The sex-positive movement is an ideology which promotes and embraces open sexuality with few limits beyond an emphasis on safe sex and the importance of informed consent. Sex positivity is "an attitude towards human sexuality that regards all consensual sexual activities as fundamentally healthy and pleasurable, and encourages sexual pleasure and experimentation.
That all makes sense to me. It works with regard to my own life, and I don't usually feel like I have any need to make judgments about other people's sexual proclivities or behavior. So, yeah... I really do believe that sex between consenting adults is essentially healthy and normal and pleasurable. Go. Have sex. Enjoy the heck out of one another. Why not?
Except. There is just this one small thing. My capacity to feel like that seems to not extend to the reality that my daughter, my youngest, has been arrested again (Yes. AGAIN) for prostitution/solicitation.
So, I guess that I am left with the ugly truth that it is easy for me to say that I am "sex positive" when it is YOUR DAUGHTER.
Sigh.
swan
I can't help but wonder at how 'consensual' the sex is in this kind of situation, when the driving force is a substance addiction. Is the person concerned really able to fully give consent in it's truest sense? I doubt it really.
ReplyDeleteAs a side thought, isn't it rather odd that 'consent' has a 't' yet it does not become 'consentual'...the use of the word 'consensual' for truly 'consenting' sex suggests a 'sensual' element to the exchange that is perhaps somehow missing when that 'consent' is freely given...
just a thought.
Sending both you and your daughter fortitude and hope for her future.
Kindest regards
weirdgirl
apologies, what I MEANT to say was 'when that consent is *not* freely given!
DeleteHi Sue
ReplyDeleteMy thought is that your quote says "sexual activities as fundamentally healthy and pleasurable" - your heart is breaking because your daughter's (and lots of other people's daughters) sexual activities are NOT fundamentally healthy and pleasurable. It isn't the sex - it is the situation.
I am so sorry that you and your daughter are in this situation and in pain. Love to you both.
Ana
I think as moms we want the best for are kids, and when we see them suffer for what ever reason, we want to take it away.
ReplyDeleteI don't know your daughters situation but I am also aware that some women sell their body's out of desperation, not because they necessarily want to...in that respect it is not sex positive.
I do feel for you, and I hope that your daughter can find the light at the end of the tunnel.
swan -- i just wanted to say how sorry I am that you are going through this with your daughter... I can only imagine what I would feel/do if it was one of my daughters.
ReplyDeletehang in there "mom" !!!
Honey, if your daughter was not using, in a safe situation, and had made the decision to choose sex work because it was what she wanted and felt strongly about, I would bet you would feel differently. When asked how he got all the money for his drug, my son offered that he had robbed people, and "other stuff". The idea that my baby boy was a mugger is bad enough, I admit I didn't ask what "other stuff" was. I'm so sorry you have to go through this, and I am so sorry that your daughter is going through it too.
ReplyDeleteSue,
ReplyDeletethe "sex positive" idea is simply an attempt to clarify, using words, something which is too complicated for this kind of logic. You are a very logical person, but logic and words are inadequate to solve this distressing situation.
Bad things happen. It's best not to disguise that. While we are still ordinary humans, immersed blindly in the human game, we are going to suffer.
I am convinced there is a way to end suffering, but since I have not personally walked that way, but only heard about it, I cannot speak from experience.
Recently Vesta wrote a post on her blog you might care to read. It could be relevant for you.