Mar
7
Paper Topic: “Let’s Talk About Sex”
March 7, 2015 | 3 Comments
I plan to write about individuals sharing personal information about their sex lives as a form of activism that aims to eliminate awkwardness and shame.
There are two main groups of activists I’d like to consider here: 1) feminists asserting their right to sexual freedom by rejecting the traditional attitude of secrecy and shame, and 2) sexual health advocates encouraging people to overcome the awkwardness and embarrassment of talking about sex in order discuss safe sex with their children and partners, communicate likes and dislikes with their partners for a more satisfying sex life, etc. Of course, there’s a lot of overlap between the two.
A perfect example is Charreah K. Jackson, who in this video for Essence.com asks women in the street very personal, juicy questions like “When was your last orgasm?” and “What’s your sexual fantasy?” before moving the discussion to interviewees’ safe-sex practices. In her article for BedSider.org, she references the video as an example of how she exercises her “sexual voice” before launching into “Not Awkward: 5 Tips for Talking to Anyone about Sex and Birth Control,” in which she explains how to “get the conversation started” with anyone “from your guy to your gyno to your girls.”
While I think most people would agree that having conversations about safe sex and being able to communicate with your partner in bed are good things (even if they remain embarrassing and difficult in practice), the appropriateness of incorporating public sex confessions remains up to debate. Some may see it as an admirable (and especially for women sharers, feminist) assertion of “sexual voice” that fosters a culture comfortable with sex, thereby enabling healthy attitudes and conversations in private. Others may view it as a definite overshare in the service of cheap entertainment, believing sexual health advocacy should remain limited to the kind of general advice seen in Jackson’s article, not personal confessions like those seen in her video.
I’m still figuring out what approach to take. Should it be descriptive of the different approaches (personal vs. general) and their reception, looking at the division in public opinion over what constitutes oversharing? Should it narrow focus to the personal confession approach only, looking at how it intentionally “overshares” in order to enact social change? Should I choose to focus on either the feminist or the sexual health advocacy aspects, or does it make sense to include both since they are so intertwined?
Comments
3 Comments so far
Sorry, didn’t identify myself. This was posted by Zoe!
Hi. I’d imagine that this is a very complicated topic because it takes into account so many different views, opinions, experiences, etc. It also takes into account epistemological questions about sexual morality (i.e. whether or not certain sexual practices are self-evidently wrong or right or whether or not you have to experience certain sexual practices to know whether or not they’re wrong or right).
There are also certain historical and cultural realities which this topic is related to. Arguably, American society has been sexually liberated to a much higher degree and extent since the 1960’s. In my opinion, not much has change since then, even though there are still some ‘sexual prudes.’ Arguably, a lot of people probably do talk about sex and are not embarrassed by it. If they do not do it in person, some may do it on an online venue such as yahoo.answers.com.
Going back to the sexual revolution (1960’s) point I made earlier, certain books and movies obviously inspired the sexual revolution. One of them was David Reuben’s Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Too Afraid to Ask). Another book that was popular during the 1960’s was D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterlay’s Lover (even though it originally came out in 1928). There are obviously others; you can find them on Wikipedia. Perhaps you can focus on a book, etc. which ‘overshared’ (i.e. caused a stir in a society which was relatively more sexually restrained.)
Zoe, This is a great topic for our course; I particularly like that it explores a nexus between sex education and advocacy.
Re: Still figuring out what approach to take. That is more than fine, I think…you might need a little more time to consider which of these approaches is the most urgent for you personally–and as you say some of these overlap. Personally, I like the notion of intentionally “oversharing” in order to enact social change…