Anyone with a social media account has probably seen some part of the fairly new ‘sex-positivity’ movement that is taking place on the internet. Encouraging women to embrace their sexuality and to feel comfortable talking about it isn’t inherently bad. It’s making a lot of strides in the age-old mentality that women can’t be open about sex. However, every movement has its flaws. While this movement has empowered women to be more open about a common part of life, it’s also encouraged very harmful behavior, especially in younger women.
The internet sex positivity movement is a one-sided movement in the way it’s presented. A large part of the movement encourages women to have casual sex with anyone, without speaking about the consequences of that action. This is an extremely dangerous thing to promote, especially for young women. It’s extremely harmful to encourage this to any and every woman because it often times comes with emotional repercussions. A lot of times, sex is used in a harmful manner to cope with other problems and this is oftentimes looked over when speaking about sex positivity. Telling women to engage in sexual behavior all the time and calling it ‘sexually liberating’ could potentially be harmful. By encouraging this behavior all the time, it’s encouraging potentially harmful tendencies at times that need to be addressed.
A lot of times, the movement also looks over talking about healthy sexual activities. Telling women to have sex all the time without discussing how to have safe sex is nothing. Most times, there’s no talk about getting tested for STD’s, using proper protection or even boundaries when it comes to sex. There’s no talk about realizing when sex is unhealthy or when better boundaries should be established. There’s no talk of signs when you should see a doctor, or when you should evaluate your behavior. There’s a lack of educating women, particularly young women, when it comes to speaking about sex, which once again encourages the unhealthy sexual behavior.
While this movement is both needed and necessary, it’s very flawed in its presentation. When trying to advocate for something as large as this, it’s important to talk about all sides of what’s being advocated for. It’s great to encourage women to be open about sex and to feel that they can speak about it on a comfortable basis. It’s unhealthy to blindly encourage women to partake in sexual acts, without emphasizing the possible repercussions. It’s unhealthy to talk about the emotional and mental toll sexual activities could have for some.
The movement in and of itself isn’t inherently bad. Not everyone who supports this movement is bad, and not everyone is just blindly shouting at every girl to have sex. But every movement has its flaws and this one is its lack of education.
