A while ago I saw a Reddit thread where a self-described virgin had posed the simple question, “What is sex like?”
They didn’t specify their genitalia, gender, sexual orientation, sensation preferences, sexual fantasies, or any other details. Reading this post silenced my brain immediately, like a Buddhist koan. What is sex like?
Obviously sex is very different depending on who you are and you’re having it with, among other factors. But as I reflected on the question, I thought about the commonalities I’ve experienced across most, or all, of the sex I’ve had. I want to try to write about those today.
For one thing, sex is (or can be) immersive in a way that few other activities are. The closest thing to this feeling that I’ve found in non-sexual contexts is doing improv, or jamming with another musician. You are so in the moment, by necessity; so focused on the other person/people, in a way that makes time feel slower and faster all at once. It’s like flow state, but also like being in the rhythm of a really good conversation, but also like playing a fast-paced game of tennis – the air is charged, and each moment is significant. Mostly this headspace comes up for me during good sex specifically, because bad sex can make me dissociate from the cringe of it all, but even mediocre sex can have a certain immersive flow to it.
Next up: sex is tactile. I mean, duh. But a lot of us spend most of our time engaged in not-particularly-tactile activities, like replying to emails or doomscrolling Twitter or waiting in line at the bank, so anything truly tactile stands out these days. I think this is actually a huge part of why many of us struggle to relax into sex, at least initially: it can take time and conscious effort to feel safe getting out of your head and into your body. Sex is like muscling through a yoga class, or melting onto a massage table during a rubdown, or going wild on a wedding dance floor while wine-drunk. Just bodies doing what bodies do.
Sex is rare. By which I mean, for me, even in periods of life where sex is common, it never really feels common. It feels to me like a special, precious form of intimacy that I want to keep safe somehow, protect from being tainted or cheapened. Maybe this is why bad sex feels so deeply disappointing, even devastating sometimes. It tarnishes something that, in my mind, ought to sparkle. But good sex, and even middling sex, feels pleasantly rare, like a great party with old friends you haven’t seen in ages, or a cocktail from the fancy bar you can only afford to visit on special occasions.
Sex is raw. (I’m not referring to condomlessness here, although, you do you!) Sex opens me up emotionally, requires me to let my guard down at least a little. It reminds me of that clip from The Simpsons where the entire front of Lenny’s house falls off, revealing the sparsely furnished, dirty interior, and he says to the onlookers, “Please don’t tell anyone how I live.” Sometimes people see me too closely during sex and it scares me, but it’s also part of the experience. In that way, sex feels like letting someone read your journal or watch you shower. There’s a terror there, but it can be an exciting terror.
Finally, I’d say that sex is validating. Having sex is one of our culture’s most treasured benchmarks for social success (whatever the hell that means), so of course it can be gratifying on that extrinsic level in addition to all of the more intrinsic ones discussed above. I sometimes judge myself for feeling this way about sex, especially since I think the drive for sexual validation can lead us to some very weird places when taken to the extreme, like pickup artist culture and labiaplasty. But I think, in its more moderate forms, the desire to be sexually validated is fine, and that type of validation can be very healing and uplifting. In this way, sex feels like getting a gold star on your report card, or winning a game of chess, or someone cute telling you you’re cute.
It’s funny; I’ve been writing about sex in various forms for most of my life, but I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and tried to put into words the actual overall experience of having sex – not specific encounters, but sex in general. I know it’s different for all of us, and can also vary a hell of a lot at different times and with different people, but this is how I’d describe my own experience of sex at this point in my life. Sex is immersive, tactile, rare, raw, and validating. I’d be curious to know what 5 adjectives you’d pick to describe the mental/emotional/subjective experience of sex to someone who’d never had it; feel free to hit reply and let me know!