I did an interview earlier this week on the impact the policing of sex has on sex work and people with disabilities for the excellent London-based group Mutiny. They did an event as a part of their series, "_____ on Trial", which in this case was Sex on Trial, something I was incredibly interested in (of course). Sadly as I'm in Oakland I was unable to go in person, but thanks to technology, I was able to attend as a 6' tall head on a screen. :)

The section I was interviewed for was called "Sex Police", which raised other excellent questions- "What counts as ‘normal’ or ‘healthy’ sex? Who decides this? How is it regulated? What happens if one is outside these boundaries?" You can check out other videos and discussions from Sex on Trial here, and I recommend you do so- it's always thought provoking!

I believe quite strongly that the policing of sex happens on multiple levels, and the impact, therefore, can be seen everywhere:

You have a government deciding what is acceptable practice in public and in private, you have schools deciding what is appropriate to teach and what is not appropriate to teach. You have society deciding what sort of sexual practices are acceptable to promote or to encourage or to advertise and which ones are not… and of course we police each other [via] cultural biases.

The full video is below- enjoy!