What Does "Sex Positive" Mean in Your Community?

Several of my past posts have been inspired from things overheard at the latest New England Chapter of the Romance Writers of America Conference, and today's post is, too. During a workshop on sex positivity in romance, author Alyssa Cole noted that what counts as sex positive is different in different times, and in different places. As a reader and writer of historical romance, the first part of Cole's claim seemed obvious to me: what counts as embracing your sexual self looks a lot different in Regency England as it does in 21st century America. The example that Cole used—that the forced sex in the "bodice ripper" romances of the 1970s and early 80s may appear sexist and regressive to today's readers, but the trope can be interpreted as sex positive when put into the historical context of women's liberation movements and pushback against the same—was one with which I was also familiar.

The idea that sex positivity can look different not just across time, but across communities and cultural groups living during the same historical period, though, wasn't one that I had given a lot of thought to before hearing Cole's words. But of course my idea of sex positivity growing up as the child of white American parents who had grown up in the working class but who had through education moved into the middle class, likely looked a lot different from that of a child who grew up in the Australian outback, or under the Communism of the USSR, or on a Native American reservation during the same time period. Norms of culture vary not just across time, but across social group.

So I'm wondering: what does it mean to you to be sex positive? Have your ideas about what is sex positive/sex negative changed over time? Have they changed as/if you've moved from one social group to another during your life?