Hello, my friends. We’re going to talk about sex and relationships today. Happy Valentine’s Day to me.

I recently read this amazing essay by Heather Corinna on Scarleteen.com that talks about our cultural models surrounding sex (and sexual initiation in particular). She provides an overview of where we’re at, culturally, with ideas like consent and female desire, and makes her “immodest proposal” of where she would like to see us go, for the future, as a culture and in our own lives. It’s brilliant, and beautiful, and you should take the time to go read it. Right now. I’ll wait.

Because now I’d like to take some time to talk about something she doesn’t really touch on, that has had a profound influence on my own journey as a sexual being and deeply impacted the lives of people that I care about. Her essay says quite a bit about the erasure of female desire, the domination of men over women’s sexuality, the deep wounds we’re all standing on–our cultural history of domination and non-consent. And, yeah, that is a big problem, and is still very relevant, and needs a lot of work.

But there is another path I’ve found that seems like a better option, but isn’t. A seemingly better alternative to those traditional authoritarian patriarchal ideas of women and sex that nevertheless diverts us down a blind alley before we reach that lovely, desire-rich, egalitarian vision of a sexual future that Heather Corinna proposes. This road looks promising, like a rejection of all of that history. It has a lot to do with constructing masculinity, though it can and does affect people of any gender and orientation. It has a lot to do with the disparity between two partners’ sexual responses, so it does pop up often (just not exclusively) in male-female partnerships, since there are some biological differences that come into play there.

Let us examine now, not a coercive model of sexual relations, but one that is very goal-directed and performance-based. A James Bondian ideal, where the metric of success is to be the partner who delivers one’s lover to ecstasy. (Or reach further back into history, to Don Juan, or Lothario… this archetype has been around a very long time.) In this construction of masculinity, success is defined by giving a partner as much pleasure as possible. Manhood is measured in orgasms, and the in the length of the trail of satisfied ladies left behind. More modern versions of this idea reject Bond’s emotional callousness, but maintain the idea that knowing how to give pleasure to a woman is a prerequisite for masculine identity.

As a counter to prevailing ideas that dismiss female pleasure, desire, or even consent, this seems like a much better option. Who wouldn’t rather be the considerate lover who cares about their partner’s pleasure, rather than that person who gets theirs and then rolls over and goes to sleep? But it gets complicated and miserable pretty fast.

Here are some of the problems that occur to me:

1. This model persists in treating women as objects. Objects to be pleased rather than possessed, but not equally responsible for the outcome of a sexual encounter.
2. This model explicitly puts all responsibility for the outcome of a sexual interaction on the male, or more easily satisfied partner. One result of this can be making sex feel like all work and no play.
3. This model assumes that all worthwhile sexual encounters include orgasms for everybody.
4. This model assumes that you’ve either got it or you don’t. The partner who takes the responsibility for everyone’s pleasure doesn’t talk about it, but just knows what to do! It doesn’t allow for communication, practice, or learning.
5. This model GREATLY underestimates the complexity of the female sexual response, and in doing so,
6. This model puts just as much pressure on women to have orgasms (a performance of not inconsiderable difficulty for some) as it does for men to deliver them.

And the problems are shared by both partners in this dynamic. For the partner ‘in charge,’ the lack of permissible communication is one of the biggest hurdles. Imagine, for a moment, that you’re inexperienced, either in general, or with this particular partner. You can’t risk asking questions or admitting you don’t know what you’re doing–that would mean failing to live up to the ideal! Yet you have to find a way to perform brilliantly… so you can live up to the ideal.

Performance anxiety rears its ugly head on both sides of the divide, of course. The pressure to provide orgasms is obvious… but there’s also the pressure to have them. Imagine, for a moment, that you are a person who takes a while to get aroused, or has difficulty reaching orgasm. Maybe you’ve never quite puzzled it out. If your partner’s self-esteem is bound up in their ability to get you off, things are going to go poorly for both of you.

Naturally, giving up your agency when it comes to sexual satisfaction is a breeding ground for resentment, which is so poisonous to healthy relationships. Say you’ve accepted this model as your truth. You rely entirely on your partner for your satisfaction. If they’re not in the mood, if they’re not very good at what they’re doing… (and remember, they can’t ask questions) you’re just stuck. Unsatisfied. And you feel like the responsibility is theirs, and so, naturally, you feel like the blame falls on them as well.

Now. Let’s stretch ourselves a little, and radically reimagine what things can be like when we discard this model, and embrace, instead, a world where everyone has sexual agency and takes responsibility for their own desires, their own pleasure. Try this mantra on for size: “Final responsibility for my own pleasure is mine. It is up to me to get my needs met and to effectively communicate to my partners how they can help.”

What if everyone comfortably accepted that not all great sex has to involve orgasms for everybody? In fact, it could be up to the people involved to set their OWN goals for a particular encounter. Your goal could be about cultivating the physical connection between you and your partner. It could be based around playful curiosity. Perhaps you want to create space for pleasure–taking time to just do what feels great, alone or with a favorite person, but without the pressure for predictable performance. Or maybe it would be powerful for you to practice listening to your body and respecting your limits and boundaries–doing everything you want to do, and not one thing that you don’t.

Here’s another aspect of everyone taking responsibility for their own pleasure. What if everybody could feel free to flirt, and make out, and tease a partner to distraction… and then wander off and leave them to their own devices? The script that our culture hands to women makes satisfying desires that we elicit (deliberately or not) our responsibility… and date rape statistics will surely back me up on that score. But for how many of us is this a limiting factor, which then feeds into the stereotype that women aren’t interested in sex? We don’t dare show an interest unless we’re prepared to go all the way! Remove that expectation… and be freed. Let go of the worry about how much energy do you really have, and is this a good time, and whatever else was blocking you. Authentically own your desire, because expressing it doesn’t obligate you to do anything.

What if learning about our bodies and talking about sex was the norm? Nobody is born an expert, and our bodies keep changing as we grow and as we age. What’s right today may no longer be perfect tomorrow, and the only solution is to keep learning our whole lives, and share what we learn with our partners! Communication isn’t always suave or sexy, and it doesn’t have to be. We don’t have useful models of it from popular culture, but that’s okay. Build what works for you, together.

What a wonderful spectrum of desire and sexual expression begins to open up in this radically reimagined world. If you, like so many of us of any gender or orientation, have stumbled down this blind alley on your journey from the dark aegis of the patriarchy to the sweet freedom of Heather Corinna’s immodestly proposed new cultural script, take some time now to question your ideas. Who is responsible for your pleasure? Whose pleasure do you feel responsible for? You might, like me, be very glad you did.

Recommended Resources:

Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski
Woman On Fire by Amy Jo Goddard
the podcast Sex Nerd Sandra
The Explore More Summit (10 days of free talks, available starting March 10th, 2017)