ABSTRACT
Feminist theories exist within a perspectival theoretical paradigm, that is, approaching research, experiences, and ideas from gendered standpoints. Within the complexity of sex-positivism are values of sexual freedom as connected to intellectual freedom and personal agency. Sex-positivism, splintering from radical feminism, embraces opportunities for people to explore boundaries of sexuality and sexual experience through consent and personal embodiment. Conceptions of gender, sexual experience, and the desire of and for sexual interactions are “complexified” by considerations that women’s sexuality coexists as potentially pleasurable and dangerous. Patriarchal societies communicate women’s sexual agency and freedom alongside coercive and dominating narratives, such that a sex-positive analysis is complicated when sexual decision-making is viewed within heterosexual relationships of subordination and domination. Sex-critical theorists also raise important questions about sex-positive feminism and its tenants of pleasure, empowerment, and subversiveness. These critics question concepts like “consent” within patriarchal societies, as well as taking issue with sexual pleasure as an inherent good.
