Sexual
politics
Sexual
Health: a sex-positive approach
Related
pages:
This page discusses our approach to sexual health
promotion, which can be summarized as
'sex-positive'. Rather than trying to medicalize
sexuality as a way of dealing with difficult
and often messy sexual issues, we hope to
support adults in investing in 'good sexual
health' and in making their own choices.
For us this approach includes being
able to sustain emotionally supportive and
passionate sexual relationships as well as
finding joy and satisfaction from sex both in the arms of
another or by oneself. We think that this is
the only rational and honest way of dealing
with the current sexual health crisis and
the many cultural taboos around sexuality,
which limit access to information, health
care and joy for so many individuals.
Jackson and Scott (2004)
explore the inherent contradictions of how
we approach sexuality in our culture. The
authors argue that although we seem to be
getting more liberal in our attitudes
towards sexuality, we are also deeply
conflicted about it. 'These anxieties centre
around the specialness of sex, its status as
extra-ordinary, as somehow separable from
everyday special practices and routines, a
source of ecstasy that lifts us beyond the
mundane but also uniquely problematic and
liable to provoke disgust and revulsion.'
(Jackson and Scott 2004: 232). The authors
centre their argument on four inherent
contractions in our cultural approach to
sexuality.
First, our approach to
children and sexuality is deeply ambivalent
as we hold the collective belief that we
answer questions openly while at the same
time trying to say as little as possible to
preserve 'innocence'.
Second, as a society
we proclaim to support sexual diversity,
however we still measure it against the
norm of heterosexual relationships.
Third,
we are arguing for egalitarianism in sexual
relationships while at the same time
getting entrenched in defining 'gender' via
genetics, therefore creating polarized and
stereotyped categories for maleness and
femaleness.
Finally, we see ourselves as
sexually liberated while at the same time
conforming to a generalized standard of
sexual perfection, resulting in the rigid
expectation that sex should be
overwhelmingly ecstatic all the time.
Jackson and Scott (2004) conclude that we
need to question the special status of
sexuality in our culture as a way of
approaching and investigating it in a more
open way.
Their work is corroborated by
Frankham's (2006) study on sex education by
parents. Frankham found that although
parents professed to being open and
approachable about sexual matters, the way
in which they actually engaged in
conversations about sexuality with their
children closed down dialogue and
discouraged questions. It is important to
note how Jackson and Scott's (2004) work as
well as Frankham's study (2006) point
towards our cultural biases when talking
about sexuality. One consequence of our
ambivalence about sexuality can be seen in
our lack of discussion about what sexual
'wellbeing' may entail. Whereas other public
health campaigns refer to good health and
wellbeing as ultimate goals, so as to encourage
people to invest in their health rather than
to deal with ill health once it arises, the
same approach is not evident in sexual
health. Medical services tend not to discuss
what 'good sex' or 'sexual wellbeing' may be,
nor do they support people in aiming for it.
In
sex-and-relationships we aim for a holistic
approach to sexual health, including its
physical and psychological aspects
(Department of Health 2001). Globally,
different populations can be expected to
have different information needs, which our
project aims to be mindful of.
Additionally, our society - as well as some
other non-western societies - is deeply ambivalent
about sexuality (Jackson and Scott 2004, Frankham 2001, Frankham 2006). Any health
promotion project focusing on sexual health
must be attentive to the political and
social context of such a service.
Established practices such as medicalizing
sexual health and refraining from offering a
pro-sexuality message or encouraging sexual
wellbeing needs to be critiqued (Bay-Cheng
2001). Furthermore, the selection and
presentation of a sexual and emotional
health education service is as important as
its content. The way a story is told
communicates powerful messages which can be
contradictory to its explicit content
(Jackson and Scott 2004, Frankham 2006).
Sex-and-Relationships fully
supports a sex-positive approach (Bay-Cheng
2001) to sexual health education. We have
tried to ensure that the way sexuality and
relationships are presented does not include
negative discourses on sexuality (Fine
1988). However, this approach seems to clash
with cultural taboos about sexuality and
health professionals' comfort zones. We
believe that the contradictions around
sexuality (Jackson and Scott 2004) need to
be challenged to diffuse stigma and
encourage responsible actions and good
health. This needs to include a challenge to
the 'special' status sexuality holds in our
own and many other societies (Jackson and Scott
2004).
Acknowledging different
agendas of visitors to a sexual
health website is important if we assume
that Gilbert et al's (2005) suggestion is
correct, namely that a dose-response
relationship exists between how often and
how long a visitor engages with a health
promotion website and the amount of impact
such a project has on the visitor.
Therefore, it is important that online
health promotion projects - including sex
education websites - engage the visitors with
what they are interested in, so that they
may also have some influence on topics
the visitors may be less curious about. This
suggest gegsts education in general this
brings up visions of information on healthy
lifestyles and wellbeing whereas in the
field of sex education professionals
including the author seem to encounter their
own contradictions and taboos about
sexuality.
If sex education in general, and
Sex-and-Relationships in particular, truly
aim to continue in the tradition of health
education promoting good health and
wellbeing (rather than managing ill health when
it has occurred), sex educators need to
challenge their own ways of reproducing the
contradictions in our society's way of
constructing sexuality (Jackson and Scott
2004). Additionally, online sex education
projects for adults are woefully
under-researched. It seems as if the special
status of sexuality is still making it hard
for adults to access the information they
need even in the 21st Century or for
researchers and practitioners to investigate
and improve current services.
References:
Bay-Cheng, L.Y. (2001)
SexEd.com: Values and norms in web-based
sexuality education. The Journal of Sex
Research 38, 3, 241-251
Fine, M. (1988) Sexuality,
schooling, and adolescent females: The
missing discourse of desire. Harvard
Educational Review 58, 29-53
Frankham, J. (2001) The
“open secret”: limitations on the expression
of same-sex desire. Qualitative Studies in
Education, 12, 4, 457-469
Frankham, J. (2006)
Antimonies and parent/child sex education:
Learning from foreclosure. Sexualities 9,
236
Gilbert, L.K., Rae, Temby,
J.R.E., Rogers, S.E. (2005) Evaluating a
teen STD prevention website. Journal of
Adolescent Health 37, 236-242
Jackson, S., Scott, S. (2004) Sexual
antinomies in late modernity. Sexualities 7,
2, 233-248
Extract of doctoral thesis,
edited by Anna 17.08.09 |
