Patriarchy, Religion, and the Myth of “Real Sex”

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As a sex and relationship therapist, when I ask if my clients are having sex, a typical response will be something like: “No, not yet. I am waiting until I am serious with someone, and until then, I am only doing oral and mutual masturbation. My reply, “That is sex!” This usually gets a response of, “Well, I meant f*cking,” which they equate to sex. Nothing else. I have to remind my clients that fellatio and cunnilingus is called “oral sex” for a reason. That is still sex.

If you ask most people what is meant by “sex,” they are going to say, “Well, that means penetration. That’s normal sex.” I hear this a lot from the gay community: “You’re not really having sex unless you’re a ‘top’ or a ‘bottom.’” Gay men have accepted this as the gold standard of sexuality. It’s one of the reasons I felt the need back in 2013 to coin the term “Sides” and for gay men who aren’t into penetration, but who still enjoy a rich sexual life without it.

However, this doesn’t only pertain to the gay community. People of all sexual orientations come into my office saying the same thing. There are many, many groups and individuals for whom penetration is either undesirable or impossible. These may include people who have had severe trauma from childhood sexual abuse, disabled persons, people who are into kink, women who experience vaginal pain during penetration, aging men who aren’t able any more to maintain an erection, those who are dealing with diseases such as prostate cancer or a heart condition, and many LGBT individuals who don’t aspire to penetration as the only desirable way of having sex. And then there are those who are just not into it nor desire it.

If we have no mental or therapeutic framework or language that validates sexual intimacy beyond penetration, then we exclude the millions of people who are actually having sex. As sex therapists, we are pushing to remove the concept and term of “foreplay” and “afterplay” because this reinforces that the main act is PIV (penis in vagina) or PIA (penis in anus) intercourse. Foreplay is the main play for many people.

Even Kinsey challenged the idea that sex is defined by penetration, stating that non-penetrative sexual behaviors were common, satisfying, and non-pathological. He documented that most people—gay and straight—regularly had satisfying sex without intercourse.

As a culture and as therapists, we need to put away our narrow ideas about what is and is not “sex.” We very much need to expand our understanding of human sexuality.

That’s where “outercourse” comes in.

What Is Outercourse?

Outercourse refers to sexual intimacy that does not involve penetrative intercourse, including oral, anal, or vaginal. It centers pleasure, connection, and arousal without penetration. Common forms of outercourse:

• Kissing and making out
• Sensual touching and caressing
• Mutual masturbation
• Erotic massage
• Dry humping / body-to-body rubbing
• Use of sex toys without penetration
• Fantasy, dirty talk, and erotic role play

Who Made ‘Penetration’ King? Patriarchy, Religion, and Bill Clinton

Patriarchy

Men derive pleasure from the insertion of their penis. For thousands of years, a woman’s pleasure hasn’t been considered to be that important or considered at all. Studies have even estimated that 75 percent of women fail to reach orgasm with penetration alone and need clitoral stimulation that often doesn’t occur with intercourse alone. Add to this the humiliation factor for men who, because of age or other health problems, can no longer maintain an erection, and you begin to understand that men are the main reason marriages become sexless. Most people are surprised to learn that it is men who stop having sex first in most heterosexual relationships. This is because their erections are unreliable and men are ashamed. Women are often ashamed to admit that their vaginal pain prevents them from feeling pleasure. You will run across instances on social media of people offering women all sorts of exercises, herbals, and hormones and to make their body accept a penis. Perhaps their bodies are simply telling them, “I don’t want a penis inside of me.”

Religion

When people are taught from childhood that having sex outside of the institution of marriage is against God’s will, or that that sex for any other reason than making babies is a sin, they conclude that everything else is not “true sex” and morally questionable because sex should be “saved for marriage because it makes babies,” which reinforces the idea that sex equates to intercourse.

Bill Clinton

Older readers will remember our past President’s testimony under oath when he said, “I did not have sex with that woman.” The woman, of course, was an intern at the White House, and the proof that she engaged him in oral sex was irrefutable. Thus, his proclamation and legal defense was simply a reinforcement and a mirror of our culture’s acceptance of the idea that only penetrative sex counts as sex.

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Outercourse Is Sex

One need look no further than many of my clients from the kink community to answer this. There, a dom/sub situation where one is ordering someone around or being ordered around in nonsexual ways, and even a face slap or being called names or otherwise being humiliated in nonsexual ways can bring about sexual pleasure and be enough. No penetration, orgasm, or ejaculation needed.

Lesbians also find satisfying sexual pleasure and intimacy in something as simple as taking a bath together, cuddling in bed and fingering (digital stimulation). To them, this is sex, no penetration required. This is not to say that lesbians don’t enjoy penetration because they do. They just don’t adhere to the idea that that is the main way to be sexual with one another.

Many people enjoy rich, fulfilling, and meaningful sexual connections without penetration. i.e. outercourse. Many are dismissed as if their experiences are less valid. Therapists, even those with advanced training in sex therapy, can fall into this same trap, assuming that the absence of intercourse is a problem to be fixed rather than an authentic and meaningful expression of sexual intimacy.

Sex therapists are trained to help couples have “sexual satisfaction” without also being trained to help our clients recognize that intercourse may not be for them at all. Sadly, too many clients, both men and women, believe that without that, they are incomplete, as is the relationship, and many break up as a result. This does not have to happen.

Outercourse can take the anxiety out of performance anxiety for both men and women. We, then, as sex therapists, must be prepared to meet that need, to help our clients redefine sex in expansive terms by introducing the concept of outercourse and its variations, as well as providing practical tools, examples, case studies, and therapeutic frameworks to help other clinicians assess, validate, and support clients who prioritize outercourse.

It’s time for outercourse to come out of the closet.