6 Sex-Positive Traits You Won’t Find in Porn
Fight the New Drug is pro-sex, pro-love, and pro-gender equality, which are the very reasons why we educate about the harmful effects of porn.
What exactly does sex-positive mean? The International Society for Sexual Medicine explains the term by saying, “For most, it involves having positive attitudes about sex and feeling comfortable with one’s own sexual identity and with the sexual behaviors of others.”
6 Traits of Sex-Positive People
To get a better idea of what sex positivity involves, here are six traits that sex-positive people possess (and how porn is an opponent to each one of them).
1. They Are Open to Learn More
When it comes to sex, there’s so much to learn! Having a healthy curiosity about your body and your partner’s body is natural and good. Taking it further, understanding all the other elements (physical, psychological, and emotional) that play into creating sexual intimacy can contribute to having amazing sex and intimate connections with a partner.
However, it is a process, and one must be patient in putting all the pieces together. Getting a quick sexual education through consuming porn is a poor substitute for partnered pleasure because porn is mostly about sexual performance, unrealistic expectations, and one-sided orgasms.
Learning about each other through consensual connection is far more fulfilling!
2. They Care About Safe Sex
Sex positivity prioritizes the safety of yourself and your partner — in all ways. Feeling physical, physiologically, and emotionally safe and comfortable is compulsory for having a positive sexual experience. A sex-positive person builds mutual trust by paying attention to both parties to ensure no one is feeling compromised, only comfortable.
In contrast, porn can be unsafe for the consumer. Physically, it teaches that dominance, selfishness, humiliation, and pain are good for sexual encounters. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, these things are harmful and cause a lot of damage to people’s bodies, minds, and hearts.
3. They Consider Sex to Be Healthy and Enjoyable
Great sex doesn’t cause shame. After all, there should be nothing to hide, right? But porn can definitely contribute to feelings of shame. In a study published in 2020 for Psychology of Men & Masculinities, the key finding was that heterosexual men’s “pornography use is associated with guilt and shame.”
One concerning trend is that porn can fuel dissatisfaction with real people and real sex. Porn can change what consumers think is sexy or what gets them aroused. That is if you can get aroused without porn.
Neither experiencing shame nor needing to escalate sexual behavior to get aroused are signs of a healthy and enjoyable sexual encounter. Feeling this way shouldn’t be the outcome of having sex. Just the opposite — sex ideally fosters acceptance, connection, love, and fun.
4. They Have High Self-Esteem
Because sex-positive people know how their body works, care about their safety, and don’t feel shame over their sexuality, their self-esteem could be higher than those who consume porn.
Under porn’s influence, self-esteem tends to tank. Anxiety and depression can easily take their place. This happens because porn openly:
- Fosters and exploits insecurities because of unrealistic standards of appearance and performance
- Leaves viewers without any needed emotional intimacy
- Fuels isolation, leading to loneliness
- Causes feelings of shame
- Glorifies cheating on committed partners
- Leads to toxic gender and sexual stereotyping
- Reduces human beings to objects that are only good for obtaining self-pleasure
- Undervalues human qualities such as kindness, empathy, and love
In fact, one 2019 study of heterosexual women in relationships with men found that their partner’s porn habits fueled eating disorder mentalities because of bodily comparison and low self-esteem.
5. They Care About Ending Sex Trafficking
One of the ugliest truths about porn is its inherent connection to the sex trafficking trade. The definition of sex trafficking is “a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age.”
Here’s a breakdown of some of these terms so you can get a better vision of what it means.
Sex Trafficking: The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.
Commercial Sex Act: Any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person.
Coercion:
- Threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person.
- Any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person.
- The abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.
So how does pornography play a role in sex trafficking? There are incidental connections, such as when viewers are shown porn with the intent to decrease compassion toward victims. There are supply-and-demand connections because viewing it can cause a compulsion or an addiction to take hold, fueling more of a desire to consume. There are physical connections when demeaning or violent videos “teach” others that what is portrayed is the norm.
In the end, perhaps the most significant connection is the cause-and-effect connection that can’t be ignored. Many porn performers are actually sex-trafficked victims, not respected performers who have control over their own career — and there is no way to know the difference.
6. They Wait for Consent
Acknowledging and accepting their partner’s permission, timing, and preferences is a crucial sex-positive trait. Partners must value each other equally. Consent and consideration need to be given on both sides. Otherwise, sex becomes coerced, risky, and unpleasant for at least one person (if not both).
Pornography teaches consumers that consent isn’t important. Even though it’s not okay to maximize your pleasure above someone else’s, that’s not what is shown in many of porn’s plotlines and depicted scenes, especially on mainstream sites.
Porn Is Not Sex-Positive, but You Can Be
Porn promotes unhealthy sexual ideas and practices. In other words, porn is sex-negative. Fight the New Drug, on the other hand, promotes and educates on sex positivity using scientific facts and personal experiences.
If you want to learn how to become more sex-positive, here are eight ways you can do just that:
- Have open and honest conversations about porn.
- Share this article with a partner or friend.
- Read other recent articles about the harmful effects of porn.
- Listen to the Terry Crews’ episode on the Consider Before Consuming podcast.
- Watch our documentary Brain, Heart, World.
- Follow Fight the New Drug on social media.
- Take the Fighter Pledge.
- Join our Fighter Club.
Together, we can help people understand that porn is a product, it is not sex.
