Questions about healthy viewpoints

[Dee3]

Hello, I would first like to say that I have appreciated this reading and learning from this place a lot but the day has come for me to get involved and make my first post. Well it actually feels more like a book. I am sort of at a loss for how to sort through all of these things in my mind, so I apologize in advance for all the wordiness. I summarized the most important parts of all those paragraphs I wrote into two questions, but if you feel up to reading or skimming everything I wrote let me just say I applaud you for not being scared away by the text wall.

So anyway my two questions, in simple form, are:
1) Is it acceptable and healthy for me to define having sex the way I personally wish to define it and reject everything else as being sex?
2) Am I emotionally damaged if I don't and have never felt romantic emotions for anybody but do feel, express, and act on sexual desire quite often? And is that wrong or bad?

Question number 1 expanded:
For me, having sex has evolved to mean only when a guy goes inside an orifice other than the mouth. This means that for me, anything else is just messing around. That's just according to my logic, which I recognize even as I type this is likely faulty. I say the meaning of sex has evolved for me because, I used to have very different values. I think I can bring myself to admit that I have probably changed my values in order to shield myself from feeling any guilt. I decided that I wanted to save my virginity until my marriage, and according to my definition I've done it. But I'm certainly not pure by any means. So instead of bringing myself to face certain guilt and agony over my past actions, I continue to allow myself (or force myself, depending on how you look at it) to live under these most likely faulty rules I've created for myself. And until my own doubt starts to creep into my mind, I'm spared the pain of regarding myself as unpure or worse, a slut.

In my own eyes, everything I've done sexually up to this point is just an expression of lust and interest, fun and harmless and it feels great but it's not sex. This is because only lips and hands are involved in the acts we commit on each other's bodies. Because I've refrained from using anything other than lips and hands on their bodies, and allowed only their lips and hands on my body, I am a virgin. I am complying with my own requirements in the definition of morality that I have adopted. Oral sex is a contradiction to me. It is oral and it is intimate and pleasurable, but it is not sex. The dangerous part of this all is that sometimes I may forget that other people may not see it the same way as I do and it may be much easier to hurt them this way, which I would never ever want to do. Is this an acceptable and healthy way for me to think? Is it even logical to admit an activity is sexual while still denying it is actually sex?

Question number 2 expanded:
One of my friends is trying to convince me I am bi because I think women are beautiful. I think I'm not wrong in saying most humans do. I have been aroused by women before, as well as men. Although I often find women more sexually/physically attractive than men, I find it easier to get aroused by masculinity and men (especially those who have all the opposite qualities of me as a woman, ei: deep voice, muscular build, facial hair, etc.). As wrong or right as it may be, I have come to prove that I don't mind expressing my arousal with girls even though I have always identified as straight up to this point. But no matter how intimate we get, it's never sex in my mind if it's with a girl. We could even make each other orgasm, but I can't bring myself to see it as anything other than assisted masturbation. I could never imagine ever experiencing any type of romantic feelings for a girl. I've never experienced deep romantic feelings for men, nor do I especially wish for them right now, but I can imagine them and do expect and hope for them to come eventually. I do have many platonic relationships and I care about these people a lot and am genuinely interested in their friendship, who they are as a person, what's going on with them in their life, etc. I am just afraid of falling in love because it seems like a complicated inconvenience to me at this point, and I'm actually afraid I may never fall in love, but I hope not to have to face that disappointment.

I had a boyfriend when I was younger but I never felt anything for him romantically although I cared about him as a person. It broke his heart that I didn't love him even though I was trying the feeling just never came and I didn't want to hurt him anymore so I broke up with him and hoped now he'd be free to find someone that truly loved him. Frankly I worry I have become quite selfish and possibly defensive in my way of thinking about all things related to sex and love and my greatest fear would be to hurt someone again because I don't think I could deal with it emotionally. Despite everything, I identify with a strong desire for acting out sexually and I do with acquaintances and friends whenever I get the chance. I feel little to no guilt for my actions ever but I wonder if I should. And I wonder if there is something I can do to make me change the lack of romantic love problem, or if I should just stop viewing it as a problem and accept it for who I am. Note: I would say I do experience love for my friends on a friendship level, and in my life I have experienced love and sexuality as two separate, disjointed and completely unrelated things. I really want to know, is that ok?

In conclusion:
Later on I will be posting few more questions that have been bothering me. I like to think I have an open mind about everything, but lately all this openness leaves a lot of space for confusion and doubt, and what is right and wrong for me. I greatly appreciate any feedback and input and I'd like to say in advance, thank you!

[Heather]

Hey, Dee, welcome to the boards.

With your question about how you are defining sex, am I getting it right that what you are ultimately asking is if that way of defining it is or is not a good idea, particularly when it comes to if it is helping you deal with and get past shame and guilt about sex, OR if it is, instead, keeping you stuck in a shame and guilt place; if it is something that is really a manifestation of guilt and shame, rather than something positive and supportive of your sexuality?

Just want to be sure I do not start by going in a direction that does not address what you are asking for or is way out in left field.

[Dee3]

Hello, thank you. Yes, you got it right. I am asking if this way of defining it is a good idea for me and others around me. Or if it could just spell confusion for myself and others in the future and maybe mislead other people as well as myself?

[Heather]

Got it! Afraid you came back when I was already out the door from work, so I will be sure and pop back here first thing tomorrow.

In the meantime, there are two pieces here I want to make sure you've read, because a lot of what I will have to say is from certain frameworks we use in sexuality and sexual health work and praxis. If you are not already familiar with them, probably worth a read just so we can start out with some common ground and understanding, okay?

Those are:
- http://www.scarleteen.com/article/bodie ... _it_anyway
- http://www.scarleteen.com/article/advice/whats_sex

[Heather]

Sorry for the wait! As you know there's a lot here -- and that's okay! -- so not even going to try and tackle all of this in one post.

In fact, I think what I'll do here is start with what seems easiest to me, and the least complex.

Yes, it's okay to be sexual without it being tied to romance or romantic feelings. There's nothing about that in general that's a problem unless it's a problem for you, and unless the other person wants that, in which case, when you're clear that's not what you're offering, they get to decline. And not having felt any romantic feelings yet -- or even ever! -- doesn't mean someone is broken. It just means someone has not felt those kinds of feelings, which are not feeling everyone feels, nor that everyone even defines the same way, or that everyone has yet had an opportunity to feel. Just like we're not sexually attracted to everyone, we're not romantically attracted to everyone, and just like sometimes, or for some people, it's hard to find people they feel sexual attraction to, the same goes with romance.

Mind, as I just said in an advice column last week, even untangling the romantic from the erotic is iffy, because romance, as a thing, is only a few centuries old, and came about very explicitly linked with erotic feelings. Given it's history (look up the Troubadours, if you're feeling geeky about this), in fact, the suggestion that romantic feelings are something besides sexual feelings is pretty iffy.

We can talk more about that if you like, but want to move forward to talk about your concerns with how you define sex and other people's interpretation of that.

For once, using certain words for sex, or not using them, doesn't do anything to protect people's feelings. By all means, from a consent standpoint, it's important that we are all using language where we all understand what we're agreeing to, so if you ask someone if they want to "just mess around," and then proceed to start oral sex, that'd be a problem just because "mess around" is really too vague to be good consent language in the first place. So, per consent, you will want/need to be asking people about doing things together where it's clear what you want to do, whether you say "oral sex," or you say "blow job" or "cunnilingus." Make sense? I'm betting, though, you already know and do all of that?

Too, if you are going into sexual activities you are not calling sexual activities, but are doing those things to express sexual feelings, for sure, that may be very confusing for others. If you are doing those things WITHOUT any sexual interest -- which I don't hear you saying you are doing -- that's perhaps something else you will want to communicate to people. But again, it doesn't sound like that is what you are doing. Rather, it sounds like you are choosing/wanting to do sexual activities with people from your feelings of sexual desire and interest. But if I have that wrong, give a shout, and we can talk more about that.

Honestly, my feeling is that when it comes to other people, this probably won't be something that has much of an impact on them. The person this is all really about, and most likely to impact, is you, particularly if -- and it sounds like this is the case -- you're doing things you would not feel good doing if...well, if you called them what they are. In other words, if you are using language in order to do something that you ultimately would feel bad about, but are protecting yourself from those feelings by calling it something else, probably it's you that are not going to find yourself feeling so great in time, especially if that holds you up from really working through those feelings of shame and guilt so that you can get past them, rather than just staying stuck in them or avoiding them. Make sense?

I wonder, when you read those links I gave you, particularly the one that gives a definition of sex intended to apply to as much of the population, in all our sexual diversity, as possible, what you thought? How does that definition of sex we give there feel for you? Does it seem in conflict with your own definition of sex?

Too, it sounds like you are defining sex only as something you have not experienced, rather than the expressions of sexual desire or curiosity you HAVE experienced. I wonder if it might be helpful to think about that, especially if, when you do experience that kind of sex, you find that it feels just like all of the other kinds of "messing around" you have been doing. Do you think you will then call those other things sex, or not call that one thing sex -- if it pretty much feels the same as the other stuff emotionally and physically, which it tends to -- or...?

Again, this is bound to be a big conversation, so not trying to cover everything right now, just trying to find us some places to get started.