How can sex make the world a better place?

If you spend most of your work life thinking about sex it can be easy to get caught up in the minutiae of it all. And because sex is for many of us a site of conflict, anxiety, and pain, you can also quickly slip into feeling down about sex. When this happens I turn to colleagues and friends whose work reminds me of the big picture, and the potential for sex to be a positive force. Recently I asked some of these people to share their visions of how sex can make the world a better place. Between now and the New Year I’ll share their answers with you. If you have thoughts of your own feel free to share them in the comments section.

From Carol Queen:

Aside from the obvious reproductively-focused answer (sex will be responsible for most of the next generation, on whose shoulders will be carried the burden of saving the planet -- but don't toss out your pills and condoms, because much of that generation, like those currently alive, will be more part of the problem than the solution), here's how:

Sex is intimately entwined, in potential if not always in actuality, with two things that make life better -- pleasure and connection.

Yes, it's possible to have sex that includes neither pleasure nor much connection: too many people have that kind of sex, sometimes nothing but that kind of sex**. But good sex involves pleasure and connection, and it's possible to learn how to have that kind of sex. That alone means sex makes the world a better place: because we can decide to learn more about something so central, intimate, and accessible is a powerful positive change almost any of us can make. And if we can resolve to take a more active role in building a good sex life -- which involves informing ourselves, communicating more clearly, empathizing more with others (or at least one other, for us monogamous ones), and vanquishing shame and the belief that we don't deserve pleasure -- then there are many more things we can tackle in this world, for remaining powerless and dissatisfied around sex is an enormous metaphor (perhaps even a precursor) for our lack of optimum experience in every part of our lives.

So if we tackle issues of shame and self-worth, it will be easier to resist negative behaviors and harmful patterns, easier to treat ourselves gently and acknowledge our own value and potential. This has repercussions for our well-being at every level. If we can communicate and empathize, we are better set in every kind of relationship we could possibly have, from our lover/s to our families to our workmates, extending all the way to respecting the value and dignity of strangers we meet -- even those we never meet, because part of a sex-positive belief system is respecting others' rights to be themselves sexually just as we deserve the right to be ourselves. And since so much fear and disrespect taints the way people often treat each other around issues of sexual orientation and choice, it stands to reason that if we can accept our own sexual rights and those of others, we might accept others on a deeper level despite other sorts of difference.

Finally, because so many of us have received the message that we can't be who we want to be sexually -- nice girls and boys don't do this or that -- to make the journey to our own sexual authenticity means looking with a critical eye at the "shoulds" we've learned from society. When people look for new possibility and new ways of doing things, cultures grow. Decades ago, Wilhelm Reich noted that the society that can control its people's sexuality can control them completely. I, for one, still hold out hope that the reverse is true: that people who have the permission and information necessary to become their best sexual selves will demand (and create) a social system that works for people... including of course their health, their sex and relationship choices, their pleasure.

**And I'm not talking about masturbation here as a type of sex that's devoid of connection. "Love the one you're with" can apply whether you're exploring erotic pleasure partnered, multi-partnered, or solo. If you can't say, as Woody Allen quipped, that masturbation "is sex with someone you love," start right there.

~ Carol Queen, Ph.D.
Staff Sexologist, Good Vibrations Founding director, Center for Sex & Culture
(read more Carol Queen @ www.carolqueen.com and www.carolqueenblog.com