This morning’s commute spawned this discussion in my head.
“How do you define sex?”
SEX is the insertion of an object into an individual’s mouth, vagina, or anus. SEX can be used to
- produce pleasure
- produce off spring
- exert one’s sense of power over another
“But wait, that doesn’t really cover all the bases. Hmmmm.”
When used to exert one’s power over another, and or one party has not given clear, concise consent to the insertion, then SEX is a form of RAPE.
“Yeah. Okay…I think that covers it. Good grief, where do you come up with this stuff? And c’mon, would you really have told your daughter that if she’d asked?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, too often SEX is defined as what two humans engage in when they want to show each other love. But we all know that SEX is the physical act and can be accomplished to varying degrees of satisfaction with or without any kind of emotion, i.e. “love”. Heaven knows most times as far as I was concerned, it was something to do to get him to shut up and leave me alone, OR was based primarily on my overwhelming desire (ha ha) to find out if he was as skilled as his kisses lead me to believe.”
“That doesn’t sound right.”
“Why? If we’re talking the actual act of sex, I’ve only been in one situation where I didn’t give clear and concise consent. I didn’t always WANT to have SEX, but I went into it of my own free will.”
“That sounds like a type of rape to me. You didn’t want it, but you said yes anyway?”
“Hmmm.”
“Yeah…you think on that for a minute.”
And so I have. I’ve been thinking of all the times I said yes just to make sure what happened to me “wasn’t rape”. I didn’t want to be with the individual, I wasn’t interested or even remotely aroused. I was in a situation where it seemed to be in my best interest to go with the flow so as to diffuse things, to take things down a notch and avoid any type of confrontation. Any kind of ‘violence’. I still felt empty, abused, used, and quite often ashamed, but I’d given my consent so it wasn’t “rape”.
Regardless if SEX is involved or not, I’m done with suppressing my instinct or handing over my power just to avoid a confrontation. No more saying ‘yes’ when all of me is screaming HELL NO.
It’s funny the things that pop into my head, isn’t it?
Dana Ellington, MAPW 
Sex is like gender – the more you try to define it the less real it becomes – is penetration required for sex? Giving a man a hand-job isn’t sex then, right? Frottage?
I dumbedl it down to the basest of descriptions for sure. I didn’t think about cyber or phone sex…there’s so much “grey” area.
I think this is a great post. And I too think far too many times we as women do say yes for a lot of wrong reasons . . . It’s sad that something that can be so wonderful can also become so horrible.
It’s like so many things in life – the filter through which you view it changes its appearance / meaning.
Absolutely!