Action: A Book About Sex (3 page)

Sex, for all its virtues, is weird (which is also frequently one of its virtues). It can be hard to know what another person likes, wants, or is thinking, or whether they’re able to gauge what
you
like, want, or are thinking without an explicit, out-loud announcement from you… or vice versa: Treating your partners like passive sexual objects is not only insulting and wrongheaded, but also overlooks the reality that it’s crucial to ask the same consent-based questions you require of them. Once you get into the habit of putting words to that murky stuff, it’ll be a massive relief and, as a result, a more enjoyable, less intimidating headspace in which to go about goin’ at it.

The first tenet of consent: Each “yes” you give expires after a single use. Since you are a person with mutable feelings, you might want to do something one day, with one person, in one setting, but you’re not bound to those feelings forever. Giving some babe permission to come aboard your areas on one occasion doesn’t give aforementioned babe license to nonchalantly assume he/she/they
have clearance to do so forever after, or even just the next time around, (if there is one). You are not being unreasonable or prudish if you decide to draw the line or otherwise change your mind.

So, since you’re going to be giving a LOT of it, it’s time we delve into some specific ideas about
how
to grant someone consent—and how to decisively withhold it. The ideal time to talk about what your sexual limitations are: prior to becoming embroiled in a physical situation where someone might be straining them. If you’re able to have a conversation with the person you’re potentially going to be intimate with before acting on whatever that means for you, you can tell them exactly what you do/don’t want to do. When I started seeing one long-term boyfriend, we spent a lot of time talking before anything beyond entry-level kissing took place between us, and while most of that conversation probably concerned our differences of opinion about what the best episode of
The Simpsons
was, we also asked each other plenty of questions about where to pause and check our sexual mile-marking systems to see if we were on the right track. Our answers were given candidly: I told him that at the time, I was inclined to wait a bit longer before having sex, among some other things that seemed intense to me. In turn, he told me about his history with sexual trauma, which made me rethink being too rough with him in ways I would have otherwise thought were playful when we actually started
going far
together. We knew each other’s deals, and we didn’t try to abruptly broker new ones mid-hookup without first considering them aloud while wearing clothing. Learning to ask and respond honestly to the question, “Do you want to try [whatever new thing]?” then actually taking heed of what was said, was probably what made the sex we had after a few months so brain-dominatingly incredible—we were both stoked and comfortable—and faithfully aware that the other person was, too. We still had our Milhouse–based differences, but all the other important approaches to compatibility, we agreed on.

Not every sexual situation is going to come out of a relationship. Though that one was awesome while it lasted, I also find
that,
Whoa, so is attaching my face to people whose middle, or even last, names I don’t know!
Those experiences proved the plentitude of frank, direct, flirtatious, and gentle ways to make consent a part of every hookup, regardless of how well you might (not) be acquainted. How you decide to approach the babes of your consensual and highly sexy future is up to you, but here are some pointers on how to score and feel great about it, how to make sure dreamboats-to-come are equally jazzed about what’s going on, and what to do if things take a too-intense turn and you want to set them back on track.

If someone is coming on a bit strong for your tastes (how you determine this is, as with most things related to sex, subjective), tell them to alter what they’re doing, or to stop, if you prefer. If you’re all right with the former, pull away by a few inches and say something like “Do that [more slowly, or gently, or however you’d like them to change it], please.” No matter what that directive is, don’t couch it in language like “I don’t think I want to do that yet” if you’re
sure
you don’t want to do that yet. You don’t have to water down what you know in your heart/parts to be true, and your boundaries are not up for renegotiation unless you say, and mean, that they are.

In one of my frenches of yore, nothing much was “happening” that wasn’t kissing, on the surface, but the Francophile in question had me pressed up against a wall and I wasn’t into it, even though I was otherwise enjoying making out with her. Getting specific about what wasn’t working for me righted that weirdness: “Hey, can you back up a little?” goes a long way, and not in the sexually figurative sense. She got the message that I wanted to SLOW RIDE, TAKE IT EASY in that instance, although we had hooked up in rough, restrictive, and generally raunch-as-hell ways before. When others have rammed their tongues down my esophagus, which has happened a solid throatful of times in my life, saying, “Can you be gentler, please?” has been similarly effective.

If you say, “I like it when you slow down,” and then that person doesn’t, I advise you to bail—and this advice extends to all
kinds of sexual contact. First and most important: Physically separate yourself from this person, since your safety comes first, regardless of whatever they’re doing to imply the contrary. Then, if you feel comfortable doing so, let them know why you’re bailing. They should be aware that their supremely jerk-esque behavior is the reason they’re about to be alone. Then, unless you have anything more you’d like to say, just leave.

Consent includes accounting for and protecting your physical health. You should always use some kind of barrier method that prevents STIs, like a condom, if you’re having sex without also looking to conceive a kiddo. To be extra-safe throughout your encounter, you should also periodically check to make sure that barrier method stays in place. People can be surprisingly and infuriatingly boneheaded about this! Once upon a night that started out promisingly, I caught someone I was with trying to remove a condom without telling me. What a nightmare, right? When he explained that he assumed I’d be “chill about it,” I freaked. How dare anyone treat anyone else with complete disregard for their health or personhood—and then be an idiot bro who tries to project his grossness onto me BY USING THE WORD “CHILL” AS AN ADJECTIVE. Yo, I became a banshee. I fucking hate that guy, and I wish I could tell the world his name so that he could see exactly how
chill
I am.

On the other end of the consensual spectrum, a recent hookup asked me if I’d gotten the Gardasil shot (an HPV vaccine). This sounds a lot less charming than it was, but trust me! I was kissing this person for the first time, and, even though it was unclear whether things would go further, he wanted to let me know before they did that he carried the virus, so any decisions I made that evening would be informed ones. “That’s admirable of you to tell me,” I said, feeling a little too impressed. His response was even better: “It’s not! I just think you have the right to know whether I could potentially be giving you something like that.” That is exactly how to be! In case anyone tries to tell you that pausing an experience to ask questions, provide information, and/or make
sure all of the proceedings are cool with your partner “kills the mood,” let me tell you, his honesty made me like him even more, which is usually the case with any kind of sexual encounter—or every brand of life encounter. It doesn’t make me want to have sex with a person
less
if they let me know they want me to like it, including after we split ways. That’s just bad logic.

Sex, like any way of relating to another person, is at its very greatest when you and the cohort you’ve chosen to hang around with listen to each other and generally make a point of keeping kindness and respect at the forefronts of your minds. I know that part won’t be hard for you. Even though hooking up with other people can be unpredictable, I hope you go into every situation knowing and trusting that whatever your sexual parameters are, they’re exactly the right ones to work inside of. You know what you want—and so should anyone on the other end of whatever that means for you. Go get it.

Gender, Neutrally

Treating sex as an unsavory, improper, or inappropriate topic is one of the most oppressive forces grinding down our individual and collective happiness. You know how anything more revelatory than stony opacity about money—talking about one’s salary, expenditures, et cetera—is considered gauche? Clock how the richest people continue to remain the only segment of the population with access to the wildly complex specifics of how becoming wealthy functionally happens while the poor are stuck with “secrets” that nobody wants to know and that everyone already knows anyway, aka that being broke sucks, life is too expensive, debt is meant to fuck you not help you, and money is everything.

Sex is similar, except in this case, the stigmatized are people who cop to being interested in it who aren’t straight men. (And then straight men are left working inside a system where they are supposed to believe that they’re the only people who enjoy, or are being served by, sex, which, in addition to being morally and ethically backward—plus interpersonally alienating—makes them garbage lays, and advises them to police some of the people they’d benefit from allowing sexual autonomy. All of that is far less pressing than what precedes this parenthetical, though.) The ettiquette in play here works the same way as shushing salary talk: things stay the same for those reaping the paver, and vice versa.

I suspect that many of our internal panic-hurricanes that keep us from talking about sex come from whether we’re convincingly puppeteering the gendered costumes we’re wearing—whether we know that that’s the cause of our anxieties or not. As with so many of life’s dumbest facets, shyness surrounding sex can stem
in part from how masculine and feminine norms are expressed on a cultural level, which is to say
immaculately
. THEY’RE THE BEST, JUST LOVE ’EM, LUV BEING A “GIRL” WITH MY “PURSE” OF “HAIRSTYLES.”

No, of course gender roles necessitate feelings of inadequacy in their very being. That is their point. It’s absurd, but who among us hasn’t felt like shit based on observing the twinkling heteronormatoné casts of toothpaste commercials, or by uneasily taking in comedy routines about the uproarious and irreconcilable differences between the sexes as conveyed by our attitudes about Valentine’s Day/parents-in-law/the color or yeastiness of the alcoholic beverages we like (followed by the equally boring commentary about just how
downright condemnable
those aforementioned yuk-yuk jokes are for assuming broad tropes of nuanced people—aka this sentence)? We are made to feel rude for our difference.

Unfortunately, we have to keep talking about the particulars of how we’re socialized to absorb and display the expectations for our genders. One of many cogent reasons: They’re wrecking our sex lives. And if you think that seems trivial? (a) This may not be the book for you; and (b) consider every vicious politician who’s ever sublimated his terror that liking a finger in an orifice means he’s GAY into a law that kills or maligns or otherwise tries to place a harness on the population writ large, then maybe get back to me. I’ll be right here, combing my beautiful female handbag as I wince back my anger, just like I’m supposed to!

Far more preferable, far more loving, far more honest, far fucking hotter: Asking for and paying attention to the User’s Guide for how each of your specific partners wants to feel good and checking that information against whether their proclivities dovetail with what it is that does it for you—and not making your bedfellows feel ashamed about the things they like and want that you’re not down to try out with them. Having as many (or as few!) orgasms as you want, with whomever you want, as long as everyone involved is okay with that. Seeing all of what the world can give you and the other way around: Filling your dance card with
other living, thinking, boning beings before you go check out the afterlife. (Freud describes sex, or
eros
, as the “life instinct” that human beings use to combat Thanatos, or the underlying knowledge, in all things, of the reality that we’re all going to kick one day.) Doing all the weird shit you search for on the internet—and doing it consensually. Most crucial:
talking about sex
. Not just in the beginning of whatever affair you might be having at the moment, but throughout and beyond the actual doing-of-it. You don’t need to narrate every last gesture that takes place between you and a sexual attaché—once consent is in place, a lot of what’s great about fucking, in the moment, is ineffable—but to treat it, more generally, as taboo is to stiffen and truncate its unknowns. You don’t have to worry about whether that makes you “gay,” or whatever, because that’s up to you and only you to decide. Please stop voting otherwise, if you are.

In
The History of Sexuality
, the social theorist Michel Foucault lays out the concept of something called “repressive hypothesis.” This is, paraphrased simply, the idea that in saying, “Our society is so prim and uptight about sex!” we reinforce that taboo, when we could be ameliorating the tension by just talking about the thing itself—sex!—instead (and of course having sex). Attempting to skew the acknowledgment of sexual repression and its attendant hang-ups into “social progression” does nothing to improve our shared situation, because we’re not saying anything productive or meaningful about the ways we fuck. Instead, we’re strengthening the lack of permissiveness we’re bemoaning by catering to it. We can be smarter than that. Plus, talking about sex is a guaranteed-to-be-entertaining pastime, if literally all of television, film, literature, and sitting on the passenger side of my sister’s car are any indication. I honestly can’t see what’s rude about that.