Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - What is Sex, Really? Redefining a Fundamental Question

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

In this episode of "Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex with Dr. Sue & Charlie," we get back to basics by asking a fundamental yet often overlooked question: What is sex? Dr. Sue and Charlie explore the various ways people define and experience sex, challenging traditional definitions and discussing how these experiences can differ greatly from person to person.  Drawing on her background in sex education, Dr. Sue provides expert insights, while Charlie brings relatable, everyday perspectives to the conversation.  Join us as we expand the discussion around what sex truly means, debunk common myths, and embrace a more inclusive understanding of sex. If you have a topic or question you’d like to hear us talk about, please submit your ideas here:  Show suggestions

Hello, and welcome to Unzipping Taboos, Candid Conversations About Sex. I am Charlie, your co-host here with Dr. Sue, and I, for those of you just discovering us, maybe this is your first time tuning in, which is great. Welcome. We love that you're here. Dr. Sue, why don't you talk a little bit about why this podcast was so important for us to launch and who you are? And do it in less than 30 seconds.

One, two, three, go. Here we go. So I'm Dr. Sue. I have a PhD in human sexuality education and I have a couple other degrees in health education. And I have been talking about sex and sexuality related issues and health related issues for a couple of decades now. And the thing that I find as I kind of have these conversations, whether it's in academia or out in the community, is that there's there's things people want to talk about and they don't have a safe space to do it or they don't even have the language to do it. And so a few years ago, I started doing Hey, Dr. Sue. All of our information will be in the in the podcast information somewhere for if you want to drop questions for the for the podcast. um and what started happening as i was going through that and answering questions was this this this reaffirmation that we needed to kind of create a space where we can have these conversations that people may not feel like they could have other places and then charlie if you want to explain how you got brought on board uh through our friendship and our conversations

surrounding sex and sexuality we found just this ease and thought you know hey we're having these conversations. It's easy for us, but you know, let's make it easy for people to listen to and kind of lift that. So we thought we'd bring it to a broader audience for those of you that may be struggling with the topic or just have general questions and want a safe space to listen and interact. That's what we're here for. Excellent. And so we decided for our first real episode that we needed to, since it's in our title, Unzipping Taboos, Kind of Conversation about sex we decided we actually had to talk about what this concept of sex was yeah so that's going to be i think i just stole your role by introducing the subject but how very dario

but yeah that's really what we we wanted to have this episode so that those of you that join us understand kind of what we mean when we refer to sex or use the word sex or foreplay or sex play or all the things surrounding sex so that we are all kind of operating from the same, a similar perception, maybe not the same, but a similar perception when we are talking about concepts as we have more and more of these episodes. Which seems really confusing because i think for a lot of people out there they're probably thinking like duh it's sex like what do we have to actually define about this and it can actually be a lot more complicated than most people realize and i think that's why it's really important that we have and i i think so charlie

and i were talking about before we filmed this and we realized that we don't actually have one definition that we're going to use for the show but that's part of why it's important to kind of have these conversations about what that mean that word may mean to people yeah and and hopefully it it can also maybe help people, listeners, like if you're, if you're in the dating world, or if you've struggled in this realm with your partner, maybe you've had a dedicated partner for a long time. And to you, sex means emotional engagement leading to the, to a physical act of sex play, um you know and to them it could be just the sex the sex play so really helping find ways to broach those conversations that's kind of our goal here as well and and in this you may you

may discover that we're going to find our definition of what it means and and which will hopefully help you discover and explore explore and discover what it means for you and help you feel comfortable talking about that with new partners, existing partners, friends, you know, lifting that taboo. Yeah. So I think when you say the word sex, what are we assuming most people are thinking? I think most people, when they hear the word sex, I think most people think of vaginal penis intercourse. Yeah. You know, Probably. I would agree with that. And there's a problem with that definition. And so anyone who's listening to this who has ever sat in my class, you know that we do this thing where we have to actually come up with a class definition of what sex is. And the students think it's going to be super easy. And then 10 minutes later, they're ready to kill someone because it's not easy. Because when we use the definition of penile-vaginal intercourse, we're automatically excluding populations that don't have sex with someone who has different body parts.

And so that concept of sex being just penile-vaginal is really limiting and not very inclusive. So what happens when we have our conversations in my class is most people are willing to throw in anal sex. And it's almost like they're giving. Like, okay, fine. If we have to extend the definition, we'll extend it to anal sex. And so then the problem is we're excluding women who have sex with women. So we need to really start thinking about how to use a more inclusive term. The problem with this is that a lot of people want to associate the word sex with a purpose because it helps them to define it.

So if they go, well, the purpose of sex is to make babies, then that means that any woman who's gone through menopause or any man that's sterile or any woman who's not ovulating technically can't be having sex. Or who never had babies. Right. So there's this problem of linking it to a purpose. And I think people do want to have this idea that people have sex for a reason. But then we get into a whole nother conversation about the 18,000 reasons why people have sex. So we can't just associate it with reproduction. And if that's your belief system, we're not here to knock it. Like, if that's what you believe, that's fine. That's great. But that definition doesn't work for everyone. And so we need to kind of realize that we have to expand it out. And I think that's one of the things that this topic illustrates in many ways for many people is that it is a spectrum of humanity and engagement in humanity and that it is different for everybody and leaving all the kind of social judgments and political things outside of this, because that's not really our goal here. It is really to talk about how you, how this impacts you and how it resonates with you and, and helping you find the language and the comfort to talk about it to your comfort level.

And so, yeah, so the vaginal penile definition of sex and the procreation purpose of sex certainly doesn't work for everybody, you know, because by that definition, you know, women who have had sex, who have never had children, either by choice or physiological issues, challenges. So then does that mean that they are virgins? Yes. That means they've never had sex. Right. Right. And that's a problem when you try to follow that logic out. Yeah.

Let me talk about a little bit from a health perspective what I think of when I think of sex and what behaviors I think it includes and why I think it matters. Because I think it does matter that we're using a definition. Having worked in reproductive health clinics and gone to doctors as a patient, I know that the questions that they ask about sex are very, very limited. And it's very frustrating because they'll say, how many sex partners have you had? And they don't define the word sex. And if you're not engaging in vaginal penal intercourse right now or you have never done it, you can put zero. But that doesn't mean that your risk of things like STIs isn't there or it doesn't mean you don't need information about how to protect yourself from pregnancy, if that's a possibility in the future. So so the things I like to think about when I when I use the term sex, I actually don't use the term sex. I use the term sex play. And the reason I use the term sex play is because it's an easier way of encompassing everything. So I don't have to get into the nitty gritty of, well, what exactly are you doing? Because I don't need to know those things about people's sexual lives.

Um, but when I say sex play, it can include all those things. So it can include vaginal penal intercourse, include anal, oral sex with toys, just rubbing, like mutual masturbation, whatever it may be. So for me, the things that I, I just kind of need to know is what do you need in terms of protection, whether that's STI protection and or pregnancy protection. And then what can we do to give you the language to have conversations with your partner about boundaries because what you may be okay with with sex play and that can change every day may be different than what they're thinking about is included in that so for me it's about how do we give you whatever those things are that you need to have a happy healthy sex play life

and that may be information or language yeah i that i couldn't agree more you know that mutual definition and or not even mutual definition but understanding of here's what this means to me and it sounds like to you this means this means x to me and this means y to you so how do we get to z together you know and and that that can just lay the foundation for you know when you're with a partner or if you you don't even it's not even a partner that you're going to be with for a long time. It could be that, that fun time you found just out being social, just knowing how and being comfortable with saying, here's what this means to me. Here are my boundaries. Here's what I'm willing to do. Here's what I'm not willing to do. You can eject now. No, no pun intended, but you

can, you can exit stage left now, or we can continue this. You know, I think empowering people to to be comfortable saying this is this is in this moment for your first time together because it's really I think where people can also compromise a lot of what they are comfortable with in that first time because they want to please or impress or not be rejected or any of those things and really what what we're talking about is giving you access to language so that you don't have to feel like you're compromising yourself in those first few interactions with a new partner and that's part of the problem too because if we don't ever define the word sex or we all imagine that we have the same definition we never really learn how to use the words to get us there like we we

have this term sex but then what do we call the other things because what if i don't want to And I know some people are listening to this. So please imagine the air quotes. If we're not going to go all the way, how do we how do we even have that conversation? Because we were never taught how to talk about this. And that's that's one of the bigger problems. And then there is a word that I hate that I know you're going to bring up. we got nothing on that you're muted oh your microphone stopped working here we are there we go foreplay oh i hate tell me about foreplay after soon i hate me see you hate the word foreplay um i despise the word foreplay i don't think it's bad like the stuff that it includes might be fantastic but i i hate the word foreplay and i hate the word foreplay for so many reasons one it's because it's incredibly heteronormative the idea is that you do these other things before you get to the stuff that counts and that's usually vaginal penal intercourse and

again for those of you not watching just imagine air quotes all over the place so my big problem is it's incredibly heteronormative because it's assuming that there's stuff before the thing we're going to get to the other problem is it lessens it so it makes it less important for folks it's like, oh, this is just like the appetizer before the real thing. It's a checklist item. How long do I have to engage with this task? Imagine the air quotes listener task. How long am I obligated to engage with this task before I get to what I want to get out of this? Yes. And what we know about women, cisgendered women, what we know about cis women is that the way their bodies are designed, They are way more likely to enjoy and orgasm from clitoral contact and stimulation than they are from penetration.

So if you are rushing your way through that foreplay that you have to do and getting straight to the penetrative intercourse, you're actually going from what may be more enjoyable for her, assuming that we're having a man and a woman having sex here, and just kind of rushing to what feels great for him. And I know some of the guys are like, yeah. And because we live in this culture where we say that male pleasure is more important than female pleasure. But it just because it lessens it and it puts pressure on people. Well, if I do this, I have to do that. And but what if I don't want to do that? What if we just want to do oral all night? Or what if we just want to play with toys all night? Or what if, you know, you're not in the mood, but I am. So you'll get me off and we don't need to go to that next thing. it takes that it it makes all the play more important all types of play become equal and it it takes some of that pressure off and and that's a big deal which is why i despise the term foreplay yeah yeah it's to take an act of um you know in an ideal environment intimacy extreme intimacy between two beings and to then have this hierarchical thing um list of things before you get to what you want to get out of it um does make a it also creates an imbalance in my in my view as well you know it does prioritize it could lead to the prioritization of one partner's

ultimate satisfaction out of out of being intimate over another another's and that person who maybe just doesn't feel comfortable saying no this is this is it for me so get get me here and and we'll continue but you know but yeah it does to me create that just you know here's here's what I'm trying to get out of it without really engaging with what you're trying what you as my partner are trying to get out of it yeah and it plays into this idea um and there are TEDx talks and concepts and videos about this idea that um it's like the baseball versus pizza but I'm just going to borrow some of the ideas from that and it's this idea that we as a culture we're very goal-oriented. So the whole goal, the goal of sex, right, is to have that

multiple simultaneous orgasm, which does not happen outside of porn, by the way. But this idea that we're going to have multiple orgasms, they're going to happen at the exact same time. And it's highly edited. Wait, that's not real. Wait, save that for the porn episode. But there's this idea that we have to get to the goal. And so it's like, do A, do B, like you said, with a checklist. Do A, do B, do C, do D, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We get to this goal. And the way I like to talk about sex play is more about a pleasure-oriented model. So what do we want to do tonight or today that will feel good? What feels good for you today may not be what felt good for you yesterday. And it may not be what you want to do in a week. And so the problem with

doing it that way, with focusing on pleasure, is we have to talk. And when you've been in a relationship for a long time, there are these assumptions that, oh, we do this, this, and this, and then we're done, and becomes almost scripted. And then the problem is if you haven't been together for a long time, that can be a really odd conversation. Because again, you don't always have the language to say, hey, I'd like to do this tonight. Or maybe I'd like to do this, but not that. We haven't really taught people to have those conversations. So it's just easier to make this assumption that we're just going to go towards that end goal of sex. And I think it's important when you're saying have those conversations, it's not simply just

being comfortable bringing it up. It is receiving the information as well. It is receiving it in a way that, because ultimately it is beneficial for both, for both people involved or all people involved right um it doesn't only have to be two which is okay um but it yeah when you when you don't develop that habit one for yourself and then two with a with a new partner or um have been with a partner where you have this this air quote tried and true for this tried and true formula then you you know it's all it can almost feel more difficult to bring it up with that partner you've been with for a while yeah because what why what's going on like why are you complaining why isn't this okay what this has always worked where's the

problem um and and i think it's for everyone listening the thing to keep in mind is that throughout our whole existence part of the human condition is evolving tastes we change we constantly go through change and so what may have seemed off limits to you and and not desirable to you in your 20s you know could could be intriguing now and that's okay and so what we what our hope is with through this conversation is if it's okay if it's something you want to explore now here's here's a tool chest to pull from to kind of talk about it well you just gave us a huge homework assignment which was to create a chest thanks for that you're welcome yeah and i think that's really important to keep in mind that things change and also bodies change so like as

we're aging um our bodies aren't going to react to the same things the same way that they did or you may be dealing with temperature changes differently or hormonal changes differently And so as we're going through this aging process, and maybe as you're going through illnesses and injuries, like we may have to change what we're doing. And I almost feel like it's easier when something obvious happens. Someone has an injury, they can't get into a certain position, like, okay, now let's have a conversation about how do we modify that if there's nothing obvious that needs to be adjusted. so like if you're trying to get over something that's happening it may be like a i understand you're going through a thing how do we how do we cope what do we do it's probably easier than just hey i want to change our sex play patterns because it seems like it's coming out of nowhere and so again it's going to come back to and my students any students who are listening to this are going to laugh because they always joke that the answer to every problem in my class is

communication that's just that seems to be my answer to most things but it's learning how to communicate these things. And so part of it is really finding the words to talk about what it is you want to do. And if you are using that term sex, making sure that everyone's on the same page about what that term actually means. So in that realm, what are some, if you're comfortable divulging, what are some of the ways that this exercise has gone in your classes with finding that definition of sex for the term that you have that cohort so so yeah so so what the students have to do they actually have to do some homework before they get to class they have to come up in small groups they come up with their own definition and then they get to class and we

vote we true democracy in action well three-quarter majority democracy in action we have to vote on pieces of the definition and and some classes will knock it out in like 10 minutes and there have been a couple of classes where it takes us two classes to get it done because there's so much disagreement. And what it centers around a lot of times is, well, if you can't get pregnant from it, that's not sex. And so then we have the discussion about what about people who can't get pregnant for whatever reason? Does that mean that they can't have sex? And so then they'll usually be more accepting of adding anal sex. And then we start talking about the fact that that's not inclusive for all folks again if you're if you're a woman having sex with women that's not going to

be included in that term and then they get stuck on the virginity piece i don't know if we're going to do virginity i hate the term i hate a lot of things apparently i hate the term foreplay i hate the term i hate the term losing your virginity i just did this for someone else's podcast i guessed it on um i'm not a fan of that term but for them they tie it into virginity so they're like well well, if I go down on someone, then it doesn't count. And I'm like, doesn't doesn't count how like doesn't doesn't count where like there's there is there some big like book in the sky keeping score. And we're kind of getting into it because we know that our next episode is going to talk about body count. So all of this is going to come up into or maybe later today. Who knows?

Yeah. But we're going to get to body count eventually. But a lot of times what they do is they try to then tie it into, well, I wouldn't lose my virginity if I had oral sex. So then we start doing it because it is based in a health department but you can still get stis from that behavior and then and then they're like oh well maybe um but for a lot of them it's when when we point out and it's not usually me who does it usually one of the students in class will say our definition is very exclusive it's it's not inclusive of body types and different sexes different orientations um so usually once that gets pointed out we we start bringing it out but then someone will say well let's have a purpose i'm like having a purpose is great in

life not necessarily for sex because then we come back to kind of what we were talking about before this idea that there has to be a purpose so when we cut out reproduction someone says well the purpose should be for pleasure i'm like well that's great so if you didn't enjoy it does it not count again with that great tally sheet in the sky somewhere so usually they drop that the purpose piece and and we start having a lot of conversations about the thousand reasons why people want to have sex they're horny they're bored they want revenge um they're under the influence of whatever and validation what was that validation validation yeah as a way of bonding as a way of proving that the bond is over like oh that was not what i wanted um but there's a thousand

different reasons why people have sex so it's it's really great exercise for opening up conversations about how do we be inclusive with our language without even realizing that we're being inclusive you know just making sure our definitions are more inclusive but also just recognizing the range of reasons why people do what they do yeah for some people it's a very frustrating glass very frustrating day others get a kick out of it a lot of them are just they're frustrated what is the meaning of life 42 yeah so to kind of bring this all back um we totally avoided the question we did yeah we did we talked about all the things yeah but what are we going to mean when we talk about sex as we have these

conversations i think for me i'm going to revert to my term sex play and then that's going to include any kind of play with other people because i would take masturbation out of sex play with another human I would call that more solo stuff so for me I'm probably going to default to the term sex play because it can include oral anal vaginal mutual masturbation play with sex toys it can also include sex play by use it by by conversations over phone like by texting so I will probably use that term sex play and if I need to be specific for a reason I will probably locked down to what I'm if I'm talking about a behavior I will probably I will use much more specific language but I think I'm going to keep it nice and general and use the term sex play

how about you I I really that that resonates with me that resonates with me personally and just in the context of this is that yeah sex play it's inclusive it in you know it encompasses the things, the intimacy and the pleasure from different acts with a partner, or two, or more. But and then getting into behavior and being more specific about that, as we as we go through these conversations. Because I think that really helps people just understand that sex is not, it's not evil you know it's not it's not a bad thing to you know as long as long as there's as long as it's consensual as long as there's consent and um you know there are comfortable conversations around it um and it's not weaponized to to coerce someone or manipulate someone

there are things here that so sex play makes sense to me all right so that's what we'll be using unless we need to be specific for a reason i know i get questions about contraception and condoms and so that i feel like i would be a little bit more specific so yeah yeah so yeah you want to take us out we haven't actually worked on an out we weren't we spent so long we spent our first episode we spent so long thinking about how we were going to bring everyone into this that we forgot to talk about how we're going to bring people out of it so So I think one of the ways that I'm going to do that is, what did you think about what we talked about today, Dr. Sue? Oh, why are you asking my thoughts?

You're the expert. Oh, I think this is a complicated, I think it's a complicated topic to begin with. And then when we first, you know, when our very first episode is like, hey, there's this word sex and everyone thinks they know what it means. And let's muddle it a little bit. I know that that can be a little confusing. thing. But hopefully, if someone got something out of this, and you'll join us and listen in to future episodes. All right, everyone. Well, thanks for joining us today on unzipping taboos, candid conversations about sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We hope today's episode sparked new

thoughts and opened up dialogues worth having. Remember, your curiosity is the key to breaking down barriers and embracing a healthier understanding of sex and relationships. if you enjoyed the show don't forget to subscribe leave a review and share it with someone who might need to hear this got a question or a topic you want us to dive into reach out to us via the link in the episode description until next time dr sue it's been a pleasure as always and keep the conversation going and keep unzipping those taboos take care