What Is Sex and Why Does It Matter? A Motivational Approach to Exploring Individuals' Definitions of Sex

Abstract

What sexual experiences qualify as "having sex"? We investigated two assumptions apparently underlying research on how individuals make these judgments: that individuals have clear definitions regarding what qualifies as sex and that these judgments depend on how closely the activity being assessed matches their definitions of sex. Using open-ended questionnaires, 100 students, 51 women and 49 men, described their experiences that were "almost but not quite sex" or "just barely sex" and situations where there was uncertainty or disagreement about whether the experience qualified as "sex." In contrast to the above assumptions, many respondents expressed ambiguity about their definitions of sex, and their decisions about labeling an experience as "sex" often seemed influenced by the consequences of applying this label.