I know what you’re thinking: what exactly is sex positivity and what does that affect in my life? Well, I have some life-changing answers for you. Sex positivity is grounded in comprehensive sex education, exploring and deconstructing gender norms, and promoting body positivity and self-love. According to Feminist Campus, this concept fosters safe spaces in which different identities and sexual expressions are valued and bodily autonomy is paramount. In other words, it’s inclusive. Inclusion is the main aspect that has been missing in older practices of sexual education. Now, there has been an extreme change due to sex positivity!
Sex positivity is fundamentally a positive — aha, see what I did there? — point of view on sex and overall sexual health. It’s extremely important for schools to implement this type of attitude when teaching students about sexual education so that everyone gets the basic information so safer sex!
Important topics that sex positivity help promote are:
- Consent
- Gender & sex myths
- Self-defined sexuality
- Self-love
- Condoms and contraceptives
- And — of course — inclusive, comprehensive, safer sex!
This new ‘tude that’s coming into the world of sexual education is an entire shift on how our society views and teaches about sexual health. Older methods of educating youth and young adults often utilize scare tactics, showing the results of catching STIs and other really uncomfortable things that aren’t very appealing when it comes to learning a new topic. Especially if you actually enjoy learning things; I don’t think I’d enjoy learning about sexual education if all my teacher ever did was show me and my classmates’ pictures of really bad symptoms of syphilis. Yeah, no thanks.
One of the most important things to understand about sex positivity is that it’s not all about the promotion of sexual activity! Sex positivity is simply a useful tool to help guide others in the right direction and attitude about your own sexual health. Without it, we would most likely be misinformed about most of the topics that aren’t covered or fully discussed.
Just a quick-but-obvious FYI: don’t go around telling people that sex-positivity is all about having sex 24/7.
So, next time you think about talking about sexual health, remember that your attitude towards sexual health and how it affects your life. Sex positivity is a life-changing concept once you realize it helps you redefine what your sexual health looks like. Raising your awareness of this type of attitude will help elevate inclusive safer sex!
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