“I think they throw you out of the sex-blogger union for admitting that.”
I was having a conversation with what may have been the most sex-positive human being I’ve ever encountered in the wild. Within an hour of meeting our discussion had touched on polyamory, circumcision, toys and abstinence-only education. We had just arrived at the topic of group sex when it came out that I am generally not attracted to/ sexually interested in women and it caused him to utter the sentence above. It was the one thing I said in the course of the conversation that this gentleman found genuinely shocking.
The thing is, men just do it for me. It’s always been this way. I remember being in pre-school and feeling something nice when I saw a certain boy. I recognize that women are beautiful but I don’t get that same charge from women that I do from men. All other things being equal, I really like dick. Seriously, when the clothes come off, I want the bad romance novel stereotype “throbbing” penis there. Okay, now I know there’s no rule saying I can’t have both. Neopolitan ice cream was invented for this very reason (ok, maybe not this very reason, but you know…) so I weigh it and still… just no.
Truth is I have actually struggled with this one myself. As a sex-positive, progressive woman open to new experiences and seeking pleasure I feel like I should be down with exploring all the avenues. As I geek out about anatomy and am continually blown away by the beauty of the human form I feel like I’m supposed to be turned on by all the incarnations of that form. As I reject narrow definitions of what my romantic and sexual life is supposed to like it seems so obvious to question the compulsory sexual identities our society throws on us and when questioning that led me right back to my original identity I was left wondering if I had done it right¹.
I was left with this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Was all this learning and growing I was supposed to be doing coming up against some resistance? Was I failing? Can I really call myself sex-positive if I can’t do a belly flop into the middle of a sex party² and be equally happy regardless of who or what I land on?
A while back there was a spate of pieces that seemed to all come out at once that I filed under the heading “Stop Picking on the Vanillas”
In Praise of Vanilla: Sexual Expression and Acceptance – Portia Blush
What’s wrong with “Vanilla”? -Tracy Clark-Flory
Are WE Sex Positive?– Alyssa Royse
I don’t think of myself as vanilla, per se, but when the statement “No, I’m not attracted to women” got me roughly the same response I would have expected to receive with “I’m soldered into this chastity belt” these pieces immediately sprang to mind. When functioning within a community that works to let people know that what they are doing is safe and healthy and normal, that all love/sex is equal, that all partners should be respected and have their needs met and that when it comes to sexuality, gender, sexual expression and pleasure there’s a whole rainbow of sensations and experiences available to them at all times, sometimes it can feel like in order to truly understand the depth and breadth of sexual experience you need to be tasting the rainbow at all times. That whether it’s same-sex partners, bondage, anal G-spotting or clown sex, if you don’t want to do it you are somehow coming up short on some scale of sexual evolvedness. I start thinking like this and suddenly I get panicky and think that if I really wanted to learn and grow and be sexually enlightened I would go out and find a (consenting) female clown to tie up and practice some anal G-spotting on ASAP.
I’m actually quoted in Alyssa’s piece “Are WE Sex Positive?” She took quotes on what people thought the term “sex positivity” meant and I said it meant “Allowing the space for the sexual experience of individuals w/out judgment as long as everyone is happy, healthy & consenting.” What I couldn’t put into words then but have since figured out is that this means sex positivity is not about activities or orientations, it’s about people. To create the space I mention in that quote we need to respect the rights, desires, proclivities, inclinations, tendencies, kinks, wants and needs of each person without agenda. One of my favorite educators is Airial Clark, of The Sex-Positive Parent and she says that a big part of sex-positive parenting is assuming that children will become “autonomous, sexually active adults” and supporting their “individual sexual identity no matter what.” Well now, I don’t know about you but to me that sounds like an excellent idea for us all to keep in mind when being relating to each other. Recognize each others’ autonomy and support each others’ sexual identities no matter what. I know I need to work on applying that lesson to myself.
Listen, we’re all turned on by something different. What does it for me may not do it for you. What does it for you may terrify me but as long as everyone involved is happy and consenting you’ve got my support. In the end I think that, maybe, what sex -positivity celebrates is sexual individuality, an understanding that when we work to keep people informed so that sexual interactions can be happy, healthy and based on consent, there’s no need to get worked up about difference. Usually when folks get worked up it’s about fear, so, if everyone is informed there’s nothing to fear we’re all free to just be those aforementioned “autonomous sexually active adults” and seek out the different things that please us.
So, I may never be attracted to a woman, or I may meet one that blows my mind tomorrow, either way what I know is this: Everyone is entitled to their sexual autonomy, everyone deserves support and respect in their sexual identity. Everyone’s happy place may be different and that’s awesome!
For now, at least, my happy place has a frenulum. That, is also awesome.
This piece originally appeared on Good Vibrations online magazine on January 25th 2013
¹12 years of Catholic school have left me with very definite ideas about accomplishing tasks “correctly.” Interesting that my Catholic schooling showed up in this experience in the form of concern that I wasn’t trying hard enough to engage sexually with women, I’m wondering if that’s a problem anyone else has ever had. Ever.
²Don’t try this, it just sounds like a really bad idea.
Thank you so much for putting into words an issue I’ve been struggling with as well. You are not alone in the world of: “I’m sex-positive. I think women (in all forms) are beautiful. But, so far, I have only ever found myself attracted to men.”
It’s hard, right? A lot of times making any kind of preference statement feels like a judgment, but it’s not. You get to have your preferences and they get to have theirs and it’s all good.
Hey, why are you hatin’ on the clowns?! Kidding 😉
But yes, I get where you are coming from. Being in the public “scene” (so to speak although I hate that phrasing) I see so many people who look at their sexuality as if it’s a competition. Look who’s more kinky than the next person, etc. They are missing the point of sex positivity completely. We should support each other in finding their own sexual truth no matter what it entails. Many people have completely lost sight of that.
I know, I shouldn’t clown-shame! I thin this happens in a lot of “activist” communities. There starts being a machismo to it “I’m more ____ than you are” and with sex geeks sexual activities can become the measuring stick for that- that when you know folks have, as you said, lost sight of what they are here to do.
This post makes me so happy. While I do sleep with women, I’m vanilla. Really vanilla. Super happy with my really vanilla sex life. (Cause it is ah-may-zing) So I get, at least partially, where you’re coming from. <3
Very well said and thank you for phrasing your thoughts, which mirrors so many others’, so well. In a previous life I struggled because two very important people in my life inhabited the opposite extremes of the sex positive spectrum. Both, it seemed, were more concerned with what other people thought than they were with their own feelings and desires. One had a very, very limited version of what was acceptable sexually because, God forbid, what would someone think if they found out that we had sex in the living room? Seriously, this was an actual conversation we had. The other person treated sexual experience like a boy scout treats merit badges: collect every one you can and show them off whenever possible. He would collect these merit badges even when, on several occasions, he knew he would hate whatever it was he was trying. He felt compelled to be seen by everyone as “the guy who had done it all”. To me being sex-positive has nothing to do with working to check every box on some form that lists all sexual acts. In my opinion being sex-positive means being aware of yourself. Understand what you really want, explore what really interests you, don’t concern yourself with what others think and simultaneously encourage and support your partners and others as they do the same. To me it really doesn’t have to be any more complex than that.
Thank you so much for putting this into words. Thor and I are monogamous and maybe even vanilla by some standards, and I have been experiencing moments of insecurity that perhaps I don’t have the “right” to be in this industry. Saying it out loud seems silly to me now but the feelings creep in nonetheless. I know I want to be a genuine ally and I guess that’s all I can ask of myself at this moment. xoxo
Thanks so much. As a “hopelessly straight” penis owner I have had, at times, the same struggle. But the fact is, my happy place involves inner and outer labia. In the end, sex positivity is really life positivity; Everybody gets to be who they are.
What’s interesting is that this issue always makes me think of my friends who are actually bi and have their identities ignored or erased all the time, especially the men. I feel like while society by and large is accepting/encouraging of female identified bisexuality, far less space is held for bi men.
Super true. I think that’s basically because of white cis gendered centric society. We find women having sex with eachother hot. Desire it. So it becomes acceptable and encouraged. Whereas we are threatened by male bisexuality because we’re homophobic, so…notsomuch.
I think maybe in tiny increments where getting better, but the hypocrisy is real.
Sorry this took so long. Email server decided that notifications from here are spam. Fixed that.
Most (I say most, because there’s always douchebros out there who are like “you just need the right man) people would never think to shame a sex-positive LESBIAN for not liking dick. So why should it be a double-standard? 🙂 Would that gentleman have been shocked by a vice-versa announcement by a lesbian?