In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

So maybe that’s why we don’t know how birth control works

Jill

Americans also can’t agree on what sex is.

The study, published in the February issue of the journal Sexual Health, randomly surveyed 486 adults, most of them heterosexual, between the ages of 18 and 96. They were asked the following question: “Would you say you ‘had sex’ with someone if the most intimate behavior you engaged in was [blank],” and then followed more than a dozen “behavior specific items.” A press release reports that “two out of ten people did not concur that penile-anal intercourse was sex, and three out of ten said ‘no’ to oral-genital activity, as did half of the respondents about manual-genital contact.” And, while 95 percent classified penile-vaginal penetration as sex (one has to wonder what does count for the remaining 5 percent), that number dropped to 89 percent in cases where the man doesn’t ejaculate.

I wonder what percentage think it’s “not sex” if the woman doesn’t orgasm? And what if both partners are of the same sex?

Posted in Sex

67 thoughts on So maybe <i>that’s</i> why we don’t know how birth control works

  1. You know, my definition of this has changed as I’ve grown up. I used to be convinced that only vaginal-penile contact constituted sex until someone raised the point that it meant all non-heterosexual couples were rendered virgins, and that didn’t make sense to me. Now, if I’m naked (or he is), we’re more or less fucking, in my opinion.

    Part of this is I assume the fear of talking about sex that many people have, and the inability in even the most liberal of school systems to talk openly about sexual orientation and alternate genders. You pretty much HAVE to decide for yourself.

  2. The “It’s not sex if he didn’t orgasm” idea hits home for me, as a few months back my fiance and I had a problem about a miscommunication over how open our relationship was wrt a particular ex of mine. Thinking I had my fiance’s ok, I’d had sex with my ex, PIV-type, and though he didn’t orgasm, I did, several times. When my fiance found out (well, it wasn’t like I was trying to hide it, cause I’d thought it was allowed), he was quite upset, until he found out that my ex hadn’t orgasmed. For whatever reason, that calmed him down, and he seemed to feel it was less of a transgression somehow. It absolutely infuriated me; not wanting to inflame the problem any worse, I didn’t say anything, but I remember feeling like “What the hell, so do my orgasms just not count then?”

    That aside, I think PrettyAmiable’s right about the reason for such variance in replies. The vast majority of kids, as they’re developing their ideas of sexual identity and such, never have an adult to sit them down and tell them, “Hey, anything that involves giving or receiving sexual pleasure between yourself and your partners, that’s sex.” If they get anything, they get PIV=sex (and I, too, want to know what counts as sex to that other 5% who think not even that counts!), because we’re afraid to talk frankly about things like pleasure. It’s easier for schools and public-health programs to talk about the organs involved and keep it to a reproductive-ability standpoint, ie, “sex is that thing which has the potential to make babies”, rather than navigating the rather tricky waters of defining pleasure and sex. Not to mention the howling outrage of the Religious Reich at the merest whiff of teaching kids anything other than SEX IS BAD DON’T DO IT UNTIL YOU’RE MARRIED KTHXBAI.

  3. Ok.. sex: Any form of genital contact. Using your hands to get someone off is no less a sexual encounter then using your mouth.

    I would also say that one party or the other being naked is not a pre-req -only- because otherwise guys and girls might not think giving a blow-job is ‘sex’ so long as he only unzips his pants but keeps them on.

    (Yeah I know.. it sounds stupid.. but there are also people think think anal sex is not sex so ….)

  4. As a DEEPLY christian male.. who has said on the other thread “Teach kids NOW!”.. it is NOT the “Religious Reich” so much as the “Highly vocal minority”. Those of us who are much more open minded are, quite honestly, not heard from because the ‘vocal minority’ gets more attention. I would imagine it is the same with your mainstream feminist types (IE: most of the ones I have read comments from on here) and the Ultra Hard Line Militant Vocal Minority that get more media attention.

  5. So many of these caveats have been used over the years to justify and rationalize behavior to oneself and to others. It’s a response to guilt, I think, as much as anything. Or it’s a response to the fact that we wish to absolve ourselves from what we associate is shameful behavior. That needs to be seriously considered before we can ever agree on what constitutes “sex”.

  6. Blunthammer: “Ok.. sex: Any form of genital contact.”

    That rules out mouth to anus and, arguably, mouth to breast. If those count, why not mouth to mouth.

    It also rules out fetishes of various type (e.g. toe-sucking).

    These problems seem inevitable if you want to have a completely logical definition of “sex.” There is a huge range of activity that gives people various degrees of sexual pleasure.

    -Jut

  7. BluntHammer, that’s actually what I mean with the term Religious Reich. That particular loud, angry, overbearing, uber-literalist-conservative-dominionist type. It’s not Christians, as a whole, trying to smother other peoples’ rights. It’s the Religious Reich. Two different beasties entirely.

  8. I dunno… it seems like there should be stops along the way to “having sex”. Maybe it’s reasonable to think of a sliding scale based on the sexes of the people involved, but in a hetero pairing, handjobs/fingerstim *do* seem like not as big a deal as PIV-sex– less risk of pregnancy and disease, less personal/less emotionally involved… Isn’t it okay to say that a guy going down on a girl isn’t sex, but a girl going down on a girl is?

    But people who say that anal sex isn’t sex are idiots.

  9. @ Jadelyn
    Alright, so long as we are on the same page. I don’t want to have us all painted with the same brush then anyone else does.
    I would also note that the vocal minority sometimes I SWEAR are working against us then helping us. (And I mean that for any group that has one of these self-destructive cells making them look foolish.)

    @Jut
    Mouth to breast should not be sex, it has nothing to do with genital contact. If a guy sucks your breast, you are not having sex (Foreplay yes, sex no.). Same with having some woman kiss your feet and then suck on your toes.. that is -not- sex.

    However, I admit my statement could be made more clear. Let me rephrase: “Any contact with the vagina, anus, or penis.” I admit I don’t know -every- sexual position -ever- created but I am pretty sure it requires at least ONE of those things to be counted as ‘sex’.

    I am willing to keep an open mind about other definitions.

  10. Blunthammer,
    I am going to play devil’s advocate a little bit:

    1) “Vagina” is too vague, but I understand you probably used it as a blanket term for all of a female’s genitalia.
    2) Same argument for “Penis.”
    3) “Any” is way too vague. Most men would argue that a prostate exam is not sex, while a prostate massage could be; women would argue the same thing about their visit to the gynecologist. As stated, those are both covered by your definition. I will presume you would add a requirement of sexual pleasure.

    This becomes problematic, though, because sexual pleasure can come from some of the things I described. I know you have said some of my examples are not sex. I do not think you can come up with a coherent justification (maybe you can, though) for saying that. I think you just do what we all do; you say “X is” and “Y isn’t.” It is just a matter of how we define it, which is kind of what the whole post is about.

    -Jut

  11. I think forming a hierarchy of sex acts is pretty problematic, The Flash, not least because it assumes that everyone has the same kind of emotional/personal investment, ideas and issues around them. ‘Isn’t it okay to say that a guy going down on a girl isn’t sex, but a girl going down on a girl is?’ It isn’t.

    Here’s a Scarleteen article called What’s Sex?

    1. Isn’t it okay to say that a guy going down on a girl isn’t sex, but a girl going down on a girl is?

      Short Answer: No.

      Longer Answer: Um, NO, seriously, wtf? Since when is “well it’s not sex when straight folks do it, because straight folks have better, more important sex acts to engage in, but since those poor, sad, same-sex couples don’t, let’s throw them a bone without disrupting my hetercentrism, because I’m so progressive like that” okay?

  12. Do we really need to be that totalitarian about it? Can’t each person define it for themselves and not be ridiculed? I had a Catholic girlfriend sophomore year in college who wanted to remain a “virgin”. For her that meant sex meant no PIV or PIA, but everything else was on the table. Since she was really, really good at giving head her definition of “sex” didn’t bother me one bit.

  13. I’ve heard the phrase, “sex is two or more people and one or more orgasms” but I don’t think that’s right either. Just throwing another definition out there.

  14. And here I was thinking they were talking down to us when they rolled the condom on that banana.

  15. Yeah, but things can bring sexual pleasure without being sex IMO. I mean there are things that my husband does that bring me sexual pleasure without actually being sex. Having the beck of my neck kissed springs to mind. I think a thing can bring sexual pleasure without actually being sex, but I also struggle to come up with a definition that is inclusive. I think it needs to involve stimulation of the genitals or anus though.

  18. I think the problem is that sex isn’t really an act, it’s the meaning being the act; the intention of the act. The Victorian doctors using vibrators on their “hysterical” patients were not having sex with them, but someone using a vibrator on their partner usually is. Just like many of the things that can be sex when consensual can also be sexual assault or rape when not. It’s not what touched who where, it’s how and why it was done.

    Most sex acts we call sex because they’re what we do when we’re trying to get or express a class of things having to do with sexual connection: love, lust, emotional connection, orgasms, physical release, etc. – I wonder if that’s what happened to the 5% who didn’t think PIV was sex – maybe to those people, it isn’t because it doesn’t meet any of those needs for them… *shrugs from armchair*.

    “Sex” is a shortcut word. I think we get confused a lot about it – the royal Western We – because we use sex interchangeably with intercourse a lot, which has a much more specific meaning. All intercourse is sex, but not all sex is intercourse.

    I think there is no real utility in trying to create some master list of “Things That Are Generally Considered Sex”… it’s interesting to compile lists of “what people do for sex”, and see who considers which acts what (hell, might get some ideas…), but there is not argument to be made for having everyone consider all of those acts sex for all people at all times. The only conceivable importance I can see to some people not thinking anal, oral, or vaginal stimulation or penetration are sex is that they might think “Sex can result in pregnancy or disease, but I’m okay, because this isn’t sex”… the answer to that dilemma is not to make sure we’re all on the same page about what “sex” is, but what “disease and pregnancy risk factors” are.

    My husband made slides listing all the acts he could think of that could result in disease transmission or pregnancy when he taught the sex ed portion of his Science 9 class (Canadian) so that there could be no confusion. The kids were stunned that an old (27) married guy knew all that stuff, of course 😉 We considered later that some parent might get angry about giving the kids ideas… but it never came up – I assume most kids don’t go home and recite lists of sex acts to their parents…

  19. I know it’s unproductive to dig one’s heels in, but in this case, the definition isn’t exactly ideological. Handjobs aren’t sex. They really, really aren’t. If you go on a date with someone and that person gives you a handjob in the back of a taxi in the east village, you haven’t just had sex in a cab in the east village. These things aren’t personally defined, they’re socially defined, and the words “lesbian sex” and “gay sex” and “heterosexual sex” have, you know, real differences of meaning that aren’t limited to references to the sexes of the people involved in the act. Veronica wasn’t off in the wild blue yonder when she told Dante that she’d only had sex with three guys, but she’d given blowjobs to 37. We’re not being clinical, here.

  20. … but in a hetero pairing, handjobs/fingerstim *do* seem like not as big a deal as PIV-sex…

    Perhaps this is true in your hetero pairings, The Flash. It has not been the case with mine, nor is it likely to become so.

  21. “But people who say that anal sex isn’t sex are idiots.”
    Also oral sex. “Sex” is RIGHT THERE IN THE DAMN NAME, there’s no excuse!

  22. “it seems like there should be stops along the way to “having sex”.”

    Perhaps, but surely consensual genital or anal contact for the purpose of providing sexual pleasure ought to count as that terminus?

  23. I think it depends on what The Flash means by “Not a Big Deal”. I can see how some people could see it as a less risky form of sex in regards to getting preggers. But I can’t agree that it is less personal/less emotional.

    Reading what Julie and Happy Feet said almost seems to be an idea that should be brought together. That the INTENTION as WELL as the stimulation should some how form the greater whole that is sex. I like my earlier definition OF sex, but as Jut said when you break it down it IS a bit to vague to use the word “Any” when dealing with contact with the vagina/penis/anus.

  24. I get ask quite often if my husband and I have “real” sex. Because “real” sex is… I don’t know.

    I just tell them “yes”. They’re welcome to speculate all they want – we’re both quite content.

  25. I <3 the Red Cross.

    If you carefully read the laminated instructions they give you before filling out that questionnaire before giving blood, they define sex very specifically.

    For one thing, a person giving fellatio is having sex, while the man receiving it has not.

    The first time I read this, I laughed and said out loud, “Hey! Clinton was right!” (Nobody else thought it was funny. Sigh.)

  26. Do we really need to be that totalitarian about it? Can’t each person define it for themselves and not be ridiculed? I had a Catholic girlfriend sophomore year in college who wanted to remain a “virgin”. For her that meant sex meant no PIV or PIA, but everything else was on the table. Since she was really, really good at giving head her definition of “sex” didn’t bother me one bit.

    Heh heh, yeah, she was SO GOOD at giving head that it TOTALLY counts as real sex, bro, amirite?

    I think you have the wrong blog.

  27. So, actually, my point in posting this article wasn’t to have a big discussion on What Sex Really Is. Because I think the whole point is that sex is kind of a nebulous concept, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense, from a public health or educational perspective, to tell people to “Say not to sex” or “delay sex” or “use birth control if you have sex” when “sex” means totally different things to people. Rather, it makes sense to actually have detailed conversations about risk reduction choices for certain behaviors, rather than using terms like “sex.”

    I realize the post wasn’t clear on that at all. But I’m seeing this thread devolve into conversations about what “real sex” is, and that bothers me.

  28. I guarantee that the nights where my hips hurt so badly that moving into a position where I can get off via some form of something/genital contact is out and I give my husband a handjob we are having sex.

    If it gets me hot, and could or does get me off, it’s sex, in my book. Other people are welcome to use other slightly more restrictive definitions. Personally, since I can get off if my toes are played with, I consider toe sucking to be sex, at least for me.

  29. This is my anecdote about “gay sex isn’t real sex.”

    I’m asexual. Sometimes on the internet, random strangers ask me things like, “do u love sex?” I roll my eyes (which they can’t see) and reply that I’m not interested in sex.

    “r u les?”

    So I can only assume that among illiterate men on the internet, “sex” is defined as male/female PIV sex. (Never mind that I’m pretty sure that lesbians have these magic devices with one or more ends that simulate PIV sex.) These guys think all lesbians do is lick each other a lot (=NOT SEX). I really hope one day they meet a lesbian who doesn’t perform oral sex and their head EXPLODES.

    I do try, you know, to educate them a little bit. But for guys who will “walk up to” a girl on the internet and ask outright if she “loves sex,” there’s probably no point.

  30. So many of these caveats have been used over the years to justify and rationalize behavior to oneself and to others.

    Judy Carter had my favorite line on this: “That’s like saying you aren’t cheating on your diet if you eat the ice-cream with a fork.”

    If you have to ask, fer chrissake.

    And no, oral sex double-standards are not appropriate–they’re based on the idea that it’s sex if the penis is involved, or if the penis goes into some orifice, or if a man comes, and they’re stupid.

  31. I think the explanation for why people aren’t counting certain acts as sex is basically what Happy Feet said– the survey asked people what would count as sex _for themselves_ so the respondents probably thought about what they would personally want to do sexually. For example, a gay man who has no interest in PIV sex might answer “no, that would not count as sex for me because I wouldn’t get sexual pleasure out of it. The only scenario I could imagine it happening in would be nonconsensual and therefore it’s not sex FOR ME.” To me it makes sense in the same way that we differentiate rape from sex. We don’t tell a rape victim that she has to call it sex if she doesn’t want to define it that way. Yes, we recognize that rape carries the same risks as sex (pregnancy and STDs) but we don’t insist on the word.

  32. Handjobs aren’t sex. They really, really aren’t.

    Says you, the expert, naturally.

    I think Happy Feet posted a sensible comment.

  33. Samuel R. Delany had a nice definition of sex, though I can’t remember now where I read it: any mutual effort that intends to give at least one participant an orgasm. (Not how he phrased it, but he was quite precise about “intends” because, he pointed out, you might not succeed.)

    I think this string of comments by heterosexual able-bodied people arguing that it doesn’t “count” as sex if… are quite germane to the point of Jill’s post, which is to say that the ignorance about sex displayed in the poll is evidently quite widespread.

    And, while 95 percent classified penile-vaginal penetration as sex (one has to wonder what does count for the remaining 5 percent),

    I’m tempted to suggest that they’re the lesbians in the poll: responding quite rationally, because if I experienced penile-vaginal penetration, it wouldn’t be sex: it would be rape.

  34. My husband and I agreed that sex is anything that we, being monogamous by mutual agreement, could legitimately get really mad about if one of us did it with a third party. Hence frottage, say, suddenly “became” sex.

    Indeed, so did kissing on the mouth. In my culture many people would be scandalised to see it between a parent and child. Not so in his, apparently, but it never occurred to me to put it on the list. I was horrified on 3 counts when his mother and aunt each did this to him at a party: 1) it was a sexual act another person was doing to someone they knew was my exclusive partner 2) it was right in front of me with no shame at all!, and 3) they were his fucking RELATIVES (which, correct me if I am wrong, is one taboo that even the most openminded tend not to be cool with). So for me, now, mouth kissing is at least part of sex, but it wasn’t before this situation arose – in that, I would not count every man I’ve ever kissed pre-husband as part of my “number”. Whether or not I’m “right” that it’s sex, my husband cares about the fact that I was profoundly weirded out, and has decided not to do it any more. So it’s on the list of stuff that is sex TO US.

    My point being, what is sex is what you (and any partner you have agreed freely can say it’s their business) say it is. Science doesn’t really come into it – what science says is female virginity may be lost by being a bit sporty after all, so that’s not really relevant. The same way you have the right to define your man/womanhood, you have the right to define your sexual experience.

  35. T/W

    I suggest that the 5% in this survey who say PIV is not sex are probably talking about rape. Rape can be PIV but many people would agree (I am one) that it is not sex.

    I also think some people think that PIV with a barrier method is not sex, in that, you aren’t technically touching the other person’s genitals. I have heard this suggested by a couple of people in Manhattan, where I live, who, when pressed to elaborate, say that otherwise their “number” would be “too high”.

  36. I also think some people think that PIV with a barrier method is not sex, in that, you aren’t technically touching the other person’s genitals.

    *grin* I remember in a short story by Spider Robinson, the narrator claimed he didn’t like sex with a condom because he liked touching his partner. I remember it vividly because in discussion with another fan, she got up and mimed “Spider Robinson having sex” – with her groin thrust forward and every other part of her body leaning back, so that only her mimed penis was inside her partner’s vagina…

  37. “Heh heh, yeah, she was SO GOOD at giving head that it TOTALLY counts as real sex, bro, amirite?” – Jilll

    Wow!
    I didn’t realize you had such knee-jerk, anti-sex tendencies.

    Fellatio, great or crappy, counts as sex… to me. However, the activity did not qualify as “real sex” for my then girlfriend, so in her mind she remained a “virgin”. That we weren’t having PIV (the societal gold standard of “real sex”) made her worry that she was a bad lover. Which as I wrote before was soooo not true.

    For the aforementioned and a variety of other good reasons, I personally resist the notion that the community must define sex; that everyone must agree to that definition; and that refusal to do so precludes an awesome time in bed.

    That you couldn’t empathize with my comment, which is essentially “ Honey, I don’t care what you call it. The orgasms are toe-curling” is depressing. I guess for a moment, I forgot that I wasn’t among my friends, who are typically pro sex, of different orientations and would be more inclined to fantasize about going “Catholic” than spewing hate.

    1. Wow!
      I didn’t realize you had such knee-jerk, anti-sex tendencies.

      Ha. No, I just have knee-jerk anti-bro tendencies. And knee-jerk anti-really-really-ridiculous-arguments tendencies. And “she was good at head so it counts as sex” is one of the worst arguments I’ve ever heard. It’s hilarious, though, so keep going.

    2. I forgot that I wasn’t among my friends, who are typically pro sex, of different orientations and would be more inclined to fantasize about going “Catholic” than spewing hate.

      You also forgot you weren’t among your friends, who think it’s appropriate to refer to grown women you don’t know as “honey.” FEMINIST BLOGS! How can anyone be expected to understand them and their bizarre cultures????

      Now shoo. It was amusing, but the derail is over.

        1. … ha, or maybe not, Jill seems to still be enjoying it. 😉

          True, but I think I’ve had enough laughs for the day! Yes, de-rail over. Run along now.

  38. Wow. Men really do have no sense of humor. Lighten up, realitybeam. You were being mocked for saying something stupid, and if you’re going to hang out with the grown-ups, you need to learn how to deal with being laughed at when you say something thick-o.

  39. How the heck is getting a handjob “not having sex”?! What’s that all over my hand when I’m done with my partner, then – fairy dust??

  40. Socially constructed doesn’t mean totally fake.

    For my own personal self there are sex acts that feel more like sex to me because of various things I heard growing up or worked out for myself. To tell me that my understanding is meaningless is just false because it’s meaningful to me.

    But I’m an adult now, and I know that not everyone had the same influences as I do, and if other people draw their lines differently, I know that that’s what’s real to them.

    By way of example, the country I was raised in and the country I live in now have opposed ideas of where oral sex falls in the “real sex” hierarchy. I’m not going to run around telling everyone around me they’re wrong because they’re not.

    As long as the activity is mutually agreed on and reasonably safe I don’t give a goddamn whether the people are calling it sex or not.

  42. I’m confused as to why orgasm factors in to some people’s definition of “sex.” What about those of us who rarely or never orgasm during intercourse, or even other forms of stimulation by a partner? If you orgasm it was sex but if you don’t, it’s like it never happened? And men don’t always orgasm during intercourse (or oral) either. If a woman gives a man oral and then they have intercourse but for whatever reason he can’t get off and she doesn’t either so they quit it wasn’t sex?

  43. Rather, it makes sense to actually have detailed conversations about risk reduction choices for certain behaviors, rather than using terms like “sex.”

    I think this, and the anecdote about Happy Feet’s husband’s sex ed class, is a very important point. Our culture is really hung up on the idea of acts being classifiable into Sex or Not Sex as if it’s some metaphysically real divide where Sex is totally different from Not Sex (and people who have had Sex are different from those who have Not). Adjusting the Sex-Not Sex boundary to try to get away from PIV-supremacy doesn’t really ask the real question: why do we need to distinguish sex from not sex? “Sex” is a proxy for certain other characteristics of an act, such as its ability to transmit certain diseases. But it’s only a very rough proxy, and so — especially if we’re interested in showing equal consideration for people whose sex lives don’t fit the PIV-centric standard — we’re better off asking the real underlying question, e.g. “can you get herpes from doing it?” Some things may get a yes on one underlying question but a no on another — or a yes when done by one set of people and a no when done by another — and that’s just fine. And it’s a lot more informative than debating whether handjobs are sex, sort-of sex, or not sex.

  44. @Jadelyn: I think one of the reasons why your fiancee was less freaked out cuz your ex didn’t have a orgasm was because (I’m assuming a heterosexual pairing) you had a less of a chance to get pregnant.

    When I learned about STDs and whatnot in high school, that changed my definition of sex from PIV to “anything you can get an STD from”!

  45. Sigh. It suppose it would be too much wishful thinking to suppose that rape education efforts actual worked and we’ve convinced 5% of people that acts alone don’t make something sex. To count as sex, it also requires mutual consent?

    The study is fundamentally flawed. It implicitly communicates the message that the act or equipment alone defines sex (“most intimate behavior”). How is a rape victim who knows all too well that rape uses the same equipment, but is not at all like sex supposed to answer that question? Using the word “intimate” doesn’t avoid the issue because rape is about unwanted intimacies. Sex, even just for pleasure, has an emotional and cognitive component that is completely lost the minute consent is absent.

    How about the college student who actually did listen to the rape education campaigns? There are currently at least two college level PR campaigns stressing this point. The recent This is not an Invitation to Rape me” at the University of Pennsylvania and Consent is Sexy both include the slogan “Sex without consent is not sex”.

    Wouldn’t they feel some dissonance between what the researcher said and what the researcher meant? Or should they just disregard the issue, because we all know that this is just word play and sex _is_ just the acts?

  46. Yeah – actually, I was going to comment on the orgasm issue. I’ve actually never had an orgasm with another person, and I don’t like thinking that it was their potential o-moment that defined the act. I had fun, we weren’t terribly clothed (or specific vital body parts weren’t), thus, sex.

    I should probably note that I don’t consider dry sex sex. To each their own, I suppose.

  47. “Ha. No, I just have knee-jerk anti-bro tendencies… And ‘she was good at head so it counts as sex’ is one of the worst arguments I’ve ever heard. It’s hilarious, though, so keep going.” – Jill

    Well at least you’ll admit you are “knee-jerk” if not anti-sex. We’re half way there! Denial is not just a river…

    Why would I argue about defining sex? As, I’ve indicated, I think defining sex is a waste time. You are dense.

  48. I’ll quote part of what I wrote over at YMY Blog about this post:

    “I can wing a bullshit, arbitrary definitions just fine, and I have before. Hint: mine is not penetrocentric, I don’t think there’s anything about Tab A in Slot B, or any other slot, that I want to put on a pedestal. But really, I think the whole thing is a bit of a fool’s errand. I’ll repeat my older post (I do that frequenly, too):

    “Unless one is a sex or public health researcher, rules for what counts as sex so that one can count don’t really serve any purpose that I can respect. The reason for this counting is to slut-shame, or to defend against slut-shaming. Those readers who have gotten through the book know my view is that “slut” as a concept is a byproduct of a view of sexuality that I reject, and that has got to go.

    “This counting thing is not really good for anyone. What “sex” is does not even begin to answer the question “what is cheating,” a separate inquiry in a relationship.* It doesn’t do anyone much good.

    “But it sure can do some harm. The whole endeavor lends itself to making value judgments about whose lives and bodies matter and whose do not. Just think for a minute about how the possible definitions can (and do!) invalidate the life experiences of gay, lesbian, bi, and pansexual folks; folks who have a trans history and don’t have anatomy that the culture associates with the gender they live; non-binary-identified folks like genderqueer folks; people with disabilities whose bodies operate better for them (or only) by having partnered intimacy in ways that don’t get recognized. Aside from the silliness of the counting game, that playground game leaves out a lot of folks that I don’t want to see kicked off of my playground.

    “What is “sex”? That’s not an inquiry I want to engage in.

    “*There are more than a few poly folks in the world and for some people, PIV intercourse with other partners is fine. Some couples play with others only as a pair, some folks have broader poly relationships that do or don’t have different sexual constraints … If a couple’s arrangement is, “PIV with outside partners are okay on odd Thursdays, oral on Tuesdays and BDSM only during the last week of the month and never during Lent”, it’s their relationship to define.”

  49. Elizabeth – I am fortunate not to have been assaulted but of the women I know who have been, and who have honored me by sharing their stories with me, two were raped as unarguable virgins (as in, had barely kissed anyone). They told their first actual lovers, who came into their lives between 1 and 4 years later, that they had never had sex, because, well, they hadn’t.

    But even as a feminist who had been told such stories it took me a while to think it through, and I had to go by way of my husband’s and my personal definition that sex=anything we feel is an infidelity, and therefore considering mutuality and consent. If I were answering the question for a survey I would not think so hard, and therefore say that PIV is sex.

    Good news is, that means probably MORE than 5% agree rape/=/ sex, they just answered within the limited parameters of the question.

  50. Jesurgislac – that is funny!

    I think those people are being a bit arbitrary, but whatever floats their boat. Indeed my husband is the only partner I’ve had any unprotected below-the-belt contact with and that does make what I have with him more special somehow, so I guess I’m not a million miles away from getting where they’re coming from.

    In fact to hark back to a thread the other day, the procreation factor was discussed as something that can make sex more scary or more sexy. Thinking about it, I bet that some of the 5% saying PIV is not sex are saying it’s not sex (as defined by Natural Law) if there is not the possibility of procreation, because that is the purpose of sex to them. They are in fact sort of a corollary of those who say it’s not sex without consent – it’s not sex to either when its “purpose” has been thwarted.

  51. “It’s sex if at least one of the people participating thinks it’s sex.”

    So, if I let a man stick his penis in my vagina, but neither of us believes it’s sex, sex hasn’t occurred? While I can see what you’re trying to say (I think), I don’t think that’s a particularly great definition at all. By that definition, all anyone would have to do if they didn’t want to admit to having sex is not believe that they did. That’s a bit like rapists believing that they haven’t raped anyone because, hey, they didn’t think it was rape!

  52. Faith: So, if I let a man stick his penis in my vagina, but neither of us believes it’s sex, sex hasn’t occurred?

    Yes.

    As for example, if I (a lesbian) were to ask a gay male friend to fertilise me, and we couldn’t get a sterile syringe to transfer his sperm to my vagina the normal way people make babies, I suppose we might fertilise using the PIV method. And both of us might agree that we hadn’t actually had sex, since (a) neither of us were thinking of what we’d just done as “having sex”, and (b) neither of us would think of “having sex” as including the PIV act, because we’re not heterosexual and so we don’t do that as part of our sex lives. (This is a hypothetical. I’ve never asked anyone to fertilise me.)

    That’s a bit like rapists believing that they haven’t raped anyone because, hey, they didn’t think it was rape!

    No, it’s not a bit like that. Don’t be foolishly offensive. Sex is mutually consensual and therefore both partners have a right to define it according to their perceptions: Rape is an assault, and we don’t ask the rapist his opinion of the assault he committed.

  53. But the definition you posited didn’t ask for mutual consent. It was “if one person says it’s sex, it’s sex.” My assaulters thought it was sex; I did not.

    Lizzie wasn’t terribly offensive, and I don’t think you meant to be either, but I’m horribly hurt by your definition.

  54. but I’m horribly hurt by your definition.

    I’m sorry you were horribly hurt by that definition: I took for granted the presumption that having sex with another person requires mutual consent. I felt that it could be taken as a given that if there’s no mutual consent, obviously you’re not having sex. How could you? If both/all parties do not consent, what is happening can’t be sex: it’s sexual assault/rape.

    But it was probably worth saying – definitely, if not saying it hurt you horribly.

    It is also pretty offensive of you to decide on my behalf that Lizzie wasn’t being terribly offensive to me. Yes, she was. She may not have seemed terribly offensive to you, and I’m glad, since you’d already been hurt once in this thread, but you do not get to decide what’s offensive for me.

    1. Hey, everyone, so Jill asked for the conversation about what is and isn’t “real sex” to cease. She gives her reasons for that up at comment 28. I will note that the conversation has continued despite that, and it has actually hurt numerous people. So for that reason, in addition to the fact that this is Jill’s thread and she already made the request, I’d again ask that we refer to her comment and shift the discussion accordingly.

  55. …and actually, I see that I already said that my definition of sex is mutual consent, and A Guy In Denver was the one who said that it’s sex if one person thinks it’s sex (which, while almost a paraphrase of the Delany definition I like, is only “almost” because it omits the crucial word “mutual”).

    Oh dear. Lizzie’s response to A Guy In Denver now doesn’t seem nearly as offensive as it seemed when I read the italicised part and assumed she was paraphrasing me paraphrasing Delany. Mutuality is an essential part of having sex. Sorry, Lizzie. Sorry, PrettyAmiable.

  56. Jesurgislac – I am sorry if I offended you. I think I missed something – the comment I responded with today was to your anecdote about that Spider guy saying he wanted to have sex without a condom or he wasn’t touching them for real, which I had taken to be an amused response to what I’d said about people dismissing barrier-protected sex as not sex to deflate their total number of partners. I am afraid I missed your comment re Delany because it had not appeared when I wrote mine yesterday saying I thought the 5% were saying PIV is not sex when it is rape. I see we both came to that concusion. I think basically people have the right to define their experience and nobody’s is any more valid – this is hardly like a question of two and two being four, or evolution being real (!). So I’m sorry that I said something hurtful.

    On a bright note, I asked my husband what sex was today. He said “sexual intercourse or gender?” I said, “Not the latter” so as not to help him choose between sex-as-participants’-experience and sex-as-list-of-acts. He said, “It is an act of love. Hopefully a mutually pleasurable one.” That was his first answer before listing any acts or defaulting to discussions of orgasm or his own, able-bodied, heterosexual experience. I thought that was really nice of him.

  57. Sorry let me correct that to

    I am sorry THAT I offended you.

    There is no “if” and it was not my right to put one in. That makes me a total fuckbrain.

    I am sorry for that too!

  58. I submit this thread as further evidence for my argument that even engaging in the endeavor of defining “sex” tends to be harmful.

  59. This on-going discussion about which acts are real sex amounts to “if I had to answer the survey, my answer would be ….”. The survey is already answered. The important question now is how to interpret the results and what they should mean for public education campaigns.

    Lizzie wrote:
    “Good news is, that means probably MORE than 5% agree rape/=/ sex, they just answered within the limited parameters of the question.”

    Actually, that was my point: the parameters of the question were too limited and make the results hard to interpret. If 5% don’t think PIV is sex, does that mean that 5% of the population is naive and still thinks the stork brings babies? Or does it mean that 5% “think too hard” and were reacting for various reasons to the idea that sex==acts?

    Recognizing that sex is not just the acts shouldn’t require “thinking hard”. If it does, then clearly those who would like to use mutuality to distinguish between sex and rape have their work cut out for them.

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