Redefining Sex on Your Own Terms
We often categorize certain erotic activities as sex and not others, but is that correct or wise?
A friend recently sent me a blog post to read that he thought I’d find interesting, and indeed I did. It was an archived post from author, blogger, and speaker, Greta Christina. The archived post from Christina’s former blog site was “Are We Having Sex Now or What?”
When I read Christina’s post, it resonated with something that’s been banging around in my head for a while, and she gave me fodder for better articulating what I’ve been thinking about.
I’ve written about various forms of sexuality for decades. Most of my writings cater to the kinkster crowd, but the truth is much of the truth and insight about any sexuality strongly overlaps with other sexual realms. For example, I might write about consent in kink community cultures, but the concept of consent applies across all sexualities of any flavor. So does what Christina is alluding to in her post.
In her post, Christina wrestles with the notion of defining what is sex. I’ve been thinking a lot about that too lately. After all, I write about sex. Shouldn’t I be able to clearly define it? But when self-pressed for a definition, most of what I arrive at falls short.
Sex as a noun is a tricky thing. We conventionally use the word sex to encapsulate a bunch of intimate physical stuff we do with each other, especially of the penetrative variety. And when we look at official definitions, that’s sometimes how it’s defined as in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
1a : either of the two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as female or male especially on the basis of their reproductive organs and structures
1b : the sum of the structural, functional, and sometimes behavioral characteristics of organisms that distinguish males and females
1c : the state of being male or female
1d : males or females considered as a group
2a : sexually motivated phenomena or behavior
2b : sexual intercourse
3 : genitalia
Apart from 2a and 2b, which aren’t always the criteria by which I define my own sex, I don’t see most of my sexuality reflected in that definition at all.
Christina attempts to arrive at a satisfying definition of sex to encompass the wide range of activities and erotic mindsets she and others experience. I like this one.
Perhaps having sex with someone is the conscious, consenting, mutually acknowledged pursuit of shared sexual pleasure.
Then Christina offers this possible definition that’s more nuanced than the previous and I’ll let you read her post to learn how she differentiates the two.
How about sex as the conscious, consenting, mutually acknowledged pursuit of sexual pleasure of at least one of the people involved.
Those definitions aside, my point here is that I think it’s necessary to include an extremely wide range of physical activities and accompanying mental states into the big bucket thing we call sex.
Within the kinkster crowd with whom I commune and write about often, there’s often a distinct demarcation of “this is kink, this is sex, they don’t have to go together,” which I fully understand. Saying that is a way of separating out various kinky activities from the penetrative sorts of sex that a kinkster might not want to engage in. Fair.
But there’s also a problem with this distinction. By compartmentalizing kink and sex as different sets of experiences it potentially relegates kink into a “less intimate” sphere than more traditional forms of sex.
Yes, many will tout kinky sex to be just as intimate as other forms of sex. I totally agree. My kink encounters are often as or more intimate for me than when I engage in more mainstream sexual fare.
But I don’t think that’s how many people see it. Often when I hear someone talk about separating their kink and their sex it’s to reserve the sex part for an “intimate” partner. The unspoken message is that kink isn’t as intimate and special as is, let’s say, penetrative sex.
Sexuality educators will often exclaim how deeply intimate and profound kink connections can be, and they sure can be. But what message does it send when so many at the same time compartmentalize kink into a “less intimate” category than the other types of sex they have with a single or various partners.
When I was interviewing subjects as one of the authors of the book, KINK IS: An Anthology of Surprisingly Relatable True Stories About Sex, Power, and Joy, one of the common themes that emerged was that many people separate their kink from their sex. That’s how they’d often phrase it, just like that. I understand what they mean, but a part of me churned inside every time I hear it because for decades I’ve declared that all the kinky things I do are indeed “sex.”
But apart from when discussing kink, and let’s face it defining what kink is can also end up a fruitless task, I find the idea that sex must fit into a neatly labeled box of only specific prescribed activities bothersome and for me inaccurate.
Apart from what we’d typically see as kink, entire sets of activities I contend are sex.
When I erotically cammed with guys during the pandemic to maintain a sex life during lockdown, for me that was sex.
When I grab a hold of a close buddy at a bar and kiss him deeply for five minutes and then disperse into the crowd separately, for me that is sex.
When a friend and I exchange massages, that for me can be sex (depends).
When I sext with a buddy in between our in-the-flesh encounters, that for me is sex.
I could go on. You get my point.
I guess what I hope you’ll get from reading this post is that we need to elevate all forms of sexuality to an equal status and not place the various forms somewhere on an intimacy spectrum which ends up often identifying some as more intimate than others. I just don’t think that’s necessary or wise. Maybe you feel the same way, or maybe not, but I hope this post made you wrestle a bit with what sex is for you and how we reference it culturally.
If you do an online search for Greta Christina, you’ll see she’s written books, delivered speeches, written lots of posts, and appeared in videos. I recommend you follow her wherever you find her. She has a brilliant mind worth delving into through her work. One site on which you’ll find her current posts is The Orbit, a site that offers a diverse collective of atheist and nonreligious bloggers committed to social justice, within and outside the secular community. She’s also written four books you might find interesting.
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