Written by: Eleanor Evins – Health Educator, Candor Health Education

Remember hearing the rumblings, either in the high school hallways or around the office about who was doing what with whom? More importantly, remember hearing the opinions and judgements that were made based upon those rumblings? Unfortunately, we live in a culture that both stigmatizes and assigns shame towards sexuality and sexual behavior. Most young adults, and especially young women, receive sex negative messages from early ages that reinforce sexual double standards and scrutiny of sexual behavior that can result in low self-esteem and, ironically, the belief that they now can “police” others sexual behavior. How do we combat this stigma and shame? Begin with sex positive sex education. At its most basic level, sex positivity is the broad ideology that all sex, as long as it is explicitly consensual, is inherently a good thing and a natural component to being human. The formal definition by the International Society for Sexual Medicine defines sex positivity as, generally, “having positive attitudes about sex and feeling comfortable about one’s own sexual identity and with the sexual behavior of others”. We must determine our individual perceptions of sex positivity and theorize about how sexuality education curriculum can best reinforce sex positive messages while remaining conscientious of the targeted age group for our sexuality programming.

In contrast, sex negativity describes ideologies that perceive human sexuality as being inherently problematic, risky, and adversarial to socially constructed moral codes¹. In sex negative societies and spaces, sex is strictly valued as a tool for human reproduction while sexual pleasure and variations in sexual behavior are scrutinized and shamed for not adhering to rigid social norms. The scrutinization and shame of other’s sexual behavior perpetuates prejudice towards diverse sexual preferences and behaviors in such a way that reinforce sexist, racist, homophobic, and ageist attitudes². In defiance of the perpetuation of sex negativity, sex positivity “allow[s] for a wide range of sexual expression that takes into account sexual identities, orientations, and behaviors; gender presentation; accessible health care and education; and multiple important dimensions of human diversity”.

To be clear, taking a sex positive approach to sexuality education does not mean promoting sex to a group of middle-school students or pretending that the consequences associated with sex don’t exist. Rather, sex positive sexuality education provides accurate and useful information on human sexuality and healthy sexual behaviors that ultimately empower students to make their own informed decisions regarding their own sexual behavior. Sex positivity must be incorporated through age-appropriate and ethical means that ultimately benefit the overall well-being and health of students.

We have the opportunity to not only empower students to make their own informed health decisions, but to also actively promote acceptance and a better understanding of diverse sexual orientations, identities, and behaviors. Reinforcing acceptance of others, despite differences in sexual preferences and behaviors, is a key tenant of promoting sex positive sexuality education. The hope is that with a shift to positive sexuality education we can start to eliminate the judgmental rumblings in the hallways, and reinforce healthy sexual behaviors while emphasizing acceptance and understanding.

1. International Society for Sexual Medicine. What does sex positive mean? Retrieved from https://www.issm.info/sexual-health-qa/what-does-sex-positive-mean/
2. Glickman, C. (2000). The language of sex positivity. Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality, 3 Retrieved from http://www.ejhs.org/volume3/sexpositive.htm

Williams, D. J., Prior, E., & Wegner, J. (2013). Resolving social problems associated with sexuality: can a “Sex-Positive” approach help? Social Work, 58(3), 273-276.