Figleaf's Real Adult Sex

Em and Low of Daily Bedpost

We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: Sex is not intercourse. So stop using the two words interchangeably! When we as a society do this over and over again, it gets into the collective unconscious and starts limiting how we imagine the possibilities of pleasure, especially for women. A majority of women (that’s more women than not!) don’t climax from intercourse, so why rush to get there when you can spend time on more rewarding acts? But make no mistake: it’s not like you gentlemen out there can’t enjoy the variety that comes from taking intercourse off its pedestal—hey, if the destination is orgasm, how could anyone complain about the journey there? (Indeed, how could anyone NOT call that “sex”?!)

Read the quote in context here.

Nicely, if heteronormatively**, said. I always like to go a bit further, though, and stress that “sex,” however you define it, also doesn’t automatically end with male ejaculation.

This is not, by the way, to buy into the idea that orgasms are just “harder” for women, or that women “need” foreplay. After all the “fore” in foreplay is short for the same old “before intercourse to male ejaculation” Em, Lo, all other right-thinking people, and I are trying to nudge out of first place.

Instead, as Em and Lo hint, if the point of sex was male ejaculation then “Jizz in My Pants“ would be an instructional video and we could all go home. Since there’s almost universal agreement that “ejaculation” and “sex” aren’t the same thing it’s not that much of a stretch to “intercourse” and “sex” aren’t the same thing either…

At which point you get quite a bit more latitude for enjoyment not just for women but for men too!

One last point about the benefits of confusing intercourse with sex. Among heterosexuals it’s overwhelmingly the case that “intercourse” is something that men do to their partners. Not necessarily a bad to do things to each other during sex, and I’m given to understand that many (though not all) women enjoy it for precisely the reason of feeling “done to.”

Thing is, though, that if for the most part “foreplay” means “getting ready for sex” and “sex” means “intercourse” and “intercourse” means “what the man does to the woman” then… well, where, exactly is the room for women to enjoy actively things, for men to enjoy actively being *done to?”

I mean, if (heterosexuals) can’t break out of that then we’re stuck in what amounts to one party always hosting dinner (using food as my favorite analogy again) and the other party always being the guest. Not that there’s anything specifically about that either (one reason I think it’s a good analogy.) It’s just… limited in the sense that neither side gets the full range of experience. Just for example: of planning what to make or bring or do, of anticipating what the other has planned; of making requests or alternately of soliciting them.

And, seriously, with sharing sex, just as with sharing food, the experience of breaking out of the “host” and “guest” roles provides further understanding, further appreciation, greater inspiration, closer connections, and consequently much richer, much deeper, and much greater pleasure. For all concerned.

[** Focusing on heterosexuality is just fine in this context, because for reasons that… don’t actually have as much to do with sex as it does with notions of reproduction heterosexual sex seems to be a lot more consistently… even institutionally!... and unnecessarily dysfunctional. —fl]

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? Tough call — on the one hand it never looks like anyone’s particularly aroused in more than a mechanical get-to-work way. On the other hand since the purpose of all that aerobic activity is to arouse the audience… it’s 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?”)