Sex-Positive Feminism and Pornography Flashcards
what is sex positivity
the idea that feminism should privilege sexual pleasure and fight sexual repression
How is sex positivity no fading from fashion among younger people?
- it is thought that it is not longer radical or even really necessary to proclaim that women take pleasure in sex
- taking pleasure in sex seems, to some, vaguely obligatory
What does the word “demisexual” refer to?
those attracted only to people with whom they share an emotion connection with
what do most young, presumably progressive women think “choice feminism” caters to?
- caters to “patriarchy and the male gaze”
- liberal feminism telling young girls that hook up culture is liberating, conditioning them to think that if you do not have extreme kinks at a young age then they are boring and vanilla
Past vs. Present re: sex-positive feminism
- past: was able to ease the dissonance between what women want and what they feel they’re supposed to want for women who felt hemmed in by sexual taboos and pressured to deny their own turn-ons
- present: seems less relevant to women who feel brutalized by the expectation that they’ll be open to anything
Reasons that Oxford students were in agreements in regards to porn being harmful
- objectifies/harms women (ex. anal is the last taboo, ties to phallic dominance)
- provides a sexual script that leaves them alienated and insecure (the physical body but also the way sexuality is enacted)
- does not speak to their longings/frustrations, is just about the physical act (no tenderness, intimacy, connection)
- increasing awareness of power differences in sex/sexual scripts
How is sex positivity fused with culture of pornography?
- equates desire for intimacy, commitment, and monogamy as repression/oppression
- wanting emotional intimacy/vulnerability = oppressive
SEIM
sexual explicit internet material
What was the research question in the 2014 study involving young adults’ experience?
do urban heterosexual Canadian young adults, aged 19-29 perceive the consumption of SEIM to influence their sexual health, and if so, how?
Measures of sexual health
- sexual knowledge
- sexual perception
- sexual activity
- sexual partners relations
- perceptions of sexuality
- overall wellbeing
SEIM impacts on sexual knowledge in 2014 study?
- enhanced sexual knowledge
- what sex actually looks like
- because its so explicit and visual
- participants also highlighted that SEIM provides them with one of the only resources to learn about non-normative content
SEIM impacts on sexual self-perception in 2014 study
- increased self-acceptance and self-confidence
- enhancing their self-perception
- on one hand because it normalized their desires
- on the other in increased self-confidence and ideas of body image for older aged individuals but not younger participants because older participants were able to view porn and think critically about what was going on
SEIM impacts on sexual activity
- increased sexual activity
- they had an enhanced understanding of the mechanics of specific sexual activities
- felt more confident in their. abilities
- sexual activity satisfaction linked to wanting to be “good” at activities
- however some reported stress about sex earlier in life (ex. men not being able to last as long)
- decreased offline functioning via SEIM misconsumption
SEIM impacts of Sexual Partners Relations
- limited influences on offline relationships
- mixed perceptions about gender representations in SEIM - men had conflicting feelings about the portrayal of women in the SEIM, women critically assessed other elements of SEIM
SEIM impacts on perceptions of sexuality
- increased acceptance of sexual diversity
- became more openminded
