Sex Positive Week: sex positivity can be part of a Jesuit education

The idea for Sex Positive Week was born out of contemplating an arguably inane subject: ice cream flavors. Most people have a favorite ice cream flavor, but others might feel torn between two, and still others might not even like the stuff. But surely no one feels ashamed or nervous about publicly discussing or supporting any one of those views.
If we can have an open and honest conversation about ice cream flavors, why not open up about sexuality as well? With that sentiment, Sex Positive Week sought to open up a discussion about sexuality and how it affects our lives.
Sex positivity is a simple yet radical idea that an individual’s right to make sexual choices must be respected. Sex positivity discourages sexual shame and coercive sexual acts, espousing instead safe, healthy, and responsible choices for one’s body and mind. In addition, sex positivity applies not only to the physical act of intercourse, but also to emotions, intimacy, foreplay, and spirituality.
In advocating this concept and all of its accompanying complexities, Sex Positive Week became a multifaceted intellectual of sex positivity, which included discussions about whether sexual freedom is a basic human right, a debate on virginity, celibacy, and abstinence, a debate over whether porn can play a role in an empowering, sex-positive environment, and a lecture by proponents of polyamory.
Some have argued that such events are not harmonious with Georgetown’s identity as a Catholic institution. However, Sex Positive Week contributes to the Catholic value of dialogue and debate, as well as to the Jesuit ideal of cura personalis. Although the Catholic Church does not endorse certain topics discussed during the events—namely, homosexuality—the Society of Jesus and Georgetown as a university promote the importance of discussion. As such, the idea that one can be sex positive and Catholic should be welcomed in the Georgetown community.
A discussion of sexuality that includes homosexuality should be particularly welcomed in a Catholic community that has recently embraced an LGBTQ Center. Society’s general unwillingness to talk honestly about sex and sexuality in any context, as well as its tendency to place sexual orientations in a hierarchy, make it incredibly difficult for an individual to come out as a sexual minority. The initial reaction of “anal sex between men is disgusting” can quickly move to “anal sex is wrong” and forward to “people who have this sex are bad people.”
If all people were sex positive, and embraced all forms of consensual sexual expression and discussions about sex and sexuality, coming out would not be an issue. In bringing sexual discussion beyond the LGBTQ context, this week proved that sex affects all our lives.
Trying to silence this discussion exemplifies an anti-sex judgment placed on another group. The Roman Catholic Church judges sexual expression, deeming some acts virtuous and others sinful, a practice which is decidedly not sex-positive and does not emphasize love and respect between partners.
Many believers in the Church choose to live their lives in accordance with the Church’s teachings. However, some members of the Georgetown community are not Catholic or are Catholic but have diverging views on this issue. These students should be permitted to openly discuss their views on sexuality, just as the Catholic community has every right to share its views on the matter. When our ideas are silenced because of a judgment against them, our very identities are disrespected.
On a more practical, but no less important, level, sex positivity could help reduce the number of sexual assaults on and around campus. Negative attitudes toward sex contribute to a culture of rape and assault, inhibiting informed decision-making and communication between partners. The ability for people, especially women, to feel more empowered by their decisions and bodies is critical to stopping rape. Sex positivity’s emphasis on consensual sex creates a culture in which rape is unthinkable.
Even beyond its problem with sexual assaults, the Georgetown community could benefit from more sex positivity on an everyday basis. Too often, women deal with lewd comments by aggressive drunk men on campus. In a school where “hooking up” at a party seems to be an all-too-common goal, many of us find it difficult to talk openly about issues in our sexual lives, including insecurities, sex within relationships, vulnerability to STIs, the decision not to have sex, and the conflicts some confront in their own or others’ experience with pornography.
So let’s talk more about sex and not try to police open discussions. After all, silence is so not sexy.