Open Forum: Asexuality and the Sex Positive Movement

The sex positive movement embraces a variety of social and philosophical attitudes towards sexuality. The sex positive movement unlike the dominant framework of organized religion does not pass judgment on various forms of sexuality including homosexuality, transsexuality, BDSM, polyamory, and masturbation and instead accepts individual sexual freedoms.

While accepting and promoting various forms of sexuality is certainly positive it calls into question whether the movement is embracing of asexuality, those who have little to no interest in sex at all. In contrast to the abstinence dogma spread by mainsteam religion, asexuals are not chaste because they feel it is immoral but simply have a low level of sexual desire. Many asexuals consider themselves to be sex-positive even if they themselves abstain from or have a minute degree of sexual activity in their own personal lives but others feels that there is no place for them in this movement and society that idealizes the concept of sexuality.

What do you think? Is asexuality accepted and embraced as part of the individual sexual freedoms in the sex positive movement or is it ignored or bashed in some fashion?

Engendered's Rock for Rights - 1/18/09 Lincoln Center

Engendered is an annual, New York-based transnational arts and human rights festival that brings together the best in contemporary South Asian cinema, visual arts and performance to explore the complex realities of gender and sexuality in modern South Asia, especially at the intersection of ritual and religion. The festival is designed not only to raise awareness, but also act as a fulcrum to enter public dialogue, break silences and impact perceptions around issues of gendered identities, stereotyping, bias and sexual choice and further, how those issues relate to affirmation or violations of human rights, health rights and women's rights.

Tickets can be purchased through Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Web Spotlight: Queer By Choice

Queer By Choice is a new and controversial concept of how sexuality comes to be. The website is for people who chose to start feeling same-sex attraction. The website also strays from the biological argumentation for equal rights, and contends that whether queerness is a matter of nature or nurture that rights should not be up for debate.