Definitions of "doin' it"
In her blog Ariel of Ken and Ariel asks
OK, bring it: If I take you home and we lick each other silly, does it mean we've had sex? Is penetration the one and only definition of "a fuck"? Is oral sex more intimate than bumping the uglies?
Discuss amongst y'selves and get back to me. I'm trying to figure out if I'm still a virgin.
In comments Megan Leigh provides an excellent definition!
I think once it becomes referred to as 'it,' whether it is oral or otherwise, it is sex. Until then, it is not. That is where I stand.
As a prudish libertine I define sex as anything you do that purposely arouses you or your partner. Get hard from kissing? Sex. Get wet from slow-dancing? Sex. Phone or cyber sex? Sex. Oral sex? Sex. Appear in a SoCal-produced mainstream porn movie? Though call -- on the one hand it never looks like anyone's particularly *aroused* in more than a mechanical get-to-work way, but since the purpose of all that aerobic activity is to arouse the audience... sex.
To think it's only legitimate "sex" if you're having intercourse is as weird as the old missionary idea that it's only legitimate "sex" if you're having intercourse! Another other issue, of course, is that reserving vaginal intercourse as the only *significant* act overloads an already tricky form of sex with even more social and personal expectations. And finally, since you can still be in love, contract STDs, have orgasms, feel possessive, get pregnant, give and get orgasms, and have your heart broken without having vaginal intercourse, the risks outweigh the benefits of making everything else an exception. Especially for beginners. Oh yeah, plus making penile/vaginal coupling the only "real" sex tends to leave non-heterosexuals out of the loop.
Don't get me wrong by the way, intercourse is the bee's knees -- I think it's one of the *best* kinds of sex but there's no way I think it's the *only* kind of sex.
(Note: The prudish side of me says "don't try to weasel out of it, it's all sex. Sex, sex, sex!" Meanwhile the libertine side says "there's a problem with that?")
