I had an acquaintance in college who referred to anal sex as EB, for "Everything Butt." Two T's.

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That phrase was also used in a web spoof of PSA spots called "technical virgin". I was going to link them but it looks like the creator took them down after one of the actors got fired from her show on PBS Kids over them. Sad.

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Maybe it's being bi & poly, but I have a definition that is the same across all potential couplings.

"If some had an orgasm, some kind of sex occurred."

Works for me.

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Looks like I agreed with your comment before I even read it. :)

Orgasm, or intent to provide, equals sex.

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I think a more interesting question is what people mean by "I hooked up with X."

When I was younger and jealous of the action my friends were getting, I used that confusion to my advantage, letting people believe more happened than in reality. (I never said it was a good idea...). It usually meant make out/groping, sometimes manual stimulation, but never sex according to any of your definitions. However, others in my peer group used it to mean one night stand.

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i was going to mention that phrase. it confuses the hell out of me, people use it for just about any sexual act, or sometimes not even. but props for taking advantage of that, lol.

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Because definitions are so varied between people, I just assume that any number of forms of sexual contact took place that may or may not include manipulation, toys, oral, anal, penetration, etc. Only if it's a conversation with a really good friend do I go further and ask, "So, what'd you do?"

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Interesting viewpoint. I suppose I agree with your definition of hetero sex.

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I think it is interesting that you are so penetration-centered for everything except lesbian sex. Because, yo, fisting.

I tend to think in terms of sexual contact and so sex is much more varied. I like jenk's definition.

Edited at 2008-08-15 07:14 pm (UTC)

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You know, I hadn't thought about it, but yeah. Fisting == sex. But fisting without at least a little oral sex warmup seems a little harsh.

I, too, like her definition. Sorta. My classifications run amuck.

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My curiosity about the subject has to do with thinking in terms of losing virginity. Does a guy who gets a blowjob lose his virginity? Does a girl who has oral sex lose hers? Does a guy who's had anal sex but not vaginal sex? What about the other way around?

In my view, there's practically a virginity -- a "first time," anyway -- for every girl and boy bit, with an arbitrary hierarchy that makes some forms of virginity-loss trump others such that you can say "yeah, I lost my virginity" rather than "I lost my anal virginity."

Man, society is just weird.

Agreed.

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Well, that's why there was that trend among Christian youth to do anal but not vaginal intercourse as it preserved technical virginity.

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Sex: something I haven't had yet.

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all these comments and I'm the only person who's a virgin, jeez I need to get laid.

I would like to say I've had offers though, she was the creepiest person I've ever met but she did offer.

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I would call it "having sex" if fluids originating in the genitals were deposited inside the partner's pleasuring orifice. Any gender pairing the rules are the same.

As for cheating, I think cheating has to do with intent, even if no contact is made. Kissing touching anything can be done with a sexual intent, or without. If actors kiss someone on stage are they cheating? Of course not, there's no intent.

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As for cheating, I think cheating has to do with intent, even if no contact is made. Kissing touching anything can be done with a sexual intent, or without.

Absolutely. I think cheating can be purely emotional, with no sex involved. And the rules of the relationship mean that is different for people, of course.

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What I think is that it's retarded when people say, "Well, I touched it but I didn't hold it, I held it but I didn't stroke it, I licked it but I didn't suck it."

I gotta go with my lovely and esteemed wife on this one: anything that involves orgasm, or intent to provide one, is sex. There seems to be a slightly more factual basis for that definition than the purely arbitrary distinctions you're talking about here. (And yes, oral sex is sex. Dude, it's right in the name.)

"Sexual contact," to me, means nobody came, and no one was trying to make anyone come.

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I didn't see this before I wrote my comment, but pretty much agree.

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I debated this internally for years because, sometimes through my own fault and sometimes not, I had a series of sexual encounters which, though involving lots of naked rolling around, didn't actually include PIV penetration. Did I actually have sex with that person, then, if that didn't happen. I tended to side for "no," which, in my mind, kept my number of sexual partners embarrassingly low.

I've changed my definition in the last couple of years thanks to a couple of my girlfriends. Basically, if you're doing something which should involve protection via latex (whether you actually protect it with latex or not), it's sex. Made sense to me, and also retroactively increased my number of sexual partners quite a bit...

I also like jenk's "if an orgasm happened, it was sex" definition above quite a bit.

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The "should involve latex"clause is a very good guideline. Hmm. Neat.

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For me, there's no definition, which just leaves me examining assumptions.

When someone says "we had sex," I assume they meant some sort of penetrative sex, either vaginal or anal, but not oral. That goes for straight couples and gay men. With lesbian couples, they say they had sex, and I assume that they had some sort of mutually satisfying encounter, but I don't make assumptions about the nature of it.

I'm not proud that I make any assumptions at all. I think conventional notions of what constitutes "sex" are pretty fucked-up, so to speak, and I don't feel good about perpetuating that, even in my own mind. I know what I mean when I say "I had sex" about encounters I've had, but I try not to assume that everyone else means the same thing by it that I do. I have a very narrow definition of sex for myself, and a very broad one for other people, whom I recognize might define sex differently.

How I'd feel about omitting details would depend totally on context. If it's my husband, and I'm asking if he had sex with someone, and he neglects to mention that there was nakedness, oral sex, and orgasms, I'm going to be annoyed, yes. That's because I expect my spouse to anticipate and answer my unasked questions, just as I attempt to do the same for him. We have total disclosure.

With friends, whatever they are comfortable telling me, that's fine. If a friend said there was no sex and I found out later there was oral sex, I probably wouldn't be put out, but I'd definitely have a moment of "OH. You didn't mention that."

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I think that people turn sex into a thing, but it is really something you do - an intimate interaction on the road to orgasm (whether or not it is achieved or can be achieved).

As such, whether or not a person defines sex as including or excluding oral sex, anal sex or a handjob doesn't matter to me - all of them fall into that category of intimacy, and so they are one in the same for me. Which is it? I don't care.

What counts as cheating or not depends on my relationship, but they've pretty much all required advance warning, unless I wasn't in a "significant other" situation.

I don't, as you may imagine, like using the phrase "had sex" because it is as ambiguous (without further definition) as "love" -and- turns an action into a noun (so for those keeping score, I love verbing or adjectiving nouns, hate nouning verbs). Unless I'm completely off in my grammar, in which case I don't give a damn. :D

In my personal opinion, I think drawing bright lines between these actions is (again, personal opinion) dumb - your intentions matter most, and I don't know too many people who'll give me a blowjob in place of a handshake (if that's you, enquire within!).

Regarding cheating (in any relationship), I expect my partner to check with me on my comfort level for any unexpected, unplanned and/or unagreed-upon serious intimacy, and to do the same for them. It's not about what I have a right to do with my own life, but about dignity, self-control and respect for my partner's feelings and security. Or their respect for mine.

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Same thing, actually.

Intellectually and idealistically, I'm of the whatever-you-think-of-as-sex-is-sex school, against heteronormativity and in favor of everyone's right to self-definition...maaaan. (*takes bong hit, ponders molecular-level kinship of All Life and whether there are any Pringles left*)

But on a prurient-interest level, the above totally fails. *Totally*. If I'm out to lunch with Jane and she's talking about her date with Dick, "We had sex" means something very different than "I blew him." And if she's been going out with Dick for a while and is complaining that they don't have sex any more, I'll ask "Well, does he at least go down on you?"

And I suppose this is because I define "sex" as "the furthest you can reasonably expect a date to go without some semi-serious discussion". Yes, straight girls and boys do anal and lesbians penetrate each other with toys and that's all good wholesome fun, but it's fun that you can't expect every partner to be into or let you know up front if they're not. Furthest you can expect to go in the "standard package," I suppose.

Hm. I think part of the problem here is that neither vaginal nor anal penetration has a specific, concise word to describe it. "Fucked" or "screwed" are all basically synonyms for "we had sex," which is vague; when you say "I blew him" or "she went down on me," your audience has a pretty good idea what's going on here. I suppose we could always use "nailed," but that doesn't work so well for lesbians...or women in general, come to think of it.

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But for cheating? Yeah, depends on intent and agreement. I do think it's unreasonable to define looking or talking as cheating--though if you're doing either of those in such a way as to ignore your SO, you're still being a tacky jerk--but I wouldn't feel comfortable kissing another guy without my boyfriend agreeing, much less anything else.

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For me, sex includes vaginal, anal, oral, and manual contact. But then again, I'm a researcher who has spent several years doing studies on how to prevent HIV, other sexually transmitted diseases, and pregnancy. I imagine that my thinking about sex has been completely warped by the public health perspective.

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I think that the last sentence can be adapted to a great many topics.


I imagine that my thinking about rocks has been completely warped by the public health perspective.

I imagine that my thinking about cheese has been completely warped by the public health perspective.

I imagine that my thinking about air has been completely warped by the public health perspective.

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Sex needs to involve two or more people and the genitalia of at least one of those people. If you can get a veneral disease or pregnant it is sex. It does not matter if it is oral, vaginal, or anal.

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I'm in this camp of thought.

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What I find problematic here is that your definition seems to imply that heterosexual sex THAT WILL LEAD TO BABIES is the most real kind of sexual contact. And if you can't do that anything that involves a penis and penetration is sex (so for gay men, anal sex is sex). And if there's no penis at all (lesbian sex) then you're stuck with oral sex.

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I share your eyeroll.

And I'm still perplexed as to how oral sex between men is somehow not penetration by a penis.

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"I had sex," means, for me, penetration of anything below the waistline -so anal or vaginal, it's always sex. Oral falls under, "Not quite sex, but not far off". Groping -or anything involving gential contact -is further off than oral, but still very sexual, enough that I'd expect anyone doing it to be in a relationship.

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I'm posting this without reading other comments, because I don't want to be skewed by what other people think (I'll read in a moment).

I've given this a lot of thought over the years. My most recent guy, our most memorable sexual encounters did not involve penetration, although they certainly count as 'sex'. The best answer I can give is:

An interactive experience between at least two people, involving genital contact and/or orgasm for at least one person.

For me, it's about crossing a particular threshold of intimacy with someone.

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Ok thinking more on the subject I have changed my mind and am going with the "If latex should be worn for protection" then it's sex, guideline.

Kudos, badlittlemonkey

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I also think that kissing can be way more intimate than penetration. I had a friend I had an on-again-off-again FWB relationship with for YEARS that I never kissed, because that seemed too intimate to both of us.

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I'm perplexed by your definition of Lesbian sex since I find having my fist wrist-deep into someone a bit more in the "sex" category than cunnilingus. Same for pounding someone with my hand. I feel like your definitions are largely shaped by portrayals of these kinds of sex in mainstream porn.

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Two women: Oral sex
Two men: Anal
Man and a woman: Anal or vaginal penetration

If I asked my partner "Have you been cheating on me?" I'd expect them to fess up if they'd so much as french-kissed another person. I guess I'm just jealous. ;P

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I've had this problem myself. I can tell you exactly how many men I've had sex with, but as for women? The number can be anywhere from zero to five, depending on what the definition of sex is.

I'm a romantic at heart, though. I consider myself to have had sex with one woman because I loved her.

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