Chuck0 wrote:
>>Somebody could probably rustle up a better definition of "sex-positive,"
but as a "sex positive" activist I see it as an attempt to reclaim the
Left's traditional hostility towards puritanism and oppresive state control
of our sexuality. It's also a reaction to puritans in our midst, like
Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin. "Sex positive" is a reaction to the
censors and prudes in our midst, who use elaborate theories to make us feel
guilty
about being queer or enjoying stuff like pornography. I'd also say that
this tendency recognizes that sexuality and sex are pretty important things
to many people and shouldn't be relegated to a back burner by a Left that
is
preoccupied with "more serious matters." <<
Which is all well and good, but without wanting to be a dick about this, I asked a very specific, non-rhetorical question and so far, no answer. Perhaps it is unfashionably reductionist of me to demand that at some point the rubber meets the road (or whatever else rubber might be meeting) and this "sex-positive" business actually translates into choices between courses of actions.
So far, Dennis P has stepped up to the plate and given me an answer. I'm not sure if he's representing "The Sex-Positive", but his answer about pornography as experienced as live entertainment was that it was yucky and not worth bothering with. Since the only specific activity you mentioned above was the enjoyment of pornography, I'm interested to know whether this means that it's more "sex-positive" to enjoy a basically pornographic experience in the form of a mass-reproduced image than in the flesh as a live performance.
Unless by "enjoying stuff like pornography" you're just referring to the act of having a wank, in which case I sort of come back to my original point; being "pro- or anti-" sex is like being pro or anti the weather, or the tendency of water to be wet, or any other fact of life.
I'm sure I'm just being stupid here and there's something I'm missing, but I keep finding myself returning to the old proverb "money talks and bullshit walks", and I can't help thinking that "Sex-positive"ness has a lot more talking to it than walking. Unless principles of "sex positive leftism" can deliver some sort of practical argument for taking (or refraining from taking) some course of action or other on political grounds, I'm finding it very hard to escape the feeling that what we're really looking at is yet another way of trying to pretend that other people are "not proper lefties" because they don't have the same sexual tastes as you do.
Or to put it another way; the chief function of "sex positive" feminists in contemporary London appears to be to write favourable articles in the local press whenever there's a planning dispute about opening up yet another strip club at the end of my street. What's the line of political reasoning which I've missed when I get crabby about this?
cheers and underwear
dd
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