What is Sex? And what "Counts"?
- tamarweir8
- Jun 25, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Jun 26, 2025
Written by: Tamar Simone Weir
I have had a list of all of my sexual partners, from the beginning of my sexual journey. On the list I organized the names of the people, and the way that my high school brain categorized things was that the names with an emoji indicated that we had had sex, the names with no emoji meant something sexy and flirty but no S E X...
For years I added to this list, adding sexual experiences to my portfolio, figuring out my body, having lots of unsatisfying sex, having some beautiful explorative moments, and then something happened....
At the age of 20 I decided to follow this curiosity that I had had for a few years, in exploring with women and non cis men. To follow this curiosity and explore this desire within myself! While I was in this process of internal and external thoughts and actions, I realized that my list was heavily flawed.. I was indicating with an emoji the people I had had sex with, but was not including oral sex at all. In this list the people that I shared oral sex with were not included as my sexual partners..... This shook me in a deep way because as I was exploring what it meant to be queer for myself and for others around me, my list was not inclusive of the grandness of sex, the expansiveness of it, and the vastness of experiences one can have within the framework of pleasure. This is something that I still find incredibly common within many social circles, where people are not inclined to think that oral sex or sensual actions done with the body that don't include penetrative vaginal sex, is sex......So for many years my little list was smaller than I thought right? Because here I was not including all the other sexual experiences I had explored which were many,.... but after this rude awakening, I forced myself to go back to this list and do some heavy editing. Some major changing of what I knew to be sex and what misconceptions I was carrying with me through my exploration in new experiences. The ignorance I unknowingly or unconsciously carried with me for far too long, was confronted and in that, I had to acknowledge the ways that I had erased pleasure for queer folks, for myself, and for many communities. The patriarchy was thriving off of my patriarchal sex list, but no longer...
The Oxford language Dictionary defines sex as, "(chiefly with reference to people) sexual activity, including specifically sexual intercourse." Today talking about sex is still very taboo, and when it is discussed many topics are left out of the conversation. This definition is known as one of the many vast definitions of sex. It is not the only definition even though society and media likes to portray that there is one universal definition and standard. That this word is a non fluid and stagnant word that remains untouched. This relates to how each person defines their experiences in their life as well. Time and place is also extremely relevant as society is molding us and creating narratives around us as we live and breathe. The Harvey Institute defined 6 principles of sexual health as a way to investigate and open up conversations with friends, family, and lovers about what a healthy sexual life can look like
Consent
Non -Exploitative
Honest
Shared Values
Protected from STI's and Unwanted Pregnancy
Pleasure
To explore more of the article and the ways that they define these concepts and why they are important, take a look at the full article above!
How do we define our love and health in conversation with our sexuality? What 6 principles and terms would we use if we created our own personalized principles of Sexual Health?
For instance, a topic that gets circulated often is cheating.... but even within that heavy word, there is a lot underneath to unpack. What is cheating for you? For your partner? How would you define this word specifically? Is cheating when you engage in penetrative sex with someone else that is not in your clearly defined relationship? Is it kissing someone else? Thinking about someone else? Flirting with someone else? Dreaming about someone else? Emotionally creating a connection with someone else? What is included and excluded from the conversation greatly depends on each person's connection to the experience at hand and the ways that they view the world around them, impacting the way that they come to define a particular situation.
The same is true for this large HUGE umbrella term SEX. When we see sex as only penis in the vagina, we are minimizing the potential for pleasure and furthering the heteronormative agenda that states that there are wrong and right ways to experience our bodies. That there are bad bodies and good bodies, and bad ways to experience having a body and good ways to experience having a body. The patriarchy tells us that we need newness and to change ourselves constantly. The patriarchy tells us subconsciously that having a penis is more valued than a vagina. That men are more useful in our society, appreciated, respected. Heteronormativity tells us that we need to perform sex, and pleasure in certain ways to be accepted and valued as sexual beings. That to deviate from the norm is weird, pathological, disgusting. A study in the National Library of Medicine, investigated how heteronormativity functions in young people's lives, and the ways that gender, sexuality, and sexual attraction are performed. The study interviewed 14 young people, and 4 major themes were identified.
(1) challenging gender norms,
(2) gender expression (in)validating sexual identity,
(3) the role of gender expression in attraction and partnering, and
(4) negotiating gendered family formation.
This study is important for many reasons, one being that they investigated how these young people feel about the presence of heteronormativity in their lives with an intersectional lense. The prevalence of heteronormativity in these youths lives, was a great predictor of the ways that they felt like they were engaging in the world, their identities, and navigating their own life's experiences. At first glance, sex for someone may not be a gendered act, but at second glance it really connects with so many of our core fundamental belief systems that our collective gender binary imposing society inflicts on us unconsciously EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Christina Greta, author of "Are We Having Sex Now or What" offers her own insights into what we define as sex. Below I am including the first chapter of the book. In this work, she includes a working definition and possible definition to this large question. Sex as, "The conscious, consenting, mutually acknowledged pursuit of sexual pleasure of at least one of the people involved. That it can be messy. Feeling sexual with someone isn't necessarily the same as having sex with them." She then concludes the chapter by stating that she still does not know what it is.... And for many people, having this nonlinear and expansiveness is a challenge, because we want to label things and have clearly defined concepts that we can grasp.
Can we continue to have sex and be sexual while opening up our definitions and not attaching ourselves to one definition?
I think within the larger framework of sex and especially given how deeply personal it is, it's crucial to also talk about some important concepts. A not new, but definitely more mainstream term that has come into the public eye is Sex Positivity. Some describe it to be a movement, some describe this as a framework, and some describe it as actions that you participate in, actively. Many people have their own definitions. One that I particularly enjoy is from the author of Come As You Are, Emily Nagoski. She states that Sex positivity is “the radical, all-inclusive believe that each person’s body belongs to that person.”
For me sex positivity is a daily practice in unlearning shame based feelings and emotions in the body, that lead me to feel negatively towards myself and others. It is not yucking someone's Yum. It is allowing for possibilities to arise. It is the not knowing but exploring. It is the awareness to begin questioning yourself and your beliefs. It is the sadness of disconnection from my body but allowing the tears to fill me up with fuel. It is the movement towards pleasure. It is the knowing I'm worthy. It is the fluctuation of desire, confidence, sensation, appetite, hunger, rest. It is so much.
If you're reading this right now, without getting into all the research and all the things you've heard people say about sex positivity, take a moment to think of your version.
-If you embodied this positivity, what sadness would arise for you?
-If you embodied this positivity, what lists would you have to burn?
-If you embodied this positivity, what wounds would need care?
-If you embodied this positivity, what ways would you dream of for more pleasure?
-If you embodied this positivity, how would you move in the world and around other bodies?
Theodore R. Burnes, Anneliese A. Singh, and Ryan Witherspoon investigates in the "Counseling Psychologist" the larger history in counseling, psychology, training and supervision, and the research within the field. They state that counselors should be aware of the impact that sex positivity can have in creating resilience, and is a valid form of resistance against erotophobia. Their definition of "erotophobia" is the irrational reaction to the erotic which makes individuals and society vulnerable to social control. Sex positivity has so much potential, power, and presence for people and communities. The authors discuss the needs for psychologists to understand certain terms, language that is being used, and that this draws to similar queer movements where psychologists communities needed to unpack affirmative terms in the movement forwards. The same is true for the larger sexuality field today. A lot of the research, even though the investigations in many ways come from great intentions, often times highlight perspectives of pathologizing types of sex by neglecting to explore the wide array of desires, behaviors, and roles. Going beyond the ideas of deviance and stepping into the idea of difference. It is essential that psychologists are uniquely trained in order to understand the wellbeing of the patient in terms of social justice perspectives and histories of oppression that are so closely linked and tied to our sexuality and freedom!
That's why when people tell me, "Girl you talk about sex toooooo much, or wow you really love talking about sex", I'm always answering, "Well yes, because we are talking about so much more than JUST sex, we are talking about eros and existence.".
I included the whole research article here for those who want to dive deeper into the authors analysis and suggestions for future contributions.
All in all, my list is a lot longer now when it comes to my sexual and erotic experiences... My definitions are in motion and are moving. There are some days when I feel strongly about one and other days when the definitions feel smooth like a dolphin, just gliding into the water. I still have the same list that I started as a young teen, on the notes app on my phone, and as I look to that list and add my new experiences, I honor that little teenage Tamar who 10 years later would become a sex educator and make people uncomfortable at the dinner table.
XOXO
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