Given that “sex-positive” is a newer term, we often get asked what it means.
Some people assume it has something to do with porn, adult content, AIDS, or just the act of sex itself. At Blackbox Republic, we use it to mean “sexuality isn’t an issue.” By that we mean that there’s a massive population of people who are comfortable with their own sexuality and who are open to other people’s sexuality, as well. It encompasses all sexual-orientations, singles, couples, and multiples. While sex-positivity spans all communities (e.g. straight, gay, queer, bi, etc.) it doesn’t mean everyone within these communities are sex-positive.
This past weekend, I attended the incredible “Sand by the Ton” event (which hosted over 3,500 people in 250,000 square feet), and asked them what sex-positive meant to them.
Sex-positive, a term that’s coming into cultural awareness, isn’t a dippy love-child celebration of orgone – it’s a simple yet radical affirmation that we each grow our own passions on a different medium, that instead of having two or three or even half a dozen sexual orientations, we should be thinking in terms of millions. “Sex-positive” respects each of our unique sexual profiles, even as we acknowledge that some of us have been damaged by a culture that tries to eradicate sexual difference and possibility. –Carol Queen
The term is growing in popularity, and the right-brained creative culture of the sex-positive movement is even being looked at by scientists, who have found that creative people have more sex. While some people and parts of the world are very familiar with the spirit of the term, it will take some time until it’s well known and widely used.
Sex-positivity and the Millennials
A big and growing part of the sex-positive population are the Millennials, who were born between 1978-2000. This younger part of the culture, have parents who grew up after MLK and the Free Love movements of the 50s and 60s. They have grown up with race, gender and sex not being the same issues that previous generations have had. This is the same population that put Obama in office and they will be 40% of the adult U.S. population in 9 years (over 100,000,000 people). While not all of these people are sex-positive, the majority of them are more predisposed than any generation before them.
Sex-positive mega-events around the world
The sex-positive community has long gathered at everything from massive spectacles, to smaller, regional events. Some of the larger have been Love Parade, which began in 1989 as a celebration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall. Love Parade happens in over 15 cities around the world with 30,000 to 1,600,000 people at any one event.
Burning Man, which started about the same time as Love Parade, unites around 50,000 sex-positive people per year in the Nevada desert. The event follows the principles of “radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation, and immediacy.”
Electric Picnic, held in Ireland, is a newer spectacle but has already grown to a massive festival of art, music, and self-expression. Along with newer events like Afrika Burn, these gatherings peacefully unite huge amounts of sex-positive people so that they can celebrate life, love and connection.
Popular culture
Thanks to social media, popular culture transmits ideas, news, and memes faster than ever before. This allows millions of people to have another teaching source besides their parents, religious institutions and schools. While celebrities like Madonna, have been early to challenge our culture’s openness to sexuality, current celebrities like Angelina Jolie (who refuses to marry until same-sex unions are legal) and television shows like MTV’s “A Shot at Love” (which has a female host choose a love-mate regardless of their gender), underscore just how much more accepted the sex-positive point of view really is.
But the most recent and best example, might be American Idol runner-up, Adam Lambert. Adam had been an openly gay performer in Los Angeles for many years prior to the show. Speculation about his sexuality during the show had no affect on his success. The millions of Millennials who voted for him, did so for his talent. And he himself, shrugged off any questions about it until after the show. His obvious comfort with his sexuality, non-traditional appearance, and America’s acceptance of it is yet another example of just how fast the sex-positive culture is growing.
