One of the first studies focusing on what it means to "have sex" was conducted by Stephanie Sanders and June Reinisch (1999) of The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. In this study, penile-vaginal intercourse was viewed by virtually all heterosexual college students (99.5%) as qualifying as having sex. Yet, only 81% considered penile-anal intercourse to be sex. Even more surprising, a majority of heterosexual college students (about 60%) did not view oral-genital sex as constituting sex.
The integrity-protecting nature of the strategic use of the concept of "have sex" was revealed by another finding in the study. Specifically, approximately 75% of individuals who had not yet engaged in penile-vaginal intercourse, but who had already engaged in oral-genital sex, felt that oral-genital sex did not really qualify as "having sex." This proportion was substantially greater than that of all college students who participated in the study, which as presented earlier was 60%. This suggests that individuals may have engaged in oral-genital sex rather than penile-vaginal intercourse as a strategy for avoiding "real sex;" in their minds, they remained technically virgins.
More recently, Zoë Peterson and Charlene Muehlenhard (2007) examined the specific motivations involved in the strategic use of the concept of "having sex." The researchers asked college students to think of their own experiences they considered to be "almost but not quite sex." The primary basis for not viewing the behavior as sex among these individuals was the absence of inserting the penis in the vagina. Other reasons given for distinguishing between behaviors identified as "having sex" and "not sex" were whether genital contact, nudity, sexual arousal, orgasm, or an exchange of body fluids had occurred. The behaviors cited as most difficult to clearly categorize as "sex" or "not sex" were oral-genital sex, brief or partial penile-vaginal penetration, and genital-to-genital contact without penetration.
Students were also asked about experiences that were "just barely sex." Their most frequent explanation for the reason the behavior was just barely sex was that penile-vaginal penetration had occurred.
Peterson and Muehlenhard additionally explored the motivations that underlie the tendency to avoid labeling certain sexual behaviors as "having sex." One strategy for uncovering individuals’ motivation was to ask them how they would have felt if the "not quite sex" behavior had actually been sex. Substantially more students (50%) indicated that they would have experienced negative emotions if the behavior had actually been sex than would have experienced positive emotions (14%).
Women were more likely than men to think that they would experience negative emotions if the behavior had been sex. Men were equally likely to believe that they would have experienced positive emotions as negative emotions. Women tended to be concerned that they would have lost their virginity or would feel bad about themselves, if the behavior had been sex. Men who thought they would have had negative emotions were concerned about having sex with the wrong person or that having sex would have harmed the relationship.
Beyond these motives for not viewing the behavior as sex, others included:
- not wanting to be perceived negatively by others
- not wanting to have cheated on a partner
- not wanting to behave inconsistently with one’s religious beliefs
- not wanting to challenge one’s heterosexual self-concept (p. 266)
Many of the individuals were in fact aware that the way they defined the behavior affected their understanding of the behavior. Peterson and Muehlenhard provided the example of one woman who reported that she had never "had sex" and that she was a virgin:
I gave him a blow job & he in turn gave me oral sex . . . . Now I am ashamed of it and I wish I had never done it. Because I lost all respect for him and myself.
[Why isn’t it sex?] B/c it was not intercourse.[Any conditions under which you WOULD consider the activity to be sex?] Yes. I have classified it as sex before b/c it’s called oral sex but to justify what I did (I’m a Christian) I told myself a lie.
[If it had been sex, how would you feel?] I would have cried afterwards. I would have been giving up something that I can never ever have back and that’s something that I want to give to my husband. I would be in severe depression . . . . (p. 262).
Other individuals provided similar, extremely forthright accounts of reinterpreting sexual behavior as nonsexual. Actually, in some cases, individuals intentionally interpreted an experience as sexual behavior that did not meet their own, earlier stated definition of "real sex." One example of such a case included a three-way sexual encounter that almost occurred, but was interrupted, and never really happened. A second example was what one individual described as "fooling around" while naked with genital contact, but it was not entirely clear whether brief vaginal penetration had taken place. Such individuals, many of them men, wanted to feel that they actually had engaged in sex with someone, or wanted to believe that they had engaged in an exotic sexual experience (e.g., a three-way).
The implications of these findings are profound and far-reaching, both at a personal level and with respect to scientific research. At a personal level, studies have indicated that people rely on discussions with their potential sexual partner to decide whether he or she has been infected with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). They will consider engaging in sexual behavior if they get the sense that the partner has had little or no previous sexual experience, because they believe the risk for STDs is minimal.
Yet, the research discussed above indicates that a number of people purposefully define their past sexual history in a way that allows them to continue to view themselves as moral or virginal. Other research reveals that some proportion of people admit that they would lie to a potential partner in order to get them to engage in sex. For these reasons, it appears that relying on a partner’s own account of their sexual history is not an extremely safe strategy. Such findings additionally reinforce the idea that scientists must be extremely specific in asking research participants about sexual behavior, targeting particular types of sexual behavior, and avoiding using such emotionally loaded phrases as "having sex."
The bottom line is that sexuality has been so fundamentally condemned on moral and religious grounds throughout Western history that it is fraught with a substantial sense of guilt and anxiety for many individuals. This leads a number of people to feel the need to redefine sexual behavior in which they have engaged in a way that simply makes it "go away." In fact, evidence from a large national survey (Rosenbaum, 2006) indicates that those with conservative religious ideologies, those who had recently become born-again Christians or who had taken virginity pledges, are particularly prone to redefine their sexual histories. Abstinence-only sex education programs may likewise motivate individuals to modify their definitions of their sexual behavior to fit the standards of goodness promoted in such programs.
Peterson, Z. D., & Muehlenhard, C. L. (2007). What is sex and why does it matter? A motivational approach to exploring individuals’ definitions of sex. Journal of Sex Research, 44, 256-268.
Rosenbaum, J. E. (2006). Reborn a virgin: Adolescents’ retracting of virginity pledges and sexual histories. American Journal of Public Health, 96, 1098-1103.
Sanders, S. A., & Reinisch, J. M. (1999). Would you say you "had sex" if . . . ? Journal of the American Medical Association, 281, 275-277.
