“Good sex” and “Bad sex”: who gets to talk about pleasure and why does it matter 

Who gets to talk about pleasure?  

The meaning of “bad sex” and “good sex” and how much pleasure is part of that conversation in sex varies according to context –whether that is friends talking at a bar in Milan, a committee in Delhi discussing sex education curricula, a young queer Kenyan activist recording a video about “your first time with a woman”, or an educational online platform run by sex-industry workers (SexSchool!). 

However, what these imaginary situations have in common is an inherent colonial historical thinking around sex, even though socio-cultural attitudes around the discourse of sex are constantly being re-negotiated¹. Sex and sexuality, as Gayle Rubin in her 1980 essay “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality” reminds us, are not just a biological function or a psychological state but also a realm of politics and power dynamics and who gets to define pleasure, who gets to talk about “good sex” and “bad sex” matters. For example, a heterosexual married man has social privilege where his pursuit of pleasure is seen as legitimate, whereas a queer single woman’s is frowned upon or deemed dangerous to society. We think it’s critical to both honor a range of evidence, including lived experiences that have been traditionally devalued to truly see the importance of pleasure in a more holistic, inclusive, and effective way, but also to ensure the communities of practice, research, academia, and affected communities can best bring the full strength of their wide range of skills and experience to bear on how to implement pleasure-based sexual health. 

How/Why do academia and public health seem to be more credible? 

There is a tendency to view academia and the public health sector as more credible sources of information on the topic of sexuality because they use scientific methods, such as research studies and data analysis, to generate knowledge. This methodological approach can help to ensure that the information is based on evidence and is likely to be more reliable than information based on personal anecdotes. Additionally, academic research and public health efforts often involve multiple systematic levels of review, such as peer review, to ensure that the information is as accurate and as unbiased as possible. 

However, some biases are built-in even in these systems we call scientific. This has meant that critical topics that don’t suit the biomedical narrative have been ignored – and the key reason many of us have sex, pleasure is one. There is a long, documented history of exclusionary practices that peer-reviewed journals, academic settings, and the public health world participates in². There are class, racial, gender, and ability biases permeating these spheres, as they are simply mirrors of larger systemic inequalities.  

When it comes to pleasure in connection with Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), moral judgements pervade the academic and scientific international community: public health practitioners still shy away from research that looks at sexual pleasure as a primary motivator for sexual behavior (with a few exceptions, namely WAS 2008; Zaneva, Philpott, Singh et al., 2022). “Good sex” and “bad sex” are thus regulated also in a subtle way through mechanisms of quiet censorship around which topics are “appropriate” to discuss in which settings: talking about sexual pleasure, researching the effects of pleasure on safer sex practices, contraceptive use, sexual health and empowerment at large through a scientific journal or in a SRHR conference is still a struggle. Here is the vicious circle in all its dark glory: sex is constantly regulated, categorized into “good” or “bad”, appropriate or shameful – a colonial, puritan heritage -, sexual pleasure is stigmatized, and thus limited pleasure inclusive research is carried out, which further stigmatizes pleasure as a topic, which further regulates sex into “good” and “bad” categories…and so on and so forth.  

There is also a hierarchy of who creates this credible knowledge and who has access to funds to be able to do so, and who can research the topics. A prime example of this, is the lack of examples of the public health sector to amplify and learn from the lived experience of sex workers and pleasure and sex industry workers. Those very people who have for example the most experience of negotiating and practicing safer sex or creating pleasure. 

The importance of lived experience 

Black and Indigenous, and People of Color have been challenging the white, colonial bubble of public health and academia for years, reclaiming the importance of lived experience, bringing together theory and lived experience. Lived experience can and does provide invaluable insights and perspectives on the topic of sexual and reproductive health that are often not captured by traditional research methods.  

“I found a place of sanctuary in “theorizing,” in making sense out of what was happening. I found a place where I could imagine possible futures, a place where life could be lived differently. This “lived” experience of critical thinking, of reflection and analysis, became a place where I worked at explaining the hurt and making it go away. […] When our lived experience of theorizing is fundamentally linked to processes of self-recovery, of collective liberation, no gap exists between theory and practice.” (hooks, 1991, p.2)  

Sex workers’ experience is not given the same legitimacy as a scientific paper or an academic journal. Theory and practice can become completely disjointed and sex industry workers – those who professionally give pleasure in all its different forms and meanings – are often disvalued, not taken seriously, and their knowledge comes second in the hierarchy of evidence that regulates discourses around SRHR.  

Blurring the boundaries 

As Anne Philpott, Arushi Singh and Jennie Gamlin write in “Blurring the Boundaries of Public Health: It’s Time to Make Safer Sex Porn and Erotic Sex Education” (2017), public health has historically been extremely risk-oriented focusing on what not to do rather than on what to do. It is an undeniable reality, however, that with the unprecedented internet access, we have reached at a global level, most people will encounter porn at a young age³ and will use porn to fill-in the gaps of the sex-education they receive (or fail to receive)⁴. Whether we like it or not, porn is one of the main sources of information on sexuality.  

So why is the public health world ignoring pleasure and porn? Why has the literature around porn been centered almost exclusively around harm, specifically toward women? Although in recent years we are witnessing an emergence of the topic of pleasure into public health and academia thanks to the relentless work of grassroots organizations and individual actors, we are still stuck in a discourse around pleasure that ends up sanifying sex and eradicating it from lived experience. How can we stop emptying sex from its bodily, meaty, juicy, complex nature that lived experience can help us reconnect with? Can we blur the boundaries between these circles of influence that deal with sexuality? How can we uplift discourses around porn that center its potential value for sex education and empowerment?  

Sex workers and porn performers lived experiences of negotiating safer sex is an invaluable resource for those who work in public health, international development, and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, whose approach needs to be less biomedical and more pleasure oriented.  

There is a dire need for all these actors to come together and understand how they can intersect their work in ways that ultimately help expand our experience of sex and pleasure in a way that is safe(r), informed, and joyful. Blurring the boundaries of the public health sector, academia, and pleasure and sex industry has the potential to improve public health policy-making processes and results, as well as challenge patriarchal, ableist, colonial norms that often imbue the mainstream porn industry (Philpott, Singh, and Gamlin, 2017). We at The Pleasure Project have aimed throughout our work to build bridges that can ensure a respectful coming together of communities that will enhance each other’s work, to bring pleasure-based sexual health to the world.  

[1] Andrew Card, “Cruising” the Charmed Circle Down the Hierarchy, 2017, Medium
[2] In a somewhat ironic manner, to give evidence of such biases, we can quote a 2020 study called “Gender
disparities in scholarly authorship” in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” that looked at
the authorship and editorial positions of over 2 million articles published in the natural, medical, and social
sciences between 2009 and 2019, and found that women were significantly underrepresented in both authorship
and editorial positions in the most prestigious journals.
[3] Research shows that, in the US, the average age at which a person first encounters porn online is estimated to
be 11 (Vogel, 2011)
[4] A study of porn in Bangladesh found it to be among the top three sources of information mentioned by women
(Rashid and Akram, 2014 as mentioned in Philpott, Singh, and Gamlin, 2017)