Why being sex positive is so important

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that slut-shaming has to end. It's pointless, its tasteless, its offensive and has no real place in society today. It holds us back and prevents us from progressing as people, and slut-shaming stigmatizes sex and makes people self-conscious about something that in reality just isn't that big of a deal.

If you've never encountered the term before, here's a loose definition. Slut-shaming is the act of shaming, ridiculing or otherwise stigmatizing a person for having had many sexual encounters in the past, or being currently involved with several sexual partners, and extends to things even as trivial as dressing or acting provocatively. It's a little more nuanced than that, but it can range from anything from calling a woman slutty for wearing daisy dukes, or for actually just describing someone as slutty, loose, easy, whoreish, cheap or anything to that effect. Another unnerving common slut-shaming practice is to shame couples or people who have sex out of wed-lock.

If we have to go into the politics of it all, sluts-shaming is usually more of a problem in conservative circles, but every so often it rears its head in liberal circles. It's not really accurate to say it's a conservative or right-wing problem, because its symptomatic of another much larger problem, which is that its only recently that we've become more sex-positive as a society, and its largely only younger people who are very sex-positive. I was lucky to be raised in a house where sex wasn't treated like a taboo thing. My parents would often openly talk about it and joke around about sex and sexuality, and I think that very normalization is what made me the sex-positive person I am today.

On the opposite side of things, there might be some prude-shaming happening somewhere in some circles, and I've definitely seen in come up in a film or two, and I don't really want to dismiss it as something that doesn't exist but it is something that definitely happens much more infrequently. I still don't condone shaming anyone for the amount of sex they do or do not have, or how modestly or immodestly anyone dresses or acts, it's a deplorable act. There is no "right" amount of sex to be having.

And I think the blatant way we shame each other about the amount of sex we have is why we all need to be more sex-positive.

It's really hard for me to define exactly what makes any person sex-positive, but by sex-positivity, I don't mean actively having sex or seeking it out. Sex-positivity is about normalizing sex, openly talking about sex, viewing sex as a positive thing and not stigmatizing or demonizing sex. It's encouraging exploration of ones sexual identity and allowing for the growth of one's sexuality, but also not forcing anything. I want to make the very clear distinction that being sex-positive isn't about blindly advocating for anyone to have more sex, but that sex-positivity is about having a positive attitude towards sex.

The unfortunate truth is that not being sex-positive only creates issues. It isn't the 1800s anymore, and we aren't puritanical creatures by nature. We derive pleasure from sex, we have the ability to have sex for reasons other than pro-creation or the often toted "intimacy" that we're told to wait until our wedding night for, and honestly, sex is just kind of great (I do also advocate safe sex, please, do practice safe sex, and don't take unnecessary risks). But the thing is, when we limit sex to just being about procreation or intimacy with a married partner, we do some really harmful things, such as:

• Turning sex into something shameful, rather than personal.
• Reducing each other into things to be owned, like little children claiming presents that only they can open and no one else can.
• Using intangible and relatively inconsequential concepts such as virginity as a measure of any person's objective character quality
• Defining sex in such a way that it can only mean penetrative penal/vaginal sex, rather than as the complicated and broad conversation that sex really is
• Reserving intimacy only for those married, which for many people in the world, simply isn't a reality, such as gay couples who live in countries where marriage isn't legal, or widows who don't want to remarry, or anyone who has sex that is intimate that isn't married! 

Sex-positivity is also what allows for empathy with sex workers, men and women who are the least protected from sexual crimes. The unfortunate reality is that sex-workers endure slut-shaming from their friends, families, strangers and even their own clients. Sex workers are also very much at risk of experiencing sexual violence, and due to sex work being criminalized in most countries, they are also unable to report sex crimes committed against them and are sometimes unjustly arrested when they are in fact the victims. And without any sex-positivity, as a person, it becomes exponentially harder to empathize with sex workers.

Sex positivity is important. It is so, so important. I can't stress that enough. I can't argue it enough. I think it's one of the most humane qualities a person can have, even if one doesn't personally agree with having a lot of sex or numerous sexual partners.

And I think, as humans, we can sometimes very much lack humanity.

We should work on that.

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If You're Worried You Won't Ever Find Great Love, sorry not sorry, You Probably Will

You might be trying to get over someone right now, or maybe you're waiting for the first someone, or maybe you're waiting for the first someone in a while. When I'm in that headspace, I always think of that one Dance Gavin Dance lyric, "I know we test each other to feel the limits, we all need partners for the pain of existence". I've experienced loneliness and great love, and in some ironic joke played on me by the universe, both at the same time. I've experienced the pain of great love fading and eventually disappearing altogether, I've experienced my heart beating through my chest when kissing that special someone, I've felt the pterodactyls in my tummy, I've felt the chills down my spine, the electricity through my veins, the fireworks going off in my mind, the earth stop spinning for a singular moment. I've experienced awful fights where you're not yourself and you say something terrible because you're hurt and you want to hurt them back. I've experienced moments where you look at that person and, poof. It's gone. The fireworks have turned to ashes, the pterodactyls have turned to air, the magic has gone and nothing. There's nothing there anymore. It happens. Life happens. Love happens. Falling out of love happens. You've probably heard yourself say something like, "What if I go through life trying to find the person I love second most?" or "I don't want to end up alone." or "Love sucks, it's just too painful." or "I thought I was over them, but I'm not. Maybe I never will be."

Maybe that's true for you right now. But chances are, it won't always be.

A while back, I had a bunch of those thoughts, and whenever I feel sad about my own lonely existence or I'm sick or just any not happy feeling in general, I go back and watch How I Met Your Mother. This is relevant, I promise. Around about episode six of season one, there's a moment that I guess stays with you the entire show, and long after you've stopped watching.

.
(Caption: Robin: "How do you do this Ted? How do sit out here all night, in the cold, and still have faith that your pumpkin's going to show up?"
Ted: "Well, I'm pretty drunk. Look I know the odds are, the love of my life isn't going to magically walk through that door in a pumpkin costume at 2:43 in the morning. But it just seems as nice a spot as any to just ... you know, sit and wait")

And the weird thing is, I think that's all of us. Waiting for that moment of serendipity as you walk into the coffee house and he or she is reading your favourite book and you just know. Waiting for that moment where love creeps up from behind and pistol whips you, takes the self-preservation out of your emotional wallet and you're left bleeding feelings all over the pavement while wondering exactly how you got there.

I think the first thing that you have to be is patient with yourself. I do believe that generally, when you look for something, you'll likely find it. But remember that you're exactly where you're supposed to be, and you have to give yourself permission to be exactly where you are in life. And that you do have a life outside the person you'll end up with one day.

But let's talk statistics. You realize that you're one of seven billion human beings on this earth, right? If we factor for gender, sexuality and age, that usually leaves several millions of other humans just like you that are pretty much all potential partners. If you won't listen to me, at least listen to Tim Minchin. The statistical likelyhood of you ending up alone is actually worse than you finding someone you don't mind making pancakes for in the morning.

The other thing is, do you know how easy it actually is to fall in love? As unfortunate as it is that I'm quoting a 2003 sitcom twice in one article, if you have chemistry, you only need one thing. Timing. And timing's a bitch.


(Source: https://za.pinterest.com/pin/413134965786670188/)

Chemistry happens to be pretty easy actually. In an article about the science of falling in love, without going into too much detail about hormones and actual brain chemistry, the prescribed ingredients for seeing the sun shine out of someone's ass is;

• Find a complete stranger (I hear this is optional, just someone you're relatively attracted to)
• Reveal intimate details about your life to each other for about half an hour (don't mention your basement full of dead babies, that's second date material)
• Stare deeply into each other's eyes for about four minutes (although I hear this doesn't have to be done entirely consecutively)

That's it. The actual process of falling in love is so stupidly simple and automatic that you rarely ever realize it's happening.

Allowing yourself to get out there and open up to another human being? That's fucking scary. It's so terrifying that some people go their entire lives without ever doing it. And some people get hurt or go through some terrible things that prevent them from ever letting themselves be vulnerable enough to fall in love. But that's okay. Because we don't always properly mourn or grieve at the end of a huge relationship. We don't bury the past in that same place as our formative memories where they embarrass us at night while overthinking our lives but don't actively influence our every day decisions. We don't create graves for dead relationships. Often, we keep watering dead plants. Often, we keep trying to reconnect wires that have been cut. Try to repair broken machines. Try to find a dead spark.

If your relationship with someone is a person, a separate entity, and that entity is either changed beyond recognition or has passed on, you have to properly grieve for it, in order to move on with your life. And this is the world's most inexact science. If there was a button after every break up and I could remove all the bitterness, animosity, pain, happy memories, shove it all into a box and set the box on fire and scatter the ashes atop Everest, the label would be worn from overuse. But it's not that simple and if you've found a way to make it that simple honestly, I'd pay for your council. The only thing I can say is, there are a couple of things to try.

• Try a pallet cleanser. The best way to get a bad taste out of your mouth is to wash it down with something else. It's okay to play the field, try something casual before moving onto something serious.
• Find something of your ex, and destroy it. It's oddly cathartic, but don't go overboard. The point is to make it blatantly obvious to yourself that the person is out of your life, and that you're closing the door behind them
• Try writing an angry letter to that person, then tearing it up.
• Talking with your ex like an actual adult sometimes works. Finding out what worked, what didn't, how the two of you will proceed in the future, talking over issues you had with each other and resolving those issues and solidifying the notion that breaking up is without a doubt the best course of action can help speed up the process
• And finally putting distance between you and your ex. Simply put, if that person isn't going to be the most important person in your life, they don't need to be the person you spend the most time on. Spending time on self-care and with friends, going out and trying new things and reminding yourself who you are outside of your previous relationship helps to ground you in single life again.

It takes time and effort to move on. But before you know it, you'll wake up and the sun will be bright and air will taste different and you'll have started the first day of the rest of your life.

But after all that, maybe it's not that easy. Maybe you won't meet the love of your life or the next great love tomorrow. Hell, maybe you already have and they slipped through your fingers. Maybe you have several times and it just never seems to work out. Maybe you felt it so deeply that you doubt anyone will ever come close to making the sun shine the way that person did.

But hey, news flash. Great love comes at you repeatedly, in different intervals, until one of those fuckers finally gets you to tie the knot and go have kids.

That's just life.

Seven billion humans, all with roughly a lifespan of 80 years. If you don't find great love with those odds, if you don't find at least one in a million in all of those millions, if something so fucking great and as it turns out, not all that improbable doesn't happen to you repeatedly over the course of your whole goddamn existence, you probably weren't meant to fall in love anyway.

Love happens. It'll happen to you.

And where you are right now is good a place as any to wait for it. Just keep your eyes open and let it happen when it comes. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, so don't worry too much about the timing.

"I know we test each other to feel the limits, we all need partners for the pain of existence."

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Why you should care about the laws surrounding sex work

Well, this is interesting topic... Sex work. Prostitution, adult films, escorts... Controversy. Something I guess no one really thinks about, or wants to think about, and it's something that up until now, I haven't thought about...

If you have the time, take a moment to watch the video below, from Buzzfeed, titled Questions You Have For Sex Workers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2mnyro54xo

The lighter end of it. Professionals, who enjoy their work, well versed and willing to start a conversation. Which makes it kind of seem okay, and I think, for these people, for their clients, it is.

And next, a video called Everybody Cries Their First Time;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS5QOkrXsUc

Dark. Unpleasant. The side that's... Just ugly actually.

On top of a lack of sex education, there is a lack of education about Sex Work. I'm going to try not to throw all the video links in and just get to the point here... It seems that there is a general consensus that the laws prohibiting sex work... Are not working. They're enabling the crimes they're trying to prevent. In South Africa, sex work is fully criminalized. So if you think this doesn't affect you, or your friends, or the people you pass every day on campus, or the people you graduated with, people in schools you have friends in, people walking the streets alongside you every day... You're wrong. Because someone might be struggling, and have decided to sell sex, and that makes them not only vulnerable to rape and other forms of sexual assault *but the law will not help them if they do get hurt*.

And the first thing you'll see, if you look at any of the comments, are sentiments like

"Am I supposed to feel sorry for these whores?"

"Did you expect him to be gentle and tell you he loves you?"


Okay, last one, I swear. A TedEx talk titled, What Do Sex Workers Want. You don't have to watch the full thing, but If you have the time, please do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJRBx0JjM_M

To sum up, if you didn't watch, this is what I want you as the reader to understand. First of all, in places where selling sex is fully or partially criminalized such as SA, carrying a condom can be used as evidence that one is selling sex. So already, there's a choice between risking arrest and risky sex. On top of that, because the law does not protect sex workers and instead criminalizes it, they have to go back to sex work to make money to pay fines because a lack of income is why they're in sex work in the first place and you can't get a job with a criminal record so you're stuck doing sex work since it's the only job you can get. Not only that, but let's look at the punishment for people who have regular jobs after getting out of sex work;

http://www.aol.com/article/2013/01/16/teacher-stacie-halas-fired-porn/20430517/

http://jezebel.com/5794355/worst-student-ever-gets-ex-porn-star-secretary-fired

http://www.fark.com/comments/7955428/Pornstars-who-seek-jobs-in-real-world-are-being-fired-because-of-their-past-theres-no-legal-recourse-for-them-to-get-their-jobs-back-Thats-right-were-in-age-of-porn-discrimination

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tericka_Dye

Notice how these are all articles about women? Let's just talk about the one time someone was fired for being... An underwear model.

http://metro.co.uk/2016/03/28/a-tale-of-two-teachers-one-is-fired-for-modelling-underwear-the-other-is-given-an-armani-contract-5780292/

So it's not like I'm making things up. I'm not yanking facts out of my asshole. Hell, I didn't even have to look hard, four words into Google and fifteen minutes later, there they all are.

It's criminalized, stigmatized and guess what... When it's your only option, you have to face the fact that your life is probably over, unless of course, you have the luck of a devil. So if you've stuck with me this far, and I'm glad you have, just try answer this one question... Why are adults being punished for using their bodies as a source of income? It's honestly just the oddest thing. For me, this matters more than legalizing Marijuana because criminalization of selling sex *actually aids* human trafficking and enables more sexual assault then it prevents.

So what can you do? Well, as a professional slacktivist myself, I'd encourage you to... Simply like and share. Comment, talk, bring it up in conversation, inform... Because it might be information that saves someone, it might prevent someone from making a bad decision, and it might just get us to change the legislation and make a difference.

We have so much power as just normal individuals. So just, spread the word. And simply by reading this, you've already made one step into making a difference. So good on you.

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