aroacepositivityplace:

Hi, anon. This is a lot to unpack, but I’ll try my best to give a nuanced explanation. It’s honestly okay not to understand sex, but some of the ideas you have here do have the potential to be harmful. Sex positivity is both supporting those who don’t want to have sex and supporting those who do because both groups are shamed for their choices.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with sexual attraction. For those who experience it, it’s completely natural.

Sexual attraction is not inherently predatory. If two people both want to have sex with one another, nobody is being taken advantage of. Sex isn’t tricking or trapping people into pleasuring you. It’s consensual activity that all parties agree upon and are enthusiastic about.

Some people deal with their libido solely by masturbation. Some people have sex. There is nothing greedy or selfish about having sex. It’s just a decision that people can make to feel good or bond. It’s just another way for people to meet their needs.

The issue isn’t with sexual attraction so much as objectification. Someone can look at another person and finding them to be extremely sexually desirable and still respect their boundaries and treat them kindly without expecting anything in return. Someone asking another person if they’d like to have sex with them isn’t automatically objectifying them. You can see someone as a whole person and still want to have sex with them. If someone were to look at another person and only see them as objects for their own sexual gratification (such as when people get upset when someone won’t have sex with them) that’s where there’s an enormous issue of entitlement to someone else’s body.

Wanting to have sex with someone doesn’t automatically set up a power dynamic. Sometimes it just comes down to which person prefers to be penetrated/do the penetrating because they like the sensation, if penetration is involved at all. A lot of sex doesn’t involve any sort of topping/bottoming or dominating/submitting (which is addressed more in the next paragraph). Sometimes sex is just people taking turns giving one another orgasms through various types of stimulation. If one person in a relationship doesn’t like to reciprocate oral sex or something similar, that can be an issue, but it also might be something that their partner is fine with. One person only wanting to receive/give a sex act isn’t inherently bad or selfish.

The idea of domination in sex is a whole different ball game. That’s where kink comes into play.

Kink is not inherently objectifying either. It’s just different ways that some people like to achieve sexual gratification. Kink also goes beyond spanking and bondage. It can involve praise, roleplay, and other things that aren’t BDSM. It’s not the 50 shades of gray narrative (which actually is abusive and an awful example of both kink and relationships in general) that most people think encompasses all of kink. Again, if all parties involved are giving enthusiastic consent and understand what is being done, nobody is being taken advantage of.

Sex involving “make them do stuff” isn’t sex, it’s rape. If all parties
involved aren’t consenting to everything happening without coercion, it’s rape.

If someone feels like they’re being objectified or controlled through sex, then that is an unhealthy relationship. Unhealthy sexual relationships exist and are often glorified by society and media, but that doesn’t mean that sex is inherently unhealthy. It is very possible for someone to have sexual encounters and relationships that don’t make them feel demeaned or manipulated, but actually make them feel empowered as a person.

I hope that this provided some insight. It’s 100% okay if you want to talk more.

Note: I do not participate in kink and am not sexually active. I strive to be a sex and kink
positive feminist and I’m open to anything I said here being corrected
or added onto.