I set out to write a proper write-up of CineKink, during which I had the New York premiere of Dacia’s Love Machine and my friend Jennifer Lyon Bell’s film Matinee won the prize for Best Narrative Short. But in my head I keep coming back to thinking about the feature I saw the first night – Sex Positive, a documentary about Richard Berkowitz and the early years of HIV and safer sex activism.
I read Berkowitz’s book Stayin’ Alive: The Invention of Safer Sex when it was first published in 2003 – and I still vividly remember pieces of it. His memoir includes lots of intense personal and social history about the HIV epidemic, the increase in scientific knowledge about HIV (and the evolution of the acronyms used to describe it), plus plenty about activism, safer sex, and sex work. He wasn’t present at the screening of the film last week, but he was at the awards last night, and he brought up the fact that he felt like some of his ideas were given short shrift in the film. He wasn’t bashing on the director, Daryl Wein, with whom Berkowitz did hours and hours of interviews – which is hard as hell to trim down. But this is, of course, one of the problems with making a film of a palatable length. It’s never perfect.
Clarisse Thorn, who was at CineKink but with whom I didn’t get to talk very much, wrote a blog post about Berkowitz and Sex Positive after she screened the film for her Chicago-based sex positive documentary film series. In the post, she says:
…I thought representations of sex work and BDSM in the film were interesting. Berkowitz expresses reservations about his one-time career as a professional BDSM dominant. It’s unclear how much he thinks sex work is a bad thing in general, but he doesn’t come across as very happy that he did it. He talks about his BDSM activities, and those of his clients, as arising from “self-loathing” and “insecurity” and negative cultural pressures on the gay community; it’s unclear how much he thinks BDSM in general arises from those things. As a BDSM advocate I feel very wary of such representations. I feel even warier of the way Berkowitz, at one point, smiles while recalling how he always made a point of doing the things his partners said they absolutely did not want him to do. Yikes!
Berkowitz responds in the comments:
First, thanks for an insightful review of SEX POSITIVE. Many have told me they needed to gather themselves after SEX POSITIVE ends before they could sort out a complete re-telling of a history that shaped their lives but, as a result of gay censorship, they never knew. Second, the invention of safe sex was a collaboration. For clarification, please read: http://richardberkowitz.com/id20.html Of course BDSM was a source of joy in my life but I put it aside when it robs me from having a platform to champion safe sex to the largest possible audience, which BDSM often has. I was filmed talking over the course of a year; director Daryl Wein did a brilliant job–but editing doesn’t always capture comments in the context and nuance in which they were stated, and you did a great job nailing the comments that worried me! I stand by both my celebration and caveats about sex work & BDSM as written in my book, STAYIN’ ALIVE: The Invention of Safe Sex, and I hope to address these issues on my website RichardBerkowitz.com…
This and conversations at the event last night really made something click for me, and that’s the title of this post: sex positivity includes negative experiences. Sometimes sex positive people get upset or squirmy when unpleasant conversations see the light of day (and that’s viewed as the airing of dirty laundry), but these conversations and challenges need to happen in order for sex and culture to evolve in a healthy, boundary-pushy, stigma-defying way.
Having sad, fucked up and negative experiences with sex and then being honest and speaking up about them is not sex negative in and of itself. It’s important to give voice to the full range of experiences people have. To only speak up about hotness and glory is false and not a comprehensive vision of sex – in fact, it is an act of silencing people who want or need to speak out about fucked up shit that they’ve survived. Trauma, recovery, and learning to own your sexuality are really important pieces of sex positivity. And by the way, I use the word “comprehensive” in a very deliberate way, because of the concept of comprehensive sexuality education, which is so hotly debated in these United States of ours. Both good and bad experiences should be part of sex education, evaluation of risk, and thought processes behind safer sex activities.
9:16 am
I of course fully agree with your assertion that sex positivity has to include the negative side of sexuality. The hard part is being someone who speaks up about it – as you’re right, people view it as airing dirty laundry or as sex negativity. We need to support those who include the negative side with the intention of looking at what’s wrong and how we can improve it so that sex is a positive experience for all.
12:17 pm
A comment from Libby at Rollertrain that was aborted by my commenting system (I’m working on it!)
unless an author, artist or advocate in the sex industry is willing to confront and discuss the many different ways that individuals and communities have had – and continue to have – painful or negative experiences in their sexual lives, i can’t trust them.
one of the trends i dislike most about the latest generation of sex industry voices is the almost militant focus on positivity and political correctedness, which has its own brand of largely unrealistic optimism. although i respect that this trend developed from a place of compassion and political change, it’s foolish to dismiss the fucked up ordeals that nearly everyone experiences in their sex lives.
the reason why this positivity trend bothers me so much is because it creates a kind of philosophical bubble of false information around human sexuality, separating and often elevating it from all the other aspects of being human. sex is on the same level of complexity as every emotional and physical aspect of culture and humanity, and you are dead on in stating that more comprehensive ways of thinking will offer more realistic outlets for more people around the world.
great post.
Another spam-block commented from Miss Calico:
OK, I should be doing the Speak Up! app right now, but instead I’m coming to come over here to say, “Yes! This!”
Having sad, fucked up and negative experiences with sex and then being honest and speaking up about them is not sex negative in and of itself. It’s important to give voice to the full range of experiences people have. To only speak up about hotness and glory is false and not a comprehensive vision of sex – in fact, it is an act of silencing people who want or need to speak out about fucked up shit that they’ve survived.
yes yes yes yes yes.
I am always scared to talk about the less-than-stellar stuff because we seem to think that “intelligent”, “informed”, “sex-positive” people shouldn’t have bad experiences. That is such bull. No one’s perfect in our imperfect world. And setting that standard is only punishing ourselves. We can try to be perfect (and fail), but we’ll also end up keeping shamefully silent about all the time it wasn’t so hot and didn’t work so well. And that robs us of education and empathy and support and basically the whole point of our endeavor — which is to have better, safer, more open sex. Not politically correct perfection or shame.
Looking forward to reading Clarisse’s interview!
1:59 pm
I completely agree with you, and in fact the idea that we should be talking about negative experiences as well as positive ones — plus reflections on the potential “conflict” of talking about those things vs. creating a good sex-positive “image” — has figured heavily in my blog before.
My issue with Richard’s comments in the movie was not so much that he was saying anything negative at all … it was the broadness of some statements, like the assertion that BDSM in the gay community in general came out of self-loathing and insecurity, or the idea that he “always” went somewhere his clients specifically asked him not to go. Of course I think that we should talk about negative sexual experiences, but Richard’s comments could have been edited in a way that didn’t make them sound so general.
I’ve talked to Richard over email and in person, and he’s told me that he was really glad that I wrote the review that I did. He also said that he’s felt anxious all along about how some of his comments came across. In fact, he said that he begged director Daryl Wein to take out the line about how he always would do things that his clients asked him not to do — he said that the clip of him saying that was an inaccurate representation of what he meant. He felt that it makes him come across like a rapist.
I offered Richard the chance to do an email interview that would clarify his feelings about sex work and BDSM, and he was excited to accept. I’ll be finishing up those questions and posting the interview to my blog sometime in the next couple weeks.
3:49 pm
[...] feel. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to post it. But I read Audacia Ray’s piece about how Sex Positivity Includes Negative Experiences and felt compelled to put this out in the space as a truth about things that happen and the ways in [...]
7:48 am
Another spam-blocked comment, this one from Tony Comstock:
I left this comment over at Susan Quilliam’s blog on her entry “Reclaiming Joy”. Susan updated the 70s classic The Joy of Sex, and in this post she was ruminating on all the negativity that has come to surround sex since the height of the sexual revolution. This was my response: If I look at the films from that same era, what I see is a tremendous degree of naivete. It would seem that the denizens of the early 1970s thought that the pill and abortion would do away with all negative consequences of sex. (Or that anyone who suffered any sort of a wound that was not related to an unplanned pregnancy was simply a “prude” who needed to “get over it.” Of course by the end of the 70s it was becoming rather clear we had not entered a new, care-free sexual utopia. New physical dangers emerged, and there was still (and ever will be) the chance of getting your heart broken. My own thinking about sex, both in my person life, and as a filmmaker is tremendously influenced by my experiences as a surfer, rock climber, skier, and various other pleasures that reward responsible risk taking. Some of the most interesting literature in the mountaineering world is devoted to forensic examination of tragedies, which necessarily invite the reader/climber to reflect on their own values and form judgements. “Judgement” is fairly nearly a dirty work in the sex-positive community, but it need not be. Good judgement is at least as fruitful a route to joy as anything else. I would go on to say that the 70s naivete has been (largely) replaced by a stultifying combination of cynicism and/or pranksterism; hardly an environment that fosters being honest about sexuality as a holistic human experience, or reclaiming joy. (What was that line in Shortbus? “It’s like the 70s, only with less hope.” Something like that.) I also can’t help but think that much like the late 60s/early 70s, we’ve come to the end of an era and let yet another opportunity slip through our fingers. Over on thebuild.com, Blowfishes Christophe placed (correctly in my opinion) the end of the organic search gold rush at September 2006. The marketing calculus for new ideas has changed, and not in way that favors new ideas about how sexuality can and should exist in our culture. While sex-positivity dithered over being inclusive and non-judgmental, the cynics and the clowns defined what sexuality, and especially what commercial sexuality is, with the same predictable result.
The conversation’s overdue. Maybe the next time a golden opportunity comes along, it won’t be squandered.
12:17 am
A comment from Anthony Kennerson of Smackdog Chronicles:
Although I do acknowledge a lot of the criticism and do understand what many of the critics are saying about all experiences — positive and negative – being worthwhile, I still have my own misgivings about the terms of this debate.
The implication seems to be that “sex positive” people are always in denial that personal sexual experiences can be just as negative as positive (or neutral, or all three in different circumstances). In my view, that’s a false misconception…because all of the “sex positive” activists and spokespeople I’ve learned from have always acknowledged that experiences can differ, and are not simply promoters of the belief that each and every sexual encounter or practice is innately “good” or “empowering”.
As for the notion that “sex-positive” people have lost their notions of what is and isn’t “judgmental”: well, I’d say that the responses I’ve seen here are proof positive that value judgments still remain even in the most supposedly “sex positive” people. Not that there is nothing wrong with personal value judgments — after all, no two people are alike in their sexual tastes — but when it is used as a weapon to create a hierarchy of standards where certain practices are arbitrarily elevated while others are devalued, then it becomes less “sex positive” and more discrimination. Personal squicks at practices you don’t like is perfectly normal and legitimate; imposing your personal practices as edicts for all to follow is definitely….not.
If the term “sex positive” means anything, it should mean the principle that people have the right and the responsibility to be as honest and open about their sexual practices as humanly possible, and that ALL experiences — the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, and the trite — should be granted equal acceptance. Those who would use the title of “sex positive” to promote some standard of perfection and some gloss of total bliss at the expense of actual experience are certainly abusing the title and should be called out…but those who use the title as a means to downgrade other people’s choices are just as harmful to the cause…especially in the face of the fact that our culture remains very much “sex negative” and reactionary. Let us not feed the flames of those who are already ready to condemn all for the sake of maintaining their own hierarchies.
I don’t want to censor anyone here; I just don’t want this conversation to degenerate into another round of “My desires are good, but yours’ are evil”; that only serves the reactionaries who would love to play “divide and conquer”.
As always, just my opinion….take it as you will.
10:42 am
[...] that could be so important? And then picked up by Audacia Ray at her blog WakingVixen.com in post Sex Positivity Includes Negative Experiences This and conversations at the event last night really made something click for me, and that’s [...]
8:47 pm
[...] Sex Positivity Includes Negative Experiences [...]
1:49 pm
Here you go!
http://clarissethorn.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/interview-with-richard-berkowitz-star-of-sex-positive-and-icon-of-safer-sex-activism/