Like I said in the comic above, this is a super simplified explanation of what being “Sex Positive” means to me at this time in my life. If you find it helpful for defining that term for yourself, keen beans! If you totes disagree, that’s fine too! Figure out what’s right for you :)

For further reading on what Sex Positivity means, may I direct you towards the venerable Dr. Emily Nagoski? She writes some good stuff in the articles “sex positive” and “anti-sex-positive” on her brilliant, educational site.

EDITED March 19: Tried to clarify my words! It’s difficult to talk about these subjects.

Switching gears here:

Whenever I have advocated the concept that sexuality is vast and that people should be accepting of the many different orientations out there, I always get people asking how that mindset reconciles with the reality that some people have sexual attractions that can never, ever be acted on consensually. If you are one of the people wondering that, the following explanation is for you. If you just wanna focus on the fun, pretty parts of sexuality, skip it and stick to the comic above!

Being “Sex Positive” isn’t just about celebrating everything that can be enjoyable about the world of sex, to me it also means acknowledging the less pleasant realities of the way people experience attraction and providing educational and community resources for them so they can behave in the least harmful way possible in society.

In the “Sexuality is Vast” part of the comic I only included sexualities that can be acted on consensually. In my advocating for tolerance of diverse sexualities, I am not saying you should be cool with people who act on their pedophilia and beastiality feelings! Jesus Christ, of course not. Beastility and pedophilia are impossible to act on consensually because the recipients of those attractions cannot ever consent. However, I think a great deal of trauma and emotional destruction would be avoided if people with these hard-wired orientations could get the medical and therapeutic help that they need to never act on their urges– which means our society needs to have resources already available for them and they need to feel safe enough to reach out for that support. I found the following articles to be incredibly informative and offer some compassionate, tenable solutions regarding the reality that some people are attracted to children, although be warned they describe abuse in detail: “You’re 16. You’re a Pedophile. You Don’t Want to Hurt Anyone. What Do You Do Now?“, “Born This Way: Sympathy and Science for Those Who Want to Have Sex with Children“, and “Meet pedophiles who mean well” Some of these articles open with very disturbing recountings of events that have happened, but after that is where the realistic, practical advice lies. You may want to skim/skip those graphically descriptive bits.

