If words do not have meanings that are agreed upon then communication cannot happen. Historically, legally and certainly according to the church that I was brought up in the only "appropriate" sex is PIV (penis in vagina) and for many, including the church that I was brought up in, only for reproduction. In many places any other type of sex was criminalized, taboo or at least frowned upon.Wikipedia Sodomy Laws It is my understanding that if one is doing "sexual acts" that one is having sex, and to me this includes oral, anal and even manual sex (the fact that it is sex is implicit in the name). This partly derives from seeing myself as a lesbian and spending a lot of time with other lesbians over the years. Lesbians are often accused of not having "real" sex, basically because heteronormativity defines sex as only happening when a penis is involved. Despite that accusation by many, most of the lesbians that I have known do believe that what they do when intimate with each other is real sex. I wonder when people discount certain types of sex as not being sex. One big reason that I do not like certain types of sex being thought of as "not real" is that my options are limited. I am not outfitted for PIV with my boyfriend. Additionally I dislike anal sex (before anyone chimes in with "you do not know what you are missing" I assure you that I do know, I have done anal sex with more than one person so I do in fact know for certain that I do not like it - from experience). We do manual things together and sometimes I do oral on him but he has never climaxed from oral even with the other women that he has been with. My boyfriend and I cuddle (not a euphemism for sex), we cuddle a lot. That is how we started when we were friends and before we were in a relationship. What we do now goes further and we both do believe that we are having sex. We are touching each others genitals for pleasure, thus we are having sex.
I find myself agreeing with your definition of sex. Something I have heard from others when we were teenagers was that oral sex was not real sex therefore it does not count. A similar thing I have heard is becoming popular these days is a younger woman saying she is still a virgin because she has only had anal sex and not vaginal. This may not be as common as people say, but it does happen. I believe that all these circumstances are just denial due to the shame around sex. A person can hold onto the idea that they are in the eyes their pers still pure and a virgin. I have seen just as much of this from non religious people even though shaming sex comes heavily from religion.
I have heard this also. I find it strange that they can do something which has historically been considered unnatural or immoral and still consider themselves "pure".
I consider it whatever has a risk (regardless of %) of getting an STI. So yeah, pretty much agree with you
We're living in an age where people are performing mental gymnastics with ideas about sexuality and sexual identity and it's very unhealthy and potentially dangerous. A quick glance on the internet will introduce you to the alphabet soup of niche labels which offer a false blanket of security for people who are unwilling or unable to confront repressed feelings of shame about sex. Sometimes these feelings arise from a religious upbringing, but not always. If you are doing something to stimulate or arouse your partner you are engaged in a sexual activity, it really is as simple as that. You are making a conscious choice to deliberately turn someone on and/or bring them to climax. It's not worth engaging with semantic arguments about when the line is crossed because we know what the underlying purpose of such arguments really is. I refuse to stoke the fire of shame and repression or give credence to unfounded ideas. Sometimes we need to be direct and tell people to "get real."
