Kerwin Kaye New York University
Intercourse is often imagined to be an entirely “natural” act, the central biological function which links humans with non-human animals. And of course, in some sense this is true: if at least some humans had not been engaging in heterosexual, reproductive intercourse throughout history, our species would never have survived. But an acknowledgement of this basic truth should not draw attention away from the multitude of ways in which intercourse is a profoundly social affair, starting with the fact that the act inherently involves more than one person. While intercourse is often so taken-for-granted that it becomes the proverbial it in “doing it” – as if we all knew what that meant with no further explanation – the ideas and practices which surround and constitute intercourse have varied enormously across both cultural and historical contexts. Indeed, the very idea that intercourse is primarily or exclusively “about” reproduction is a recent one, and it is worth turning a critical eye toward the assumptions that this narrow focus upon reproduction carries with it.
Almost everyone will acknowledge that moral assessments of intercourse are social.
Even those who believe that such evaluations ultimately derive from God, or those who take physical or psychological “health” as an ethical standard, accept that people learn such norms through their interactions with others. But much more than this is involved in the social construction of intercourse. As the anthropologist of sexuality Niels Teunis has observed, anyone who thinks back upon their own ineptitude the first time they had sex will realize just how much they still had to learn about it, and none of this social learning would be needed if intercourse were a purely “natural” event. A sampling of “thought questions” about the precise conduct of intercourse might better give an indication as to just how fabricated it really is:
■ What other sex acts are associated with intercourse? To what extent is intercourse governed by a larger script, for example one which begins with “foreplay” and culminates in “going all the way”? Does every “proper” sex act end in intercourse?
How is this decided, and by whom?
■ Are one’s eyes open during intercourse? Are the lights on? What difference does the visibility of intercourse make? To what extent is one “supposed to” focus upon the other senses (taste, smell, touch, hearing) during intercourse?
■ Does one talk during intercourse? If so, what types of things is it appropriate to say?
■ Are certain types of clothing, or stages of undress and nakedness, particularly apt for intercourse?
■ Are specific positions mandated or preferable for intercourse?
■ Which rooms within a house, and which pieces of furniture, are most suitable for intercourse? If intercourse occurs outside of these spaces, what does it mean about the people involved? Are such people “wild,” “slutty,” “fun,” or “perverse”? Does it matter if we are evaluating a woman or a man? If the person is young or old?
■ What type of relationship must exist between two people in order for intercourse to be proper and legitimate? Must people be married? Coupled? Monogamous? In love? Is it preferable for partners to be of the same race? Or of the same social class? Or within the same general age group? Must people be of a different sex?
■ What constitutes “good” versus “bad” intercourse?
In raising these questions, I hope to highlight the many ways in which social meaning shapes both the practice and the experience of sexual intercourse. The idea that intercourse is a social rather than a natural act carries with it three important propositions:
(1) it varies between different societies and within a single society; (2) it changes over time; and (3) it can be a site of political conflict.
Defining intercourse
The social nature of intercourse thus extends much further than is typically recognized.
Even the very question as to what exactly constitutes “intercourse” is socially determined. Historically, for example, Western Christianity has spoken of “coitus” rather than of “intercourse.” “Coitus” implies that a woman and a man have penetrative vaginal–penile intercourse and continue to do so until the man achieves orgasm; to stop prior to this moment would constitute “coitus interruptus” (which was sharply condemned for centuries, along with other forms of contraception). Today, the word
“intercourse” is primarily used in medical contexts and includes situations which stop short of coitus as such. On the other hand, a remnant of the older idea of coitus seems to still be operative within the concept of intercourse; to say that one “had intercourse” three times, for example, would commonly refer to the fact that a man ejaculated three times, and implies nothing about the experience of the female partner.
While coitus necessarily refers to intercourse between a woman and a man, the more recent term “anal intercourse” has extended the definition of intercourse to sex acts which might occur between men. “Strap-on sex” – in which a woman penetrates her partner with a dildo (either vaginally or anally) – might also be considered “intercourse.”
Whatever one’s exact definition, intercourse is generally defined in a more narrow manner than sex, and typically excludes “oral sex” and other forms of contact that would nevertheless be considered “sexual.” The point is not to find the single “correct”
definition, but rather to see that the meanings associated with these terms shift over time and are inherently susceptible to social conflict.
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The sociology of intercourse
Sociological study has revealed that ideas and practices associated with intercourse vary across social groupings. In his studies conducted during the 1940s and 1950s, Alfred Kinsey discovered that men with higher educational levels practiced masturbation and
“petting” techniques more regularly than their less educated peers, while men with less education engaged in more homosexuality and had more intercourse (whether with friends, prostitutes, or unmarried lovers) than their college-educated peers (Kinsey et al.
1948:378). Although Kinsey found less variation by educational level among women, women’s sexual behavior varied by decade of birth, with younger women engaging in more “petting” and more intercourse both inside and outside of marriage (Kinsey et al.
1953:685).
Laumann et al.’s more recent survey of US sexual preferences and practices found that more educated persons more strongly enjoyed masturbation, oral sex, and anal sex than their less educated peers (1994:152–5), but also found that homosexuality was more prevalent among the people with greater education (1994:303–5). Again in contrast to Kinsey, Laumann et al. found that these differences correlated to educational level among both women and men. Although the two studies yield somewhat different findings, neither set of data necessarily contradicts the other; the historical patterns simply may have shifted over time. What both studies show, however, is that the ideas and practices that a given person has concerning intercourse are shaped by social considerations such as social class, race, gender, and so on.
The history of sexual intercourse
Large-scale social transformations have produced epochal shifts in how we think of these issues. The very word “sexuality,” for example, was first coined only in 1879. Prior to the idea of “sexuality,” philosophers and theologians had spoken of “carnality” and the sins of “the flesh.” Drawing on remarks made by the French historian Michel Foucault, Arnold Davidson has written about the precise nature of the shift (Davidson 1987).
Sexuality, says Davidson, is an idea that focuses attention upon one’s personal feelings, fantasies, and desires as much as it is upon anything that one actually does. It is not, in other words, limited to the body (as the saying goes, the brain is the most sexual organ we have). The idea of carnality, on the other hand, presumed that sexual impulses rose directly from the flesh, imposing themselves within the psyche like an unwanted visitor.
The difference between these two conceptions may seem subtle but its consequences are quite profound for the ways in which sexual intercourse was understood. When sexual impulses are seen as originating in “the flesh,” those desires are perceived as having nothing to do with one’s personality. When one has a “deviant” desire, therefore, it is not because one’s “inner nature” inclined in that direction. In fact, early Christian theologians presumed that all manner of sins were pleasurable and that “the flesh” was inclined toward all of them. Anyone – not just “homosexuals” – might enjoy same-sex contact, for example. The idea that some people were unlike others – that some people had an inner
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inclination to be “heterosexual” while others were innately “homosexual” – simply did not arise. “Sodomy” was known, and roundly condemned, but anyone might become a sodomite. (The term “sodomy,” incidentally, was sometimes used to refer to anal intercourse, and sometimes to refer to any non-procreative sex act; in the latter case, women might be “sodomites” as well.) With the rise of a new focus on the constellation of “sexuality,” however, various “types” of people came to be named. For the first time, one could be a “masochist,” a “fetishist,” a “heterosexual,” or a “homosexual.” Not surprisingly, those who believed in “the flesh” felt little need to carefully examine the nature of their sexual longings; the key was simply to control one’s desires, whatever they might be. Those who sought to pigeonhole people into distinct sexual categories, on the other hand, felt compelled to engage in a great deal of self-scrutiny; every single passing thought might be a sign of a “disorder” which emanated from one’s innermost personality.
One important consequence of this deep change in meaning was apparently a more intense concentration upon intercourse within sex. The historian Randy Trumbach argues that the new sexual regime placed heightened requirements upon men in particular to prove they were exclusively interested in women, lest they be considered not just sinful, but “queer” (1998:69). Whereas the older system of carnality had presumed that any instance of sin – such as visiting a prostitute – might lead to further transgressions such as sodomy, the new system of sexual types presumed that one’s “heterosexuality” was not threatened by such behavior. Having intercourse with a woman, whether licitly or illicitly, “proved” that men did not belong to the newly formed category of homosexuality. The pressure to achieve “normality” thus produced new pressures beyond those entailed by the category of “sinfulness” alone.
The Dutch historian Theo van der Meer has explored this epochal shift from a slightly different perspective. Van der Meer notes that early theologians presumed that a sexual sin might follow from other types of sin, such as swearing or gambling. This idea made sense because bodies were understood to be inclined toward all manner of sin; one’s willpower kept these bodily desires in check in all ways or in none. Those who began to swear, therefore, might lose some of their willpower and begin to gamble; gambling would then lead to a further loss of self-control and the possible commission of still more grievous sins, such as heterosexual adultery, and eventually this slippery slope might lead to rape, thievery, bestiality, sodomy, murder, and whatever other sort of sin one can imagine (1993:182–3). This chain of events tends to sound rather peculiar to our modern ears. Sexual acts are associated with sexual thoughts and sexual feelings, not with a “non-sexual” activity such as swearing, and someone is not seen as being more likely to commence engaging in homosexual acts simply because they have engaged in heterosexual adultery. The sharp difference between these ways of thinking illustrates how very differently we might understand the ideas which give meaning to the experience of intercourse.
The politics of sexual intercourse
The profoundly social nature of sexual intercourse has led some thinkers to examine it as political. Feminists, in particular, have carried on a sometimes heated debate concerning
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the political nature of intercourse. Some feminists criticized conventional intercourse for furthering male dominance. A compelling analysis of the subject was undertaken by Andrea Dworkin in her 1987 book entitled, straightforwardly enough, Intercourse.
Dworkin argues that intercourse has been defined in terms of a penetrator and a penetrated, and that the act carries with it a strong sense of social domination or inequality. As she puts it: “Intercourse is commonly written about and comprehended as a form of possession or an act of possession … He has her, or, when he is done, he has had her. … The normal fuck by a normal man is taken to be an act of invasion and ownership undertaken in a mode of predation” (1987:63). Dworkin goes on to argue that in the United States one becomes a “true man” only by successfully subordinating a woman through intercourse.
Some feminist critics of Dworkin have acknowledged that, while intercourse can involve a dynamic of male dominance/female subordination, it also involves sensual and emotional pleasures as well. Rather than avoiding intercourse, these critics suggest that women must balance “pleasure” and “danger” in their sexual decision-making (Vance 1984). Others question how Dworkin’s insights might apply in situations where partners (whether of the same sex or differently sexed) take turns in penetrating one another.
Lastly, Dworkin’s perspective has been criticized for ironically reinforcing a sexual double standard: whereas the usual double standard says that women who enjoy intercourse “too much” or with “too many people” are “sluts,” Dworkin argues that women who enjoy intercourse are “collaborators, more base in their collaboration than other collaborators have ever been” (1987:143). To many, this seems merely to duplicate an older set of sexist messages.
Scholars of masculinity have noted that the social criteria which define conventional intercourse affect men in powerful ways as well (Kaye 2000; Kimmel 2005; Segal 1990).
While the act of heterosexual intercourse can be associated with losing power for women, for men it often involves demands to be powerful and in command. Any performance which fails to meet this standard – which comes up limp, so to speak – can be taken as an instance of male failure. Despite the fact that a wide array of sexual pleasures are available to men with non-erect penises, one’s “manhood” may be placed in jeopardy if intercourse somehow fails. Men’s feelings of insecurity and inferiority about this issue, in other words, derive precisely from the fact that they are expected to be “potent,”
powerful, and in charge.
Given the difficulties associated with the conventional definition of intercourse, some sex and gender activists have moved to shift the focus of sexual relations away from this one, limited act and toward a wider variety of erotic activities. As the authors Cathy Winks and Anne Semans argue:
An emphasis on the primacy of penis–vagina intercourse devalues not just the experience of gay and lesbian couples, but the experience of bisexual and heterosexual couples who have learned that there’s more to sex than sticking the proverbial plug in a socket. The negative results of this single-minded approach to sex are manifold: If the pleasures of “outercourse”
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were openly acknowledged, surely we’d see a decrease in the rate of teenage pregnancies, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and the number of preorgasmic women.
(Winks and Semans 1997:123) By shifting sex away from a narrative whose plot moves rather predictably along from
“foreplay” to “climax during intercourse,” Winks and Semans hope to turn intercourse into just one item on a much more varied menu. While Sigmund Freud suggested that any person who derived sexual pleasure from activities that did not ultimately lead to intercourse suffered from a neurotic “fetish,” this alternative approach explicitly works to open up such “kinky” possibilities in an effort to create a less restrictive sexual encounter.
References
Davidson, Arnold. 1987. “Sex and the Emergence of Sexuality,” Critical Inquiry 14 (Autumn).
——2001. The Emergence of Sexuality: Historical Epistemology and the Formation of Concepts.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dworkin, Andrea. 1987. Intercourse. New York: The Free Press/Macmillan.
Kaye, Kerwin (ed.). 2000. Male Lust: Pleasure, Power, and Transformation. Binghamton, NY:
Haworth Press.
Kimmel, Michael. 2005. The Gender of Desire: Essays on Male Sexuality. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Kinsey, Alfred, Wardell Pomeroy, and Clyde Martin. 1948. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.
Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Company.
Kinsey, Alfred and the Staff of the Institute for Sex Research. 1953. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Company.
Laumann, Edward, John Gagnon, Robert Michael, and Stuart Michaels. 1994. The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
McPhillips, Kathryn, Virginia Braun, and Nicola Gavey. 2001. “Defining (Hetero)Sex: How Imperative is the ‘Coital Imperative’?” Women’s Studies International Forum 24, 2, 229–40.
Segal, Lynne. 1990. Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men. New Brunswick:
Rutgers University Press.
Tiefer, Leonore. 1995. Sex is not a Natural Act and Other Essays. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Trumbach, Randolph. 1998. Sex and the Gender Revolution: Heterosexuality and the Third Gender in Enlightenment London, vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
van der Meer, Theo. 1993. “Sodomy and the Pursuit of a Third Sex in the Early Modern Period”, in Gilbert Herdt (ed.), Third Sex/Third Gender. Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History. New York: Zone Books.
Vance, Carole (ed.). 1984. Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality. New York:
Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Winks, Cathy and Anne, Semans. 1997. The New Good Vibrations Guide to Sex, 2nd edition. San Francisco: Cleis Press.
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