The Women’s Interest Network hosted the Sex-Positivism lecture Wednesday featuring poet and Texas native Harmony Eichsteadt.

Eichsteadt opened the lecture, which she called a conversation, by explaining three terms that are commonly misunderstood: sex, gender and orientation.

She explained that sex describes what you are genetically: male, female, trans-gendered, intersex or other terms of that nature. Gender explains if you are feminine, masculine, androgynous and so on. Lastly, Orientation basically describes who you like, for example straight, gay, bi-sexual, a-sexual, demi-sexual, etc.

Then the conversation was exactly that, a conversation, between Eichsteadt and the seven-or-so people in the Hughes-Trigg Forum.

Eichsteadt proposed topics such as sex workers, feminism and sex, the slut-walk and sex-positivism and the audience responded with what they were interested in hearing about.

Eichsteadt spoke about sex-positivism, which is a movement that advocates open sexuality with little boundaries and tied it into feminism and its roots.

She then switched topics to the Slut-Walk protest marches.

SlutWalk

The SlutWalk began in Toronto, Canada in April 2011, after a Toronto police officer said, “Women should avoid dressing like sluts” so they are not targets of violence and sex crimes.

Women first gathered and protested in Toronto over the officer’s use of the word “slut,” and have since gathered globally to demonstrate against these kinds of comments and beliefs.

Eichsteadt explained that women were told to “wear whatever you want to wear to make you feel valuable.”

This topic sparked a discussion between Eichsteadt and the audience.

“One of the cool things I’ve heard of people doing is that they will wear the clothes they were raped in,” an audience member said. “So they are kind of reclaiming something from when they were called ‘slut’ after they had been raped.”

Let’s Talk Sex

From there the conversation turned strictly to sex.

Eichsteadt explained sex through historical beliefs and relationships in different cultures.

One story was about an ancient community where the women would wake up the men together.

Before the men would leave to hunt they would pair up, if the man returned with meat then him and the woman he was paired up with would have sex.

Everyday everyone had a different partner, and everyday the men would secretly distribute the meat so they would all return successfully.

The conversation fluctuated and covered a wide range of sex topics. It was informative and interesting. Eichsteadt distributed information and anecdotes very well.

The small audience was very interactive, and one thing was certain, the conversation was never boring.