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Notes -
Not directly related, but a similar definitional debate that was had many times during games of Never Have I Ever in grad school: What counts as "Sex" for the purpose of determining Body Count, [Loss of] Virginity, practice of sexual orientation, etc.?
Classically, the heteronormative definition of sex (PIV intercourse to male completion) pretty much covered the concept. But sexual orientation complicates this, it seems ridiculous to say that a woman who has had sex with many women but no men is a virgin. Equally the variety of sex acts can complicated it, and the use of "loopholes" like oral or especially anal sex to claim technical virginity strikes most as intensely silly.
Dan Savage has generally been a proponent of labeling "Last Name Sex" (Oral, Anal, Manual, etc.) as equivalent to intercourse. But standard cultural practice has been to treat them at least slightly differently at different times.
At the same time, you have men who want to claim to have had sex with women when the thing they did seems to have stopped well short of sex. Does masturbating in front of someone constitute sex? Ejaculating on a dance floor with a partner who was just dancing with you?
So we have two major failure modes: the nice Babtist college girl who claims to be a virgin despite the high school nickname Oral Audrey, and the male desperate to pump up his numbers who claims he had "cyber" sex with a camgirl because he paid her to watch him masturbate.
The definition we settled on for purposes of determining who should drink/lower a finger in a game of Never Have I Ever was this: Sex occurs when a person 1) achieves orgasm through the 2) intentional 3) physical 4) acts of another person. When those criteria are met, both the party who orgasms and the party who caused the orgasm have had sex.
Orgasm by one party is necessary to establish that a complete sex act has occurred. It is not relevant if the other party orgasms or not. Sexual acts that don't result in orgasm for any party are categorized as "fooling around." Normally, in hetero relationships, it will be the case that the male orgasms and the female may or may not, but the reverse works as well. I have trouble picturing a complete sex act in which nobody orgasms. If neither could get it done, while theoretically it could have been the whole nine yards but they couldn't hit the target, it seems more likely that it was abortive or farcical, involving physical impotence or alcohol.
The acts have to be intentional, they have to be intended to produce orgasm. So the dancing example, that isn't sex. Or a guy who rubs against a woman in a crowded subway car.* An accidental orgasm doesn't count.
The acts have to be physical, they have to involve touch. Talking someone through masturbation, watching someone, or cyber sex aren't sex.
The acts have to be those of another person. Masturbation doesn't count, if another person is merely present and observing. There is some debate here, if the orgasm is ultimately self-initiated during acts with another person, I tend to lean towards that counting as long as the physical acts are contributing to the orgasm. So masturbation does count if the other person is playing with the masturbator to achieve and intensify arousal and orgasm.
This definition has the advantage of covering all sex acts across all sexual orientations and genital configurations. But there are definitely some "edge"ing cases where it might deliver odd results.
The alternative definition, proposed for purposes of answering the question to partners and friends about Body Counts, is that if you want to claim a high number only penetrative sex to orgasm counts, while if you are trying to claim a low number everything even mildly adjacent counts. So an 18 year old boy claiming to his buddies that he lost his virginity doesn't get to claim anything but PIV to completion; but an 18 year old girl trying to trim her partner count to sound less slutty to her boyfriend should be forced to include anyone who met even 3/4 of the above criteria. This definition is good in that if you follow it, you'll never be accused of lying or hiding anything; it is bad in that everyone wants to lie all the time and will anyway.
What other definitions would TheMotte propose? Are there different definitions useful in different situations?
*This is where we'd fit in an argument about consent.There's no good way to handle it, hopefully it's not that big an issue for any indiviudal.
To be frank, has happened to me a fair few times.
Maybe “intended to”?
Maybe needing 3/4 of those factors works better? I'm trying to think if it leads to any possible false positive hacks.
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Ugh, you try to finish while rolling. Good luck.
I have definitely had “a complete sex act” while on MDMA with no orgasm for either person. (Persons, honestly.) If you go at it for a long while, but you never, uh, seal the deal, but you still have that connection and intimacy, I consider that a sex act.
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So a handjob counts as sex for the purposes of NHIE answers? I guess that's the price you have to pay for covering woman-on-woman sexual acts without overcomplicating the definition.
Yes. It seems pretty clear to me. Last name sex. It's status as consolation prize is kinda irrelevant, and skill dependent, to the question. You certainly can't have sex any other way afterwards until the refractory period concludes.
To me handies are less relevant to the WLW question than they are to the evasive evangelical girl question. Given that our NHIE questions tended to "punish" slutty behavior. So consider "Never have I ever... Had sex with a man!" If a guy gave a man a hand job to completion he should clearly drink. Or a kings rule like drink if you've had more than five sexual partners. A girl who's had PIV with three guys and gave five others hand jobs should clearly drink there.
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You were playing “never have I ever” in grad school? Wild.
It combines Law Students favorite activities: drinking and arguing about precise terminology and definitions. Somehow alcoholics will engage in a five minute debate to avoid taking a tequila shot if someone tries to make them drink it.
Anyway it's the most fun at 22-26 when people have diverged significantly in their experiences. Freshman year of college everyone is pretty close together with a few outliers, after 30 everyone is pretty close together with a few outliers, at 25 there's a huge spread between the top and the bottom.
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