Renowned sex educator and adult film star Nina Hartley talks about Belle Knox, sex positivity in our puritanical culture, the great thing about baby wipes, and more. Also, Jacqui and LeMar talk about LeMar’s trip to the Exxxotica Expo in Atlantic City.
Supplementary Links
The Official Website of Nina Hartley
Life Made A Little Easier Novelty and Smoke Shop
LeMar McLean 
The thing about this is, if you’re going to talk ‘sex positively’, then you really have to not talk about porn. Commercial sex is pretty ‘negative’ since it’s flat, boring, mechanical.
Hi, George. I appreciate your taking the time to share your view surrounding the topic of this episode of our show. But your view makes it fundamentally challenging to have a discussion about sex positivity unless the discussion is in a context where sex positivity and sex as spectacle are mutually exclusive; we at Lady Bits believe that they are not. As Nina Hartley so expertly expressed in the episode, sex positivity can and should play a large role in the porn industry.
The reasons you listed to describe the ‘negativity’ of commercial sex (which I inferred to mean porn) is a bit confounding, considering the more serious ways in which pornography and sex work writ large can potentially exploit. The quality of the performances, as you described in your comment, reflect the stance of a critic more than someone with profound concern for how pornography impacts real sexual interactions.
There are all kinds of pornography on the market, ranging from the boring to the bizarre (subjectively speaking, of course). But if you’re interested in exploring content that you don’t consider “flat, boring, mechanical,” I’m sure Nina (@ninaland on Twitter) would direct you to some excellent titles, some in which she may even star.
Thanks again for the comment, George, and for your interest in sex positivity. I hope you give the episode a listen.
OK…so apparently, your idea of ‘sex positivity’ really is porn, prostitution, people ‘playing’ in groups with each other. etc. You do realize that only a very small number of people can identify with or participate in that form of ‘sex positivity’, don’t you? And, it is pretty commercial. Maybe that’s what you’re looking for.
The problem is pornographers and prostitutes are co-oping the idea of ‘sex positivity’ as a means of selling their wares so it has come to stand for mechanical, commercial sex. Unfortunately, the more I see of it, the more ridiculous it appears. I suppose maybe I’m just not into the make believe. Moreover, with people being glued to their computers and electronics, that’s the level of sex they’re aspiring to – and it’s being fed to everyone by the porn industry because it promotes how they make their money. So, keep on pushing sex positivity – porn industry style!
So, if ‘sex positivity’ means that those who want to support it think that all forms of sex are OK and people shouldn’t criticize what others do sexually, then saying something that disparages puritanical sexual points of view would not be ‘sex positive’, would it? I guess everyone is hypocritical, at some point.