Gender and the Definition of Sex

How do women have sex?

This is a question I’ve heard, and seen in print, too many times to count.

The fact that this eludes so many people points to the narrow definition that we have of sex. Sex without a penis seems unfathomable. That is why heterosexuals are able to grasp the concept of two men having sex, except that this understanding, again, underlines how limited our definition of sex is. It would be incorrect to assume that all gay men engage in anal sex, or that those who do, do so all the time.

When I was a teenager, I can remember hearing other girls say, “We [the girl and her boyfriend] haven’t had sex; we’ve only had oral sex.” I can also remember the following sly suggestion of a guy who was dating a friend of mine, who had vowed not to have premarital sex: “If we have anal sex, technically you’ll still be a virgin.” Oh, the horror!

So, when I reached adulthood, and I heard women confess that they had been sexually active for several years and had never had an orgasm, or thought they had had one (Honey, if you think it happened, it didn’t happen), it didn’t surprise me. If all sex is to people is vaginal penetration, then you can’t expect the outcome to be great for everyone all the time.

I read something yesterday that made me reflect (more than usual) on the fact that women aren’t taken seriously. Without getting into a discussion on same-sex marriage, as it requires more nuance than a passing paragraph can do it justice, I want to focus on gender and sex. In brief, according to the cited article, during the Victorian era in Britain, there were women who got away with marrying other women because one of the partners could pass for male.

The concept of passing plays into a persistent stereotype about queer women, which is that one must be “the woman” and the other, “the man.” This draws an obvious parallel to the heteronormative paradigm, much like the narrow definition of sex that I mentioned above. Thus, to have a relationship, or marriage, one might be taken seriously if one passes for a heterosexual couple. Yet this is a trap, since the absence of the penis means that sex cannot occur, and without sex, those in the Victorian era might argue, there is no marriage. So, I read this as a condescending pat on the back for women wanting to play “man” and “wife,” as if they were children playing dress-up.

This is important because the article mentions that there was no discussion of sex between women, and in fact, these couples “were not seen as sexually deviant.” Of course not, because without a penis, there is no intercourse, and without intercourse, there is no sex. Even today, gay sex is commonly defined as sodomy, which is not something anyone expects two women to practice, and therefore, women can fly under the radar and be together without actually breaking any laws. Although this oddly gives queer women a certain amount of privilege as compared to queer men, again, it underlines the dismissive manner in which women in same-sex relationships are treated. Why define sex between women when it poses no threat to the heterosexual, or even the accepted homosexual, norm? But I will argue later that it is indeed quite threatening.

That leads to my final point about the article, which is that it mentions that despite this relaxing of the definition of marriage, it did not apply to men, for whom embracing in public was still banned in the mid-twentieth century. This homophobic approach to gender is something that intrigues me as a person who divides her time between Canada and India. In Canada, there is a strict code of behaviour for men, if they don’t want to be perceived as gay. Beyond a handshake or fist bump, there is little touching. One of those manly hugs with loud back-slapping can be acceptable, provided you don’t linger for too long in each other’s embrace. In India, on the other hand, it is perfectly normal for male friends to walk hand-in-hand. And if you’re riding around on a pink scooter or wearing a flamboyant, floral printed shirt, you won’t have to worry about being the victim of a hate crime. In fact, chances are, no one will think any of these things says anything about your masculinity or sexual orientation. So, in the West, why is there this fear of seeing signs of anything associated with femininity in men? Is it really that easy to overturn one’s gender or sexuality?

I have frequently argued in the presence of friends that the world might be a slightly happier place if we were to abandon our rigid definitions, and men in particular were free to pursue sexual relationships with each other, since so many of them don’t seem to like women all that much and do seem to really enjoy the company of their male friends.

As for women, don’t worry, I’m not arguing that the answer to their elusive orgasms is to sleep with other women. The answer lies in their own hands. Pun intended.

I believe that this is the root cause of our sad and limited definition of sex. Boys are expected to masturbate. It’s not a taboo, as long as they do it behind closed doors. But girls are discouraged from getting to know their bodies. Boys are boys, full stop. But there are two kinds of girls: the good ones and the bad ones. The good ones are chaste, whereas the bad ones are filthy whores who can’t be trusted. Anything in between takes a very liberal, discerning eye to recognize.

Why is female sexuality hard to handle? Maybe because if a woman is in tune with her body and is a little assertive in bed, she’ll undermine and emasculate her partner, who is expected to be the assertive one. So, the alternative is what, then? She has to hope her partner is really looking to make her happy before he worries about himself, or she will be left forever wondering, “Did I have an orgasm just now?” Incidentally, her partner might be wondering the same thing about her, because it would be rude, after all, to tell the poor fellow that she hadn’t finished.

While two women together might be easily dismissed as a couple of silly girls pretending to have sex, the reality is that there is less room for pretense, which makes the act threatening. In order to have sex with another woman, a woman needs to know how the female anatomy works. That requires comfort with her own body and her partner’s. I scandalized a friend once by suggesting that there can be a degree of detachment in standard hetero intercourse, due to both the mechanics and the fact that the man is most likely thinking only of his pleasure, whereas sex between women demands engagement and more physical closeness due to the mechanics involved. This is not absolute, of course.

But seriously, the man gets to focus on his penis, the woman is expected to focus on the man’s penis; so, who’s focusing on the clitoris? Much like the women who have yet to locate the Big O, how is it that there are straight men who don’t know where the clitoris is? The only way you could miss it is if you’re just inserting… Oh, wait, that is what’s going on, isn’t it? There’s that narrow definition again.

Let’s be real. If there is nudity involved, if genitals are involved in any way, it’s sex.