What is Sexual Justice?6/21/2024  ART BY UTERISH Sexual justice is where sexuality meets social justice. It is about seeing the ways in which free sexual expression and sexual wellness are not accessible to all—and working toward a more sexually just world. Sexual rights are more restricted for people with marginalized gender and sexual identities than they are for people whose identities are accepted as mainstream. They are also more limited for people who experience oppression in other ways, like racism, ableism, poverty, xenophobia, etc. For instance, a straight White person growing up in a rich country is more likely to receive sexuality education and have access to sufficient sexual wellness resources that are relevant for their needs than a gay Black person growing up in a poor country. This is just one of countless examples of how inequality shows up in the realm of sexuality.
Sexual rights, both locally and globally, are a crucial part of sex-positivity and sexual freedom. Sexual rights issues include:
What's the difference between sexual justice and sex-positivity? Many people misunderstand the point of sex-positivity, seeing it as a fun lifestyle that could get you invited to an orgy. While orgies are all well and good, sex-positivity is about so much more than living an unexamined life of pleasure! Carol Queen, the sex educator who coined the term sex-positive, is now preferring to use the term sexual justice herself. "The deeper definition of sex positivity—way more than just enthusiasm about sex, which was never intended to be the definition of that phrase—is about social justice: access to information, resources, freedom from shame, a focus on consent, diversity and more," explains Queen. Since so many people still think of sex-positivity as just meaning "open about sex" or "really into sex," sexual justice comes as a clarifying reframe. This doesn't mean that it's wrong to use the term "sex-positive"—though you might find that people misunderstand it. For Pleasure Pie, we are moving toward using the term sexual justice more often, though we'll still throw in a "sex-positive" here and there when we need an adjective. This article was written by Nicole Mazzeo. Nicole is a shame-free sex and consent educator with a passion for zine making. She founded Pleasure Pie in 2014. Comments are closed.
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