connect with others through other means. Sex positivity is also about how we relate to the sexual expression and experience of others. When we take a sex-positive mindset toward the sexuality of others, we refrain from casting judgments about their sexual decisions even if they are different from what we would like for ourselves (unless their actions are harming another person).

Sex Looks Different for Everyone

Everyone’s bodies and levels of desire are different, and the things that everyone wants out of sex are different, too. We may have no desire for any physical or sexual contact, we may find kissing and cuddling to be sufficiently erotic, we may be interested in BDSM, or fall somewhere in between. For many of us, our first images of sex are what we see on TV, which are often highly choreographed scenes between A-list Hollywood actors. But sex in the real world is often much messier and clunkier than what we see in media, and in real life we feel insecurities ranging from worries about our attractiveness, being able to remain aroused, wondering if we’re doing it “right,” or whether we might turn off the other person (or people!) we are having sex with by saying what we want. 

Sex is for Everyone?

Some of us have the idea that sex, especially sex that is pleasurable, is only for people who are attractive, able-bodied, or in some other way more “deserving.” But sex is for everyone that wants to have it. When we judge our own and others’ sexual acts and desires, sex becomes an avenue to control and limit ourselves and others. Judging sexuality creates more shame for everyone, which leads to more self-policing around sexual expression. When we are able to see sex as a pleasurable and connective experience between people, rather than as something that needs to be experienced in a specific way or only by certain kinds of people, we can allow ourselves to explore it more fully and authentically, incorporating clearer communication to assert our desires.

How Can We Incorporate Sex Positivity into Our Everyday Lives?

1. Educating ourselves about sex - While this can be uncomfortable at first, there are many free resources available to learn about sex and sexual desire, including YouTube channels and websites. Trent University has a series of short sex education videos that can be found here.

2. Using neutralizing statements and/or affirmations - When we are overloaded with shame around sex, it can be incredibly difficult to feel any level of positivity toward our own experience. Often it is easier to start with neutralizing statements such as "my level of sexual desire is ok," where we see it as neither good nor bad.

3. Surrounding ourselves with people who are nonjudgmental - When we have others in our life who are open to talking about sex and do not pass judgement, we learn to take the same approach to ourselves. This can be a friend, family member, therapist, or can even be learned by listening to a sex educator online. The “Sex and Psychology Podcast” hosted by Justin Lehmiller from the Kinsey Institute covers many different topics related to sexuality including pleasure, relationship agreements, the impact of disability on sex, and more, with a sex-positive outlook. The podcast can be found here.

4. Reflecting on our boundaries - When we become more familiar with what we do and do not like, we become more capable of communicating our wants to other people. 

5. Practicing acceptance of other people’s sexuality - As we become more accepting of the sexual desires and preferences of others (whether they experience more or less desire than us, or engage in sexuality differently than we do), it becomes progressively easier to accept our own as we begin to look at ourselves through the same lens. When we lean away from judgment of others and into acceptance, we allow ourselves to be present with the way things are and embrace the imperfections of reality, rather than focus on the way that we believe things should be.

When we accept that sex looks different for everyone, we are able to be more present in our experience of sexuality and assert our desires, which helps us to get more of what we want and less of what we do not. Sex-positivity allows us to feel connected to ourselves and others and experience the pleasure and connection that sexuality can provide. While shame can be a powerful influence on the way that we experience sex, by leaning into acceptance through education, affirmations, and surrounding ourselves with other sex-positive people, we can transform our relationship with sex and sexuality.