“Did we have sex last night?”
One would think that question would inspire an easy, straight-forward, yes or no response. But it turns out, it’s a little more complicated than that.
A new study published in The Journal of Sex Research seeks to find exactly what queer people consider to be sex and what they consider to be mere “physically intimate behavior.”
Related: New study reveal the “optimum number of people to have sex with” before you die
How about we take this to the next level?
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The study was conducted by the University of Utah. Researchers interviewed over 700 people over the course of two years. What they learned may surprise you.
According to the findings, about 30% of lesbians said they don’t count oral sex as actual sex; however, throw a dildo into the mix and then 70% said it’s now considered sex.
Among gay men the number was much higher. A majority of them (over 50%) counted both oral sex and rimming as sex, and 90% said penetrative anal sex was the “gold standard” when it came to defining sex.
Gay men also more often than not counted sexual activities performed while another person was present to be sex, and nearly 40% said solo activities, like phone sex and masturbation, also counted as sex.
Related: 48% of Millennials say they prefer to have sex before the first date, study finds
Just to see how malleable the definitions of sex are, researchers also measured how people’s responses changed when talking about themselves or talking about their partners and potentially cheating.
Spoiler alert: People we’re stricter with their definitions of sex when it came to their partners than they were with themselves.
“Participants who were asked to consider their partner’s behavior outside of their relationship were more likely to endorse the behavior as ‘having sex’ than participants asked to consider their own behavior,” the study says.
So what’s the takeaway from all this? Honestly, we don’t know. Other than the fact that sex can be as simple or as complicated as you choose to make it. So happy humping! Or, um, non-humping!
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
Surprised by the lesbians statistic. “Oral sex” — clue is in the name. My definition: any deliberate and consensual interaction with another’s genitals intended to incite a sexual response in one or both parties
Juanjo
When I was a teenager back in the 60s and early 70s, the good Catholic girls and boys in mt high school did not define oral sex as sex. Sex was strictly penetration of the vagina with a penis. So good catholic girls could suck dick or get it up the ass without losing their virginity. Most of them didn’t do either because it was “icky”. However I was happy to point out to the boys who also believed this that we could have oral sex or anal sex and they could still claim to be a virgin when they married. I got laid a lot.
Ksb1978
Or could still claim to be straight.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
The Virgin Birth, Transubstantiation, papal infallibility, stigmata, “I got laid a lot”
Heywood Jablowme
I guess this kind of stupidity is only dangerous if they get a sexually transmitted disease from doing something they don’t consider to be “sex.”
radiooutmike
Why is there any judgment from you about this, Heywood Jablowme?
This is just what many people think anyways. Most heterosexual people don’t think they lost their virginity until there is PIV sex. They don’t say, “Hey, I lost my virginity by getting or performing a blowjob.”
Now for the LGBTQIA+, we can have many different definitions. But still, these definitions can be based on heteronormative standards, like lesbians thinking penetration with a dildo is “sex” vs “just” oral.
Heywood Jablowme
It’s not a “nowadays” thing. As juanjo says above (re: 1960s & ’70s), it was definitely an idiotic religious thing in the past.
How can “oral sex” not be “sex”? It’s right in the frickin’ name. It’s not “oral NON-sex”!