This weekend I had the pleasure of attending the Sex 2.0 "unconference." It's the second time this meet-up has occurred, and it's focus is the intersection of social media, feminism and sexuality. What does that mean? You get a group of about 200 sex positive bloggers, writers, sex workers and affiliated fans together in a room to talk about sex, feminism and technology.
It was pretty awesome.
While I am not a sex blogger, I do often write about sex-related topics (feminist sex shops anyone?) and am a big fan of many of the people who do write about sex and culture.
I was also psyched to see that feminism was a highlighted intersection, as I do think that sex positive movements and feminism go hand in hand.
I've also very much benefited from the way the internet has given me access to all sorts of sex related experiences and writing that I never would have had otherwise. Sex bloggers like Sinclair Sexsmith provide me with experiences that often mirror my own, and that is so valuable and validating.
Some of the great bloggers/activists/writers I met this weekend whose work you might want to check out:
(Warning, some of this content might not be safe for work)
Audacia Ray, author of Naked on the Internet and the Waking Viken blog
Amber Rhea, co-founder of the Sex 2.0 conference and blogger at Being Amber Rhea
Essin' Em, sex blogger at Sexuality Happens
Melissa Gira, sex and technology writer
Mollena, incredible sex educator and blogger at The Perverted Negress, where her tagline is "it ain't just the hair that's kinky"
And many more! You can check out the twitter feed here
One of my favorite quotes from the weekend:
Ricci Levy, Woodhull Freedom Foundation Executive Director
"Imagine a country where you are just as comfortable talking to people about sex and what you like as you are talking about chocolate. That would be what sexual freedom would look like."
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Thanks for the post, Miriam! It was great meeting you this weekend. I wish we'd had more time to hang out and talk. Next year??
"Imagine a country where you are just as comfortable talking to people about sex and what you like as you are talking about chocolate. That would be what sexual freedom would look like."
Frankly, that quote makes me uneasy. I have friends who would be uncomfortable talking about sex "like they are talking about chocolate", and I don't like that they're pathologized for it. I think you can have sexual freedom and still prefer not to discuss things in a particular way or context.
I feel like there's sometimes a tendency in the alt.sex and sex blogger scene where it's "all kinks respected" but it's okay to make little jokes about "vanilla" or to imply that more conventional folks would benefit from "more creativity" and "exploring" and whatnot. There's this tiny assumption that they're a little repressed, playing on the safe side, or missing out.
I also feel like there's an assumption that trickles around in alt sex communities that the alt sex scene is the "healthier, better alternative", when it's really just as great and as screwed up as every other scene. I get frequently told I should try more kink stuff by people who don't understand or can't believe that I've had horrible experiences in the kink scene. They insist I was just with the wrong people, although I was surrounded by radical self-identified feminist types who departed feeling like they'd exhibited great sexual politics while I felt sad and betrayed and erased. It's as though alt.sex and kink is the cure-all to sexual power issues.
I know not all sex geeks are remotely like this, and there are tons of amazing experiences to be had in the alt sex scene. I'm not trying to knock it. But sometimes it makes me feel devalued and it alienates my friends. So quotes like Ricci's cause a kneejerk reaction in me.
Again, sorry if this comes off too negative, it isn't intended to.
I don't think it's about forcing people to talk about sex in the way they talk about chocolate, but removing the stigma such that someone who wants to talk openly about it doesn't feel shunned or alienated.
The issues you brought up about non-kink or vanilla lifestyles being looked down up were definitely discussed yesterday as well.
I think when a community is really marginalized, often the way they try to reclaim their community is by going to the other extreme--the way we do things is the best and only way to do things!
Somewhere inbetween is where I found most of these writers and activists to be, which I really appreciated as someone new to these sorts of sex positive movements.
Also: just wanted to acknowledge your unpleasant experiences, Ghost Orchid. Imagining one's self to be "sex positive" isn't the same as actually being it. And even if one really is it's still possible for experienced people to forget that "it's obvious and intuitive" and "once you really understand it" should never be spoken to newcomers on the same day, let alone in the same sentence.
figleaf
I feel like there's sometimes a tendency in the alt.sex and sex blogger scene where it's "all kinks respected" but it's okay to make little jokes about "vanilla" or to imply that more conventional folks would benefit from "more creativity" and "exploring" and whatnot. There's this tiny assumption that they're a little repressed, playing on the safe side, or missing out.
On the really extreme side of this phenomenon, being asexual in the sex-positive scene can be... interesting.
"Imagine a country where you are just as comfortable talking to people about sex and what you like as you are talking about chocolate. That would be what sexual freedom would look like."
That is what sexual freedom would look like to you, Ricci Levy: the freedom to talk about yourself. Which you do not in fact significantly lack as things stand. Also, it appears, the levelling of the range of social reaction to your sex-blather - which might reasonably encompass indifference, titillation, aversion, surprise, disgust, delight, relief, shock, vertigo, boredom, incredulity and clinical fascination - to the bland affirmation with which one might greet a declaration of confectionary preference.
Euch, chocolate. Always with the chocolate. Ecstasy of communication, meet consumerist ideology. Oh, you've met already...?
"Imagine a country where you are just as comfortable talking to people about sex and what you like as you are talking about chocolate. That would be what sexual freedom would look like."
Sexual freedom will consist of talking? Instead of actually doing things? This is really sad. The patriarchal culture we live in creates an illusion of sexual freedom by promoting endless conversations about sex. All this talk makes us feel like we are having way more sex than we actually do.
Yeah - to say "sexual freedom" in reference to chatting about sex instead of, for example, the sexual trafficking of women of color rubs me the wrong way. I'm not saying that trafficking is the only issue pertinent to sexual freedom - it certainly isn't - or that communication about sex isn't relevant - it certainly is - but I always feel like there's so much emphasis on communicating about sexual kinks and desires and whatnot, and so much less on who's manufacturing those vibrators and who's being abducted and shipped around for other people's pleasure and whose kids are working in brothels...the word "freedom" has a very different connotation to me. Sometimes it's not just the freedom to have sex without stigma or talk about sex, it can also mean freedom from sex and violent sexual trauma...I don't know; sexual freedom is a big idea and I don't think it fits in the packet of "chatting" that it so often gets folded into. Maybe Ricci knows that, but it's not a great soundbyte.
Many of the women involved at Sex 2.0 are sex worker advocates and activists. Several of the discussions at the conference discussed this in detail. To say that the entire community is obsessed with only discussing kink and sexual pleasure is really misinformed.
I didn't mean to imply that the entire community is like that. I think I specified in my earlier comment that I'm aware not all sex geeks are remotely like that. I said there's a lot of emphasis on "talking about sex" as sexual liberation or freedom, and I didn't mean to restrict that observation to solely the alt sex and kink community, nor did I mean to imply that there's an "obsession". I'm sorry if that came out wrong.
At any rate, in my comment I wasn't talking about sex workers, I was talking about trafficked women and children.
Thanks for replying to me, Miriam! I'm glad it was brought up. I have to say, though - I think some of the attitudes toward "vanilla" aren't in reaction to marginalization. We can think our way is the best way without being marginalized. I guess this arises from my discomfort with the idea that sex-positive people are a marginalized group - I'd call them stigmatized, but I wouldn't characterize it as marginalization. I know that might be a ignorant thing to say - I'm open to a change of mind on this.
Anyway, I don't think a slight superiority complex is "often" the result of marginalization - I think it's more often the opposite, if anything.
I think you're right--I'd change the word to "sometimes" rather than often.
And it's not an excuse for alienating people, maybe just an exploration of the why.
Miriam,
"Imagine a country where you are just as comfortable talking to people about sex and what you like as you are talking about chocolate. That would be what sexual freedom would look like."
I think that's a potentially very useful quote, as everyone seems to be addressing another angle. While both chocolate and sex are source of phenyl-ethyl-amine, and while I think I know exactly what you're trying to say and agree with it, I'm not so sure that, taken literally, it would be such a good idea. Moreover, there's a difference between abstractly talking about sex and talking about one's sexuality. The former may well be like talking about chocolate, or computers, or politics - sometimes particularly politics -, the latter will always be something rather personal and thus something that is deriving a part of its attraction from the fact that it *is* different from talking about chocolate.
Might be a bit late to bring this up but Lisa KS from Punkassblog.com attended and her take (Sex 2.0 Part One: Let's Talk About Objectification) might put the Levy quote in a more affirmative perspective.
The point being Ricci wasn't saying "ooh wouldn't it be cool if everybody could just talk about acculturated obsessions with dessert 24 hours a day."
And not to sound nettled but to have jumped to that conclusion is to be no different from the two cat-calling passers by outside the conference site: so indoctrinated by the culture of sexualization they can't tell they're being rude.
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For the record I agree with Miriam that food and sex are such excellent metaphors for each other they tend to produce "gotchas" when used as analogies.
So had it been me I might have instead said "Imagine a country where you are just as comfortable talking to people about sex and what you like as you are talking about bicycles."
Because whether one has one bike, or many, or none it's *unremarkable!* And thus not likely to draw judgmental, uninvited, unwelcome, out of context, and/or appropriating remarks from passers by on sidewalks or online.
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And finally, it's *really* annoying, and patronizing, and counterproductive to refer to sexually aware people who don't drool down other people's blouses (without a negotiated invitation anyway) as "sex geeks." Or geeks, period.
Which gets to something Ghostorchid said about "vanilla" vs. "kink" approaches to sex. The common assumption is that "vanilla" equals "normal" and "kink" means alternative. Instead "vanilla" implies a patriarchal and heteronormative, reproduction-centric, penis-in-vagina-intercourse-till-male-ejaculation-focused form of sex where negotiation terminates with a woman's "consent" to let the man proceed to "take" her as he sees fit.
Whereas "kink" tends to include any sexual activity with any combination of individuals, orientations, body parts, and sensory preferences (including the traditional "vanilla" ones) with the significant difference being that consent signals the beginning rather than the end of communication, negotiation, and shared decision-making.
That "vanilla" people think it's "kinky" to continue negotiating after consent has been given says all anyone needs to know about why both terms are almost perfectly inappropriate and non-descriptive terms.
figleaf
Figleaf, I like your comment here especially the definitions of vanilla etc. I'd not really thought about that difference being one focused on consent and negotiation. Good food for thought.
Dangit, figleaf, you've been cross-posting again. :) So now I feel that I should cross-post my comment from your post here:
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Heh. Well, I tend to refer to myself sometimes as a sex geek and sometimes as a sex nerd. I also refer to myself as a (non-qualified) geek and nerd. To me both of those terms mean someone who is really passionate and interested in something, and who loves to immerse themselves in learning all about it. I don't see it as annoying at all (or else why would I identify that way!) but very positive.
And finally, it's *really* annoying, and patronizing, and counterproductive to refer to sexually aware people who don't drool down other people's blouses (without a negotiated invitation anyway) as "sex geeks." Or geeks, period.
For the record, I use the term "sex geek", and I'm not talking about "sexually aware" people in general - I'm talking about people who are geeky about sex (as in, passionate and knowledgeable, like a hobbyist) in the same way that I'm geeky about, say, typography. I take part in lots of "geek" cultures where the word geek has a strongly positive, not negative, connotation. I'm sorry if I offended.
As to kink and vanilla, I think there are lots of people who identify as kink or vanilla who don't feel their identification as such hinges on constantly negotiated consent, or lack thereof. I expect and require my sexual partners to constantly negotiate consent with me during a sexual activity, but I don't identify those sexual experiences as kinky, and I certainly don't feel connected to kink communities on those grounds.
All I'm trying to say here is that I don't think one can provide the "real" definition of what kink/vanilla mean, because I think multiple valid definitions exist.
Also, if the sexual activity involves a man "taking" a woman without her being able to revoke or modify consent if she wants to, I don't really think that's "vanilla sex", I think that's rape. Yikes.
"Which gets to something Ghostorchid said about "vanilla" vs. "kink" approaches to sex. The common assumption is that "vanilla" equals "normal" and "kink" means alternative. Instead "vanilla" implies a patriarchal and heteronormative, reproduction-centric, penis-in-vagina-intercourse-till-male-ejaculation-focused form of sex where negotiation terminates with a woman's "consent" to let the man proceed to "take" her as he sees fit.
Whereas "kink" tends to include any sexual activity with any combination of individuals, orientations, body parts, and sensory preferences (including the traditional "vanilla" ones) with the significant difference being that consent signals the beginning rather than the end of communication, negotiation, and shared decision-making.
That "vanilla" people think it's "kinky" to continue negotiating after consent has been given says all anyone needs to know about why both terms are almost perfectly inappropriate and non-descriptive terms."
Because all heterosexual sex is rape, right? Did you see what I did there? It's called a straw man fallacy.
You responded to someone feeling belittled by others with continued belittling. I'm avoiding the world marginalization because yes, I know that it's a problematic word when used to describe a practice such as "vanilla" sex. You know what? I'm a man, probably about a 0.5 or a 1 on the Kinsey Scale, and I enjoy vanilla sex. You know what I do if I'm having sex and my partner tells me to stop? I stop. That's about as far as I'm going go with defending what I enjoy in bed, because you are completely out of line by equating what I enjoy in bed by lumping it in with rape.
Do you get offended when people write you off because of your sexuality? If the answer is yes, then maybe you can understand why you've pissed someone like me off, because you've done exactly that to me. I know that I'm speaking from a position of privilege because my sexual tastes are (for the most part) conventional, but seriously? You give the impression that you're no better than any bigoted shit who declares non-conventional sex to be perverted, or deviant, or whatever semantically charged, demeaning rhetoric he might use.
I have a very good word to describe what you're doing, and that word is bullying.
Maybe I'm just seeing things that aren't there. Maybe I totally misread everything you wrote. Tell me that I'm way off base here, and I'll apologize.