PHOTOS BY ALEX FURUYA
The traditional definition of “sex” depends on heterosexuality and penises, so defining it without either is hard.
BY EMMA SARAPPO
I
t took McCormick junior Katie Perry a while to figure out whether she’d had sex. Perry hadn’t forgotten the encounter; the details of her experience were clear. She was 18, and she’d had her first sexual experience with another woman. The question she was wrestling with was one most of her straight peers would never have had to ask themselves. She wasn’t sure if what had transpired “counted” as sex. Perry, who is bisexual, had this uncertainty because there was no penis involved. Therefore, there was no classic “sexual intercourse” experience acted out, the kind defined in middle school sex ed as penis-invagina-to-completion. Since she was sleeping with another woman, there was no clear line, no action she could take that would leave her completely sure she had lost her virginity. She wondered what she would say if someone asked if she had. “Yes, but technically it was with a girl, so what is that? A half-virginity?” She looked it up on the internet and even asked her best friend if what happened “counted.” Her response: “I don’t think so, technically.” But that didn’t sit right with Perry, who knew the heteronormative definition was too limited. “You don’t have to have a guy to have sex,” she says.
Finally, she made a decision. “I’ll just say it counts, say I lost my virginity and move on,” she says. In an era where mainstream acceptance of LGBTQ people is unprecedented, heteronormative ideas about sex and virginity remain dominant. This penis-entering-something cultural script overshadows conversations about sex; whether or not this definition of sex feels reductive, it’s fairly easy to imagine classic sex between men. That penetrative narrative infiltrates culture to the point that many queer women and nonbinary people with vaginas – basically, anyone having sex that typically doesn’t involve any penises – have no clear roadmap for what their sex even looks like. This poses a problem, because it’s nearly impossible to understand sexual orientation without the thing at its center: sex. Growing up, Medill sophomore Katie Pach attended Catholic school in suburban Ohio, where she didn’t learn much about sex at all – let alone sex between women. She says she wouldn’t have known that gay people even existed without television and movies. “It just wasn’t something that existed, so it never occurred to me that I
might like girls,” she says. Once she started attending a public high school, Pach met new friends who expanded her worldview, often just by talking about sex. And once she saw and met girls who liked other girls, she began to think about her own sexuality. She’d often think “Wow, it’d be crazy if I was a lesbian! But I’m totally not, so it’s fine!” she says. But seeing that it was possible for girls to like other girls in turn made it possible for Pach to understand her feelings. Today, she identifies as bisexual, or often simply, “queer.” While Pach’s straight peers had models for dating and sex on television and in movies, she didn’t. When straight friends complain to her about their lack of sex ed, Pach responds, “Yeah, but at least your sex is in every TV show. Every movie has a straight couple.” In American heteronormative society, particularly in rural or suburban areas with a nonexistent or invisible LGBTQ population, people have relied on popular culture to understand and construct their identities. However, pop culture hasn’t always provided the most truthful or compassionate narrative. And while gay men have seen increased visibility from the late ‘90s onwards, beginning with shows like Will & Grace and continued WINTER 2017 | 35
