HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018486.jpg

brings to the performance. Two musicians steeped in Delta blues will produce very
different music from one musician with a love for soul and funk and another with roots in
hip-hop or 1980s hardcore. This process involves communication of likes and dislikes
and preferences, not a series of proposals that meet with acceptance or rejection.

... Under this model, the sexual interaction should be creative, positive, and respectful
even in the most casual of circumstances.

("Towards a Performance Model of Sex" was first printed in Yes Means Yes, edited by
Jessica Valenti and Jaclyn Friedman, the brilliant sex-positive anti-rape anthology that I
want everyone in the entire world to read. It was also reprinted in Best Sex Writing 2010,
edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel.)

9) All people deserve equal rights, including sexual minorities. As long as people are
having consensual sex, they do not deserve to be stigmatized, harassed, or otherwise
harmed for their sexuality. Period. No one should be fired for their sexual or gender
identity. No one should have their kids taken away for their sexual or gender identity.
Rape is still rape, even when it's perpetrated against a sex worker. I support
decriminalizing sex work for a lot of reasons; for example, I'd love it if the law would
quit harassing and jailing sex workers for having consensual sex, and I'd love it if sex
workers could organize for better workplace safety. The bottom line is that people -- all
people -- have rights. It's time to treat them that way.

***

In terms of actual ways to be sex-positive in everyday life, here are the three ways I
usually encourage people to spread the sex-positive love:

A) Avoid re-centering. Sexuality shouldn't be societally "centered" on any particular
norm, idea, or stereotype (except consent). It is frequently tempting to re-center
"objective" ideas about sexuality onto ourselves, if we're different from the norm, or onto
people we admire. But the truth is that -- on a societal level -- queer sex is just as
awesome as straight sex; that BDSM sex is equally admirable as vanilla sex; that
cisgendered people are not any more or less amazing than trans people. The decision to
have sex is no better than the decision to avoid sex, and asexual people are just as great as
hypersexual people who are just as great as anyone with any level of sex drive.

In alternative sexuality subcultures, one often encounters a kind of superior attitude,
perhaps because we have to push back so hard against the norm. In polyamory, for
example, some of us use the sarcastic term "polyvangelist": a person who insists that
polyamory is "better" or "more evolved" or "makes more sense" for everyone,
everywhere, than monogamy does. Neither monogamy nor polyamory is better than the
other; they're just different. Polyvangelists are trying to re-center onto polyamory. Not
cool.

B) Start conversations. One of the most damaging problems around sexuality is the
overwhelming and constant stigma. It hurts people with certain sexual identities,
preferences or pasts. It hurts them spiritually. It can hurt them societally, like when
LGBTQ folks have difficulty adopting children, or former sex workers are not allowed to
work at other jobs. It can even hurt them physically: 40 years after doctors started

HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018486