One of the things we do in TheTalk workshops is to reinforce the idea that sex is about feeling good. If what you’re doing doesn’t feel good then it’s ok to stop. If the person who wants to have sex with you doesn’t make you feel good, it’s ok to not have sex with that person. And it’s not just about feeling good in the moment. The choices you make about what kind of sex to have, if any, affect your whole self’s well-being so we teach people how to make informed choices that keep their whole selves well and happy.
In a nutshell, that’s what the Sheffield Centre is getting at with its new pamphlet “Pleasure”. Teens have sex (in broad scope) for two reasons, because they want to and because they think they should. Sheffield Centre for HIV & Sexual Health is trying to shift the focus away from social pressures and make the choice between being sexually active or inactive about whether or not the person wants to be. Not because it’s cool, not because his/her partner wants it, and certainly not because some jerk gets off on making other people do what they don’t want to do. By centering the locus of control inside the individual, they are hoping to reduce the rate of unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, and sexual abuse.
To a lot of people the idea of talking about sex as a good and positive thing in order to reduce harmful outcomes is oxymoronic. This latest kerfuffle seems to be drawing two main arguments: that if we tell kids sex is fun they’ll be more likely to have it and that telling folks they have a right to sex will lead to more abuse.
That first argument is patently absurd. Sex is fun? No, really? Like any person in the first world over the age of 10 doesn’t have a pretty good idea that sex is -at least in theory- something desirable. Western authorities have been preaching that sex is dangerous for at least 2,500 years. If that message was going to work it would have caught on by now. Let’s try a new tactic, hm?
The second argument is just a variant on the first. If we acknowledge that sex is fun and that everyone has a right to make the choice to have it or not, then everyone is going to want to have it and therefore force others to have it with them, say the proponents of the increased-abuse argument. Presuming that they are correct in asserting that everyone is going to want to have sex - and I know a few monastics and celibates that would have words to say about that- we’d have to assume that wanting a thing and taking it were logical equivalents. What this argument ignores is the very real shift in internal motivations when someone who has little power gains more. When people who feel they have no control over what happens to their bodies come to understand that not only do they have a choice in what they do but that those choices are based on what they want, they *make better choices*. This is shown over and over again in domestic abuse programs, addiction recovery programs, and in whole-life sexuality education programs such as Our Whole Lives and the curricula presented in schools in the Netherlands.
It can not be overstated that the reason those programs are successful is that they co-emphasize the roles of choice, information, and personal responsibility. I can’t help but wonder if the people who are so deeply afraid of giving young people access to information about their choices are threatened by their own ignorance and feelings of powerlessness. Are the people who shout about the end of the world being brought about through young people’s sex lives healthy and happy in their own? Are they comfortable in the process of getting and giving consent? Do they know what they enjoy and how to get those needs met in a safe and healthy way? What do you think?
So, to the Sheffield Centre for HIV & Sexual Health I say “good job!” Thanks for putting a bit more power in the hands of those who need it.