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Let’s redefine sex!

“So I’m looking out the window at this brick wall thinking That’s it. That’s sex? That’s what all the movies are about? That’s what all the TV shows are about. That’s what all the, the epic poems are about? That’s sex? That can’t be sex. Is that really sex?

Because if that’s sex, then, I don’t like sex very much. And that sucks because it seems like this is one of the most epic experiences of people’s lives. But I don’t like it. I like the other stuff much more. I like tongues. I like kissing. I like biting. I like spanking. But I guess I don’t like sex. And I felt that way for years, until a lover introduced me to lube.”

Welcome to Positively Sex! Sex Ed, with Pleasure, a sex-positive talk show on timely, titillating, tender, and sometimes taboo themes.

Most of us were taught — if we were taught anything about sex at all — that sex is about procreation. And so, most of us grew up believing the only real sex is the kind you can make a baby with.

If babymaking sex is not the definition you want to go by anymore — and it’s certainly not the one I want to go by anymore — then I have a question: What is sex, anyway?

So I took to the parks and the streets of my city: New York City — a place where you can find every kind of person and every sort of opinion on any given corner.

People seem to be thinking more deliberately about sex than ever before.

And that, darling, is Positively Sex!

P.S. Mwah!

PS! Episode 1: What is sex, anyway?

[00:00:00] PDN 1: What is sex? Can you just remind me what sex is? 

[00:00:08] LILA: I didn’t have penis-in-vagina sex until I was 19 years old, and I wasn’t waiting for marriage; I wasn’t waiting for even a relationship. I was just waiting for it to feel right. When I had that experience, it’s not because it felt right actually, but because… people wouldn’t have sex with me because they were afraid of the responsibility of having sex with a virgin. They thought I was gonna imprint on them and I guess become obsessed with them. Almost as soon as they found out that I was a virgin, they pushed me away and were not interested in engaging with me then. And I thought, what a, what a ridiculous thing that this, this, because I haven’t done this one time, the people I wanna do this with won’t do this with me. 

[00:01:06] What the fuck? Where’s the fuck actually, right?! 

[00:01:11] This was in the very early days of online dating, and it was actually so early that I wasn’t sure I really wanted to do it. So this is 2001, probably. It’s maybe the summer after my freshman year, my first year of college, and I was visiting my friend at her college, and she was a technologically savvy woman, and she was already online on nerve.com, and nerve.com, which most people don’t know these days, was an incredible website on the vanguard of sexuality. It had erotica, it had photo essays, and it had this Personals section, which, you know, people were not doing online personals, people were doing… maybe you know, the Craigslist thing was happening and that was relatively shady and it didn’t seem like, you know, the thing for a college girl to do.

[00:02:08] But my friend convinced me that this was not weird and that people were doing it and that these were also really interesting folks. These were the artists; these were the early adopters. These were the young entrepreneurs who were getting involved in online dating in this, in these early days. So I went on and I saw this photo of this blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Viking looking goateed man. And I just dropped my panties right there and reached out to him and he got back to me and we, we went out and this man was, I think he was 29 at the time. I think he turned 30 during the time that we were going out together. 

[00:02:52] By the way, he never said ever that we were dating. He never admitted to dating me. He was embarrassed to be seen with me, actually. He later told me he was embarrassed by the way that I dress. I mean, listen, I was 19 years old and I didn’t have the money to dress the way that I wanted to dress. I had the taste, but not the capital. So I felt really hurt when he said that to me. Well, if you want me to dress a certain way, you could – he could have bought me clothes, right? Because he was an entrepreneur, and he had sold his first business that he started in college, dropped outta college, made a bunch of money, and sold this business. And now he had a loft in Soho. And I thought that was so fucking sexy. I mean, I still think that’s sexy. 

[00:03:37] So, I would spend a bunch of time at this loft in Soho, and I insisted that I wanted him to be my first, my first penis-in-vagina experience. We’d had oral sex. He was the one actually, I can credit him for introducing me to kink because he spanked me. He bit me, he pulled my hair, and I think he, he was the one who kinked me. And I’m very grateful because I love all of those things to this day. So, yeah. Thank you for that. My, my first, Thank you for that. [Although, I don’t necessarily consider him my first anymore, but! Here’s what happened.] 

[00:04:21] I insisted that I wanted him to have sex with me, but I was really afraid. I was afraid that it was gonna hurt and I was afraid it was gonna hurt because I was really tight. My vagina itself was just really tight, and I knew this because every time I inserted a tampon, I would cry from the chafing because it was so uncomfortable. [I don’t use tampons anymore. Now we have innovations like period underwear, which is fantastic, and cups and yay for that. But I knew.] And a gynecologist told me, “Yeah, you actually are tighter than the average woman.”

[00:04:56] So I was extra, extra worried. I don’t know if that’s true, by the way, that I’m tighter than the average woman, but I do know that I was stressed about it. And when you’re stressed about it, you clamp up and you squeeze and you bear down and you contract. So, of course it was gonna hurt because I was so, so, so, so afraid of it hurting.

[00:05:17] So I asked him if he had any drugs. And he did. He was like, “You know, I had back surgery recently. I’ve got Tylenol with codeine if you want it.” And I said, “Yes, I will take some of that Tylenol with codeine. Thank you very much.” And I took it and it didn’t hurt! It also didn’t feel much like anything at all.

[00:05:40] And I remember I have a visceral memory and I don’t have a lot of memories, so this is indelible to me. I have a visceral memory of lying in his bed in his loft in Soho with big expanse of white sheets and high thread count linens and looking out the window, which didn’t look out to any kind of nature.

[00:06:02] It looked out to another brick wall because New York City. So I’m looking out the window at this brick wall thinking That’s it. That’s sex? That’s what all the movies are about? That’s what all the TV shows are about. That’s what all the, the epic poems are about? That’s sex? That can’t be sex. Is that really sex?

[00:06:28] Because if that’s sex, then, I don’t like sex very much. And that sucks because it seems like this is one of the most epic experiences of people’s lives. But I don’t like it. I like the other stuff much more. I like tongues. I like kissing. I like biting. I like spanking. But I guess I don’t like sex. And I felt that way for years until a lover introduced me to lube. Use lube. Use lube friends! It can make a very difficult, untenable, painful situation so smooth. 

[00:07:12] So that was my first experience and when most people say, “Tell me about the time you lost your virginity,” that’s what I tell them about. It wasn’t very good and I didn’t know that it was going to get better.

[00:07:38] We are now in an unprecedented time for human sexuality, particularly in the United States. The invention of birth control made it possible for people to have sex with only a slim chance of babies. 

[00:07:50] The fact that in the past 50 years, and only in the past 50 years, mind you, women gain the right to own property, open a bank account, have a credit card in their own name meant that women are now making money at all and more money than we ever have in the past, though still not equal money. And this means that less women stay in sexless relationships or ones in which the sex isn’t good for them, for fear of being unable to eat, pay, rent, and or provide for their children.

[00:08:20] And readily available treatment for STIs and medication like Prep means that sex, while always a risky endeavor, is much less risky than it ever has been. There has never been this much freedom in the entire history of sexuality, and yet if we were taught anything about sex at all, we were probably taught that sex is about procreation.

[00:08:45] PDN 2: When… it’s funny, first time I ever heard someone explain sex to me as a little kid: “When the penis enters the vagina!” 

[00:08:54] LILA: And so most of us grew up believing that the only sex that counts, the only sex that is real sex is the kind in which a baby could be made. This is how you have the phenomenon of what I’ve heard called a Catholic virgin: a woman who takes it in the ass, but not the pussy, or a person, usually a woman, though I’ve personally known at least one man like this, who is known for doing everything but. 

[00:09:20] In this worldview of sex, oral sex doesn’t count. For me, as a great advocate and appreciator of oral sex, oral sex definitely counts, and it’s in the title: oral sex. So. If baby-making sex is not the definition you wanna go by anymore, and it’s certainly not the one I wanna go by anymore, then I have a question: What is sex anyway? When does making out or fooling around become sex? What’s the tipping point? Is sex when it gets serious? Not serious as in marriage or the relationship escalator, but serious as in serious. Serious as in: we’re doing things that aren’t legal to do in public serious. 

[00:10:11] I’m gonna tell you what I think sex is, but first I really wanted to hear what you thought. So I took to the parks and the streets of my city, New York City, a place where you can find every kind of person and every sort of opinion on any given corner. 

[00:10:29] When I asked people about sex, they spoke to me about energy. 

[00:10:34] PRIDE 1: You give yourself to someone like, whole, you know, whole in whole, and then someone gives themselves to you and then you exchange what you have with them and them with you.

[00:10:44] It can be debilitating, but then it can also be beautiful, like it can be like, like, you know, ’cause it can, you can exchange energies with the wrong person and that can be chaotic, but then you can exchange energies with the right person and that can be beautiful, because not only are you taking on their energy, but they’re taking yours on as well. And then you start to like mirror some of the same characteristics, some of the same traits and yeah, it’s beautiful. I wanna have like good sex with someone that has good intentions and, and good, a good mindset for me because then I’m taking that on. And if you have a bad mindset and we’re having sex, then I’m taking that on too. But if it’s a good mindset and you know you have good intentions and I’m taking that on, it feels great. Not only- ’cause sex is not only just physical, it’s spiritual and emotional and mental, very mental. There are people I’ve had sex with before and I still feel their energy within me.

[00:11:45] PDN 1: I think any energy that starts to bring two or more things together, so it’s just an interconnection that will eventually bring two beings to interact with each other. Maybe sex isn’t as literal as you might find an dictionary. 

[00:12:04] LILA: You said sex is expensive. 

[00:12:08] PDN 3: Yes. Yes it is. Sex is expensive, and it is not expensive financially. It’s expensive emotionally and spiritually. You indulge in someone’s full emotional and energetic load when you enter that space with them. You become one for a time and you don’t just as simply become two, cleanly cut off, right thereafter. There’s an expenditure of energy, and I don’t just mean physically. And hopefully, with the highest quality connections, it’s actually a investment and expansion of energy, after sex with someone you trust that’s, you know, beautiful and juicy, you feel like you, you feel more alive.

[00:12:55] LILA: They spoke to me about emotions. 

[00:12:57] PRIDE 2: It’s giving in to pleasure and happiness and love, and being able to have an intimate moment with someone else. 

[00:13:09] PRIDE 3: Say you couldn’t be sexually intercourse by the genitals or anything like that. What else do you have? To me, it’s all about love. Love and appreciating a person that you’re with. You can actually have sex and not have to ejaculate or anything. Literally, I’ve learned I’m 40 years old and I’ve learned in my years that I can even be sexually satisfied by even staring at a person’s eyes. Or them breathing on me, or them just touching me with the tip of their finger and like my body goes crazy. And to me, I’m like sexually fulfilled because I’m like, Oh my God, that was amazing. So it doesn’t have to technically be intercourse or anything like that. 

[00:13:58] Sex is that feeling of like sparkle. That feeling of, Ooh, okay, this is not me just being happy. I feel a tingle, I feel a warmth, I feel a burn. I feel a yearn, like, there’s something I want. So, love is a connection with that other person or with the circumstance in itself. Sex is more about the feeling you feel inside while love is the feeling you share.

[00:14:28] PDN 4: I think sex with someone you love means love, almost like, I wouldn’t say it’s 1-to-1. I’m not the kind of person that says, I love you during missionary. 

[00:14:40] LILA: But that’s so good! It’s so good! Oh my God I love being like, I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! 

[00:14:46] PDN 4: I’ll try it. There’s definitely a thin, a line between, like a thin line between sex and love. But it gets blurrier every day for me, which is scary. I’m scared of that. I’m scared of a lot of things, but sex, sex means almost love. I want it to mean, to mean love. Yeah. 

[00:15:15] LILA: Vulnerability. 

[00:15:17] PDN 3: Sex also pushes some of my edges of intimacy too, of how deeply I allow myself to be loved or how, how fully I can embrace being seen. Eye contact during sex, extended eye contact during sex is quite the, quite the knife’s edge to dance on.

[00:15:44] KOSTUME KULT 1: Consent and intimacy and vulnerability. I think vulnerability is important too, but not everyone can get there with sex, but I think that maybe it’s a goal for me at least, personally. 

[00:15:57] LILA: So if it’s not vulnerable, is it still sex? 

[00:16:02] KOSTUME KULT 1: I think so. I think so, because I wanna recognize that not everyone feels safe to feel vulnerable in a situation that may be sex for them. So I think that that’s so valid. 

[00:16:15] LILA: And I suppose it’s then really important to ask you: What is vulnerability? 

[00:16:23] KOSTUME KULT 1: That’s a really good question. So interesting to think about how you would define that. I think for me, vulnerability is: allowing someone to see parts of you that feel difficult, that feel real, that feel important to you. Like for example, if you share something with someone and there’s a potential that it could be, um, it could, it could bring up some difficult emotions, that feels really vulnerable to me. ‘Cause you’re allowing someone into your, to your personal life in a way that now they hold something about you that’s so important that it could potentially be hurtful.

[00:17:05] LILA: That is a really good distinguishing characteristic I think that: something shared, which, if not held with care, could harm. Yeah, and I think that what that also allows is for it to be a spectrum, like some people with their vulnerability are comfortable like disclosing trauma. Other could just be something that’s important to them where if like, you disagree, that’s still hurtful. So it’s such a spectrum and I like that vulnerability means something different for everyone, and I find that even my definition of sex and vulnerability change based on the relationships that I’m in and the ways that the people that I’m having sex with or the people that I’m being vulnerable with, because, you also have to consider what they think sex is and what they think vulnerability is. Otherwise, that idea of consent comes into play. Like if you, you don’t wanna like put your idea of sex or your idea of vulnerability onto them in case it feels uncomfortable. Or unsafe.

[00:17:59] PDN 4: I think when two people sort of connect on a different way than they would, or more than two people and, that they would normally. In public, I guess. 

[00:18:15] LILA: Can you describe the, the quality of the difference? 

[00:18:22] PDN 4: The difference between public and sex, I would say is vulnerability. When you’re having sex, you’re more vulnerable than you are outside of sex, and you’re trusting yourself to be vulnerable and you’re trusting your partner or partners to be vulnerable, and it’s that trust and that vulnerability that makes it different from day to day life. 

[00:19:00] LILA: Fun. 

[00:19:01] PRIDE 5: Just a good time. 

[00:19:03] PRIDE 6: Sex to me is just having fun with bodies. 

[00:19:06] PRIDE 7: I mean, the top, I’d say number one thing, sex is fun. That’s the most important thing about sex to me. Just fun. 

[00:19:15] LILA: And then they spoke to me about bodily fluids, genitals, and penetration. Some thought the tipping point was any kind of interaction with the genitals. 

[00:19:25] KOSTUME KULT 2: When you put your naughty bits on somebody else’s naughty bits. 

[00:19:31] LILA: Are, are the bits required? Is that what makes it sex?

[00:19:36] KOSTUME KULT 2: I, I think in a, in a technical term, I think bits are required, or at least hands or mouths or butts or something. Yeah. 

[00:19:45] LILA: Are hands naughty bits? 

[00:19:48] KOSTUME KULT 2: Well, I guess hands are, no. Well, depends on the context in which they’re used. 

[00:19:54] LILA: Some found the tipping point to be- 

[00:19:55] PRIDE 8: Bodily fluids. Some form of a fluid. 

[00:19:59] LILA: A fluid exchange. 

[00:20:01] KOSTUME KULT 1: For me, fluid swapping is always sex. So kissing is always sex. Uh, any type of oral sex ending that involves fluid swapping is always sex and it’s really vulnerable for me. But I’ve had interactions where like there may just be touching that doesn’t involve fluid swapping. And I like, when someone’s asked me, “How many people have you slept with?” I’ll leave that person off the list, because even if there, even though there was genital interactions, there was no fluid swapping. So for me, it didn’t really fit my definition of sex.

[00:20:33] LILA: Others agree that the tipping point for them is penetration of some kind, any kind. 

[00:20:40] PRIDE 9: What counts as sex? Like are we, this is a broad question. Are we talking penetration? Are we talking oral? Does anal count? Is it just being intimate with someone and being close with them, body on body. Sex, to me, by definition, is intercourse between two people…

[00:21:08] No! Sex is being with someone. Sex is penetration of some sort, whether it’s fingers, uh, penis, um, I don’t know if sex would mean if you could have sex with a strap on or a dildo. Yeah, I would count that too. 

[00:21:28] LILA: If there’s no penetration, is it sex? 

[00:21:33] PRIDE 9: If there’s no penetration of any type, if nothing is going into an orifice of some type, then I’m gonna, I’m gonna say no.

[00:21:46] LILA: Cunnilingus isn’t sex? 

[00:21:50] PRIDE 9: That is sex. 

[00:21:52] LILA: But only if the tongue penetrates? 

[00:21:54] PRIDE 9: Um, if it’s between someone’s lips, I consider that personal space. We’ll say, yes, that’s penetration, or even licking someone’s ass can be considered a sexual act and sex. 

[00:22:13] LILA: So it’s about entering someone’s personal space. 

[00:22:17] PRIDE 9: Yes. Even if they don’t consider it personal to them.

[00:22:23] LILA: Deeply personal space. That’s really interesting to me because the places that you mentioned are a, a softer kind of tissue. Right? It’s a different kind of skin. The inner lips of the pussy, the anus, the inside of the mouth. It’s a different type of skin. 

[00:22:44] People seem to be thinking more deliberately about sex than ever before. This gives me tremendous hope. When I sought the most expansive possible ideas about sex, I turned to the queer community. I went out to Washington Square Park at the tail end of the Queer Liberation March in my rainbow pasties and feathers, and I got to talk to this group of the most well spoken, joyfully expressed young people. This is what they said. 

[00:23:11] What is sex? 

[00:23:13] PRIDE 10: Whatever you want it to be. Sex, especially queer sex, it’s whatever you call it. Is that fingering? Is that oral? I don’t know. Is that just heavy petting? That’s entirely up to you. That’s between you and whoever else is involved. 

[00:23:28] PRIDE 11: Sex is vulnerability. It’s this deeper understanding that you are opening yourself up to someone in a way that can’t be replicated. Like, if you’ve had sex with someone, it doesn’t mean you’ve had sex with someone else in the same way that you had sex with the first person. It’s, it’s a means to communicate something that you can’t do any other way. 

[00:23:49] PRIDE 12: Sex is whatever you want it to be. You don’t have to define a single action or act or motion as sex. If you wanna say you’re having sex, then you’re having sex. And it’s also gonna be different for every person. So you could even be in an instance where someone was like, That wasn’t sex. That was just like fooling around. And someone could be like, Yeah, no, that was sex. 

[00:24:11] PRIDE 7: If you’re like, Damn, I just had sex, then you just had sex. No matter like what you did. I would say like nudity is part of it generally, but that’s about it. 

[00:24:24] LILA: What does sex mean to you? 

[00:24:26] PRIDE 7: Oh, Sex is fun. Sex is connection. If it’s T for T sex, it’s like power and holy and sacred is what it means to me. Like getting off, having fun with somebody that you connect with, getting sweaty. Yeah. 

[00:24:45] LILA: Do you have to get off for it to be sex? 

[00:24:47] PRIDE 7: No, I sometimes don’t, but it’s fine. It happens. Bodies are weird. Whatever. You don’t have to get off. Nobody has to get off. 

[00:24:58] Can you tell me what T for T sex is? 

[00:25:00] Oh my God. T for T is Trans for Trans. I, as a trans person, feel the most connected to other trans people. I think they’re super hot and sexy, and I love the way that I can emotionally connect with a trans person and not feel like I have to explain myself. And being a trans person, having sex with another trans person is just one of the most affirming things in the whole world and is wonderful.

[00:25:26] LILA: And I thought: The kids are all right! What they were all describing to me is what I’ll call radical agency. The ability, no, the right, to define sexuality and sexual activity and gender for that matter, according to their own internal compasses and nothing else. 

[00:25:47] There are so many reasons why we might choose to engage in sex, play, friendship, bonding, romantic love, recreation, intimacy, healing, intrigue, work performance, and procreation. And when chosen deliberately in sound mind, they are all valid. 

[00:26:09] Expanding my own definition of sex allowed me to change my narrative about losing my virginity, which was, if you recall, lackluster, to speaking of my sexual debut as those initial joyful masturbation under the faucet experiences, and then my first oral sex experiences, most of which were really exciting and delightful.

[00:26:34] I didn’t really start loving penetrative sex until well into my thirties, and I didn’t start getting the most sensation until the past few years. So if I had considered that to be the real sex, the only real sex, I’d have continued to be disappointed in my sex life altogether. 

[00:26:55] I once recorded with a woman named Marcia B., Sex Educator, co-founder of Cuddle Party. She told me, “There are so many cherries to be popped.” What if we thought of it that way? How many first times there are to be had! I stopped calling it, “losing my virginity” because virginity is a made up thing used to sell women into marriage for more land, or more cows. And also I didn’t lose anything. There was nothing for me to lose by becoming sexually active. So I stopped saying “When I lost my virginity” and started saying “When I had my sexual debut,” and now I can tell you about so many different sexual debuts: my threesome debut, my double penetration debut, my first time playing at a sex party while watching other people have sex debut.

[00:27:49] I could tell you about the early ones too, with the delicious stream of water from my bathroom faucet at age 9, side by side frottage, or rubbing our genitals against something with bean bag chairs around the age of 10. Kissing in my backyard hammock at 11, giving oral sex at 15, and being told I was really good at it, “Are you sure you haven’t done this before?” Receiving it at 16 and oh my God, the glory! And then, the one you already know about, penetrative vaginal sex, penis-in-vagina, or p-in-v as it’s sometimes called, at 19 years old. 

[00:28:30] So here’s my current working definition of sex: Sex is an act of deliberate, consensual, arousing, eroticism.

[00:28:41] Deliberate: it’s gotta be chosen in sound mind. Otherwise, it’s not sex, it’s something else. If there isn’t consent, we call this something else assault, but I must take a moment here. This is incredibly important. To distinguish this from a massive gray area. I learned from the sex scientist and researcher, Dr. Zhana Vrangalova, That sex exists on a four point graph. 

[00:29:06] Imagine a diamond shaped graph or a square turned on its point with two axes from top to bottom and left to right. Sex exists not just on a spectrum from consensual to non-consensual, but also from wanted to unwanted. This means that a sex act can be unwanted, and yet consensual. 

[00:29:34] PRIDE 13: I think I’m gonna say it again for what I want it to be, but I think I would desire it to be a consensual act with feeling. Like, if there’s no feeling behind it, then screw it. It’s not sex, because I shouldn’t have to consider the times that I was sexually assaulted sex, and those were penetration. So I think consent combined with intimacy or just an exchange of feelings and energy. 

[00:30:09] LILA: I think I heard you say that desire has to be involved. Is that true for you? 

[00:30:14] PRIDE 13: Yes. Because I’ve definitely had meaningless air quote “sex”, but I don’t wanna consider that sex. Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about like Body Count and like, I don’t want to consider all of those times sex because some of those things meant so much, like drastically more to me on the inside than, say, an exchange where I did not get to consent or one where I just straight up wasn’t into it, or if it was just an impulsive decision. 

[00:30:43] LILA: So what could we call those times? 

[00:30:47] PRIDE 13: Rape. Um, well, not all of them. Um. Rape and mistakes due to a bunch of, like the perfect storm kind of, of just like having nothing to do and not knowing kind of my own value. Like, I feel like I’ve given myself away to like so many people in times that I realized later I didn’t want to have given myself away to them. So I’ve been kind of trying to cope with that as, uh, just trying to reclaim it as it should be something that I desire, and, um, consent to. 

[00:31:30] LILA: Many of the most confusing sex acts of my life, and our time, were consensual yet unwanted. Or consensual and wanted in the moment, but later deemed unwanted, and after the fact labeled non-consensual. Unwanted sex isn’t the same as non-consensual sex. This makes the matter more complicated. 

[00:31:55] PRIDE 13: I have had sex that is unwanted and unconsensual, but there’s definitely times where I just started and I consented, but then midway through realize this isn’t something that I wanna be carrying out. I’m not into this. And also some of that had to do with sexuality and then had me going home questioning whether I was attracted to men, whether I was attracted to women, whether I was asexual. I feel like because of that, for me, like I feel like anyone can have any sort of intimate exchange with whoever they would please, but my personal experience, I think I need to know that person and really want to share, like a vulnerable moment with them. Otherwise, I’ll end up thinking, Yeah, this is something that I wanna do. It sounds exciting, it sounds fun, and I’ll, I’ll get like excited about it. And then midway through it, I feel bad. And I don’t wanna say to them like, I don’t wanna keep having sex. I don’t wanna say to them, You did this and it turned me off, or, I’m gonna block you when I go home after this. 

[00:32:57] LILA: The last piece of my definition is arousing, arousing eroticism. If it doesn’t turn us on, then, I don’t wanna consider it sex. 

[00:33:06] Deliberate, consensual, arousing, eroticism. All definitions I’ve ever heard have a flaw. Mine for instance, doesn’t distinguish kink work from sex, which is a crucial distinction for many workers because sex work is still legal in most of the United States, and many, if not most professional kinksters have a boundary around having sex with clients. Still, deliberate, consensual arousing eroticism is the most expansive definition I’ve encountered. So that is the understanding from which this show will operate. At least that’s the understanding we’ll begin from, because we’re all open to learn. 

[00:33:49] Here’s what we stand to gain by expanding our definition: More sex! More pleasure! Inclusivity! Positive regard for the nearly limitless palette of the erotic. 

[00:34:02] This is a sex-positive show and it stands for a sex-positive world, a world that celebrates how we sex, who we sex, and when we choose to sex them, including if our choices, no one and never, or only ever with myself. A world that celebrates how we relationship, who we relationship with, and how many people are involved, which also includes if our choice is not at all and zero partners or self partnered. 

[00:34:33] An honest, medically accurate, pleasure-informed sex and body education is currently a privilege, but it should be a right. Sex positivity isn’t promiscuity. It is an affirmation of the greatest luxury of all: choice. And the breathtakingly electric aliveness that is possible when we engage with our own eroticism in the way that we and our partners want, not the way society or Disney or porn or religion or our families have told us we should. 

[00:35:09] We can have such thoroughly erotic lives: more happiness in our relationships, less sexless romances, less resentment, no shame! 

[00:35:20] And that’s what I hope this show will begin to do for you: help you to make sex what you want it to be full of pleasure, free of shame, in as great or as little an amount as you desire. 

[00:35:35] That’s what I want for myself, and if you want that, that’s what I want for you. 

[00:35:41] And that: is positively sex.

[00:35:44] PS! A couple of weeks ago, post-coital in Brooklyn, in my lover’s bedroom, I was looking out another window. This time over the treetops that grow in Brooklyn, across the backyards and out to the open sky. I had had multiple orgasms. It was love making and it was fucking, it was everything, it was everything that I could possibly desire. It was all the movies, it was all the books, it was all the poems. It was everything. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my whole life. And I looked out the window and I thought, Yeah, that’s it. That’s sex.

[00:36:52] PRIDE 9: Sex is magical. Sex is beautiful. Sex is magnificent. Sex is something between two people that brings them closer together. Sex is intimacy. Sex is getting to know someone, being with them, sharing with them. 

[00:37:10] Sex is life.