Heterosexual sex tends to be penis-centric—perhaps even penis-obsessed. The moment a woman tells her friends she’s been intimate with a man, the first question asked is almost guaranteed to be: “Did you go all the way?” “All the way”, of course, does not mean whether or not they engaged in oral sex (especially on the woman). “All the way” is not interested in whether or not a woman had an orgasm, or enjoyed the encounter. “All the way” means very simply whether or not there was penetration.

Can we possibly imagine an intimate encounter where the man does not orgasm, but the woman does, perhaps several times? Can we imagine an encounter where sex is defined as whether or not it finishes with a female orgasm? Can we imagine saying “that wasn’t really sex” when the woman does not orgasm or enjoy herself? Can we imagine asking how two men have sex? I cannot count the amount of times both strangers and loved ones have asked me somewhat curiously, somewhat awkwardly, “How exactly can two women have sex?” Better yet, I cannot count how many times my explanation is followed by, “Well, then that’s not really sex.” 

I had a friend once who asked me if douching is safe (it is not). She wanted to know because for four months, her boyfriend had not gone near her genital area because he found her vagina “disgusting”, “weird”, and it “grossed him out.” I asked her how she could possibly be intimate with someone when she genuinely enjoyed his penis, and enjoyed pleasing him, while meanwhile her partner found a part of her body disgusting. She told me that in a relationship, there has to be compromise, and she does not want to force him into anything he’s uncomfortable with (all of which is true and valid).

I asked her, then, what she would think if for four months, her boyfriend had performed oral sex on her, touched her genitals, touched her breasts, and so on, and yet his pants had never come off and she never saw his penis. She admitted to me, “It wouldn’t be sex.” Curious that it is perfectly understandable that men are not always comfortable pleasing their female partners, and that the duty of a good woman is to accomodate him or to make herself more attractive; and yet, it is also the duty of a good woman to please her partner, to venerate his body, and that failing to do so in any way would mean their intimacy does not even “count”, is not worth anything. When she told me that she does not like swallowing, that she dislikes the taste and sometimes has to stop herself from gagging, she argued that, “It makes him happy, and I love him, so I compromise because that’s what you do in a relationship.” Funny that when it comes to sex, the woman passively must compromise and take care of the man and his penis, and the man has full agency to decide what he will and will not do.

Until both partners feel safe and confident saying “stop”, “no”, “I don’t want to do that”, “I can’t do that”, and also “yes”, “please”, “more”, “keep going”, “I want to do that”, I can’t imagine their intimacy is one of equality and respect. Both partners must have the agency to decide for themselves what is sex, and what sort of sex they want. And this sort of agency is not possible when heterosexual sex is penis-obsessed, when the goal of heterosexual sex is that the encounter results in a male orgasm, when a woman is “lucky” to get any sort of pleasure out of sex, let alone an orgasm.

-Excerpts from my paper on feminist intimacy