As a person who writes about sex and pleasure, I meet a lot of pleasure activists — people working to reclaim pleasure and sexuality as radical domains. Many are kinksters, queers, or both; all on a mission to return some dignity back to folks who have been marginalized. Recently, though, I came across a pleasure activist who’s advocating for the validity of “vanilla” sex. Frankly, I was a bit taken aback. Do people who like simple sex really need activism? Isn’t “normal” sex just, well, normal?
Sure, in the past decade, kinky sex has become much more socially acceptable. I’m not saying you should try to bond with granny about your favorite shibari harnesses, but you can probably post about them on social media without much to-do. But while the #trending of kink seems like some form of progress in our generally prudish society, if folks who love “vanilla” sex feel shamed by their preferences, our culture is still far from being a sex-positive Eden of earthly delights.
