Sex Positivity Isn't Always Positive

Asexual Pride Flag

A lot of Quaker writing on sex reads like it’s trying to be sex-positive. That’s good, in the sense that religious approaches to sex in the Christian world aren’t generally expected to be, and it’s fair to say that we have this capacity to great pleasure and it can be godly to make use of it. I think sex-positive approaches to spirituality and – more importantly – to sex education are great. We don’t need to be telling people they shouldn’t have sex, just that they should do it responsibly and in a way that is fair and kind to them and to their partner(s).

There’s one problem with such sex-positivity, though. We can end up making it sound like sex is an essential part of the human experience – in fact, sometimes we come right out and say that, in more or less similar words. The problem is that it isn’t. It is for some of us, perhaps, even most of us. But there are those for whom it is not part of their experience. People who experience little or no sexual desire, or for whom it is never directed at another person (though solo enjoyment is still a sexual experience). There are those who experience it seldom, or only in certain circumstances, such as those who are demisexual (definitions of which vary). These people are not broken (though changes in experience as a result of trauma require careful consideration), any more than those who experience sexual desire for people of the same gender are broken. To be asexual, or anywhere on the ‘ace spectrum’, is as valid a sexuality as any other.