w w " tr- .'INU :,' w 11W , Wednesday, December 10, 2014// The Statement 7B Personal Statement: My real sex ed by Zak Witus defining 'sex' with numbers BY AMRUTHA SIVAKUMAR Try basking me for a word that's more of loaded gun than "sex." Chances are, I won't be able to give you one. In my rational, engineering- trained way of conceptualizing information, it doesn't make sense. "Sex" is just a word, after all. I should be able to define it - as should anyone else. When some- one asks me what I feel about sex, or whether sex would be appro- priate in a particular situation, (I should be able to give a clear-cut, no-nonsense "yes" or "no.") But the fact is, "sex" is more than just a word; it's a series of emotions. How I treat sex plays a lot into who I am and how my past experiences have shaped me. The linguistics of it is fascinating, all right. But can it be generalized? A 1980 study on cybersex pub- lished in the International Jour- nal of Public Heath found that in heterogeneous sex, men had a tendency to associate the word "intercourse" with body-centered imagery - such as breast and kiss - while women drew more par- allels between the word "inter- course" and relationship-centered linguistics. Similarly, a 1974 publi- cationfound that in general, men could link more slang vocabulary to sexual expressions than women. Putting criticism aside, if the sex research done over the last half-decade accurately reflects trends on college campuses (note: feel free to contradict that one), that means as a woman, I have the tendency to attribute a great- er number of physically intimate activities - besides vaginal inter- course - with the word "sex," as compared to a man. More than that, this means that my sexual behaviors - my actions surrounding how Ipersonally define "sex" and "intimacy" - can be predicted. Gulp. Let's fast forward to 2014: I walk around with the belief that on Michigan's Ann Arbor campus, women actively tryto break gender norms. I feel constantly surround- ed by strong-willed, informed women who don't characterize their beliefs about sex according to a rigid standard - rather explor- ing their relationship with sex through their own experiences. Interestingly, data shows there are significant differences between how men and women define "sex" themselves and how the opposite gender believes the other define it. A more recent study found that both male and female college stu- dents considered vaginal inter- course to be "sex" - though more women believed that men would be less likely to consider intimacy as "sex" when neither participant experienced an orgasm. During oral sex, approximately 54 percent of men and 43 percent of women considered it "sex" when a man experienced an orgasm. For- ty-one percent of students believed men considered female orgasm during oral sex to be "sex," while over 15 percent more believed women would see the same activ- ity as "sex." Surprisingly, nearly half the male survey respondent viewed a female orgasm as sex, though women believed that less men would. Trust me when I say that I'm the biggest skeptic you'll find of social studies research. In a way, it's odd to think that I make decisions that affect my life in a way that con- forms to the way that everyone else around me makes decisions about their own. Personal decisions take an identity, a personality - and sex is as personal as it gets. There's also the issue with quantifying identity: there's no numerical value that can fully explain where I, or any other col- lege student, fall on the spectrum of possible gender identities and sexual orientations. There's no study that completely manages to capture the beautiful spirit of self- identification. Yet, there's a certain comfort that comes out of knowing I'm not alone in my uncertainty about men. It's scary, and no study can adequately prepare me for what to expect when with being with someone for the first time. I've seen the data, and now so have you. But for now, I think I'm going to take a step back from it all. There's been this rumor float- ing around that sex needs to have a monumental meaning to be sta- tistically - or even socially - sig- nificant.- So, no, I get to decide when sex is significant to me. DO COLLEGE STUDENTS CONSIDER ORAL SEX #'S EX"F? y say yes when the woman has the orgasm say yes when the man has the orgasm INFOGRAPHic According to The WE L NS, GABY Joumal of Sex VASQUEZ AND Research, CAROLYN May 2000 Editor's Note: This piece contains graphic descriptions of adolescent sexuality. have a fragmented memory of my introduction to sex as a child. I remember hearing my parents having sex one time when I was probably 13 years old. At least I think so. I heard the rhythmic creaking of the bed, and somehow I knew automatically what that sig- nified. But my most jarring and sudden introduction to sex was at summer camp going into sixth grade. My camp friends introduced me to two things that summer: swearing and porn. My friend Alex told me my first day there, "You can swear here. Everybody swears." I wasn't sure I wanted to swear, but every- one else seemed to want to, so I thought I should want to too. Also, all the guys at camp knew what porn was and were craving it. There was a sort of black market at camp where you could buy things that the camp didn't allow: candy, Ramen noodles and porn. My friend Alex bought a porno mag at the end of the first week. He showed it to me. I remember the images pretty viv- idly. I'd never seen a vagina before. The women were all white and totally hairless, except the hair on their head of course, which was blonde and straight. Their faces were heav- ily made-up and appeared fake. I remember being disgusted initially. The porno consisted of two or three ripped-out magazine pages, so the images had this glossy texture to them, which made them more dis- gusting. The whole experience of looking at the porn, especially with a friend, felt dark. Dark, disgusting and obscene. Yet somehow all the more intriguing. The next year at camp my coun- selor entertained me and my bunk- mates with stories of his sexual escapades. That's when I learned what "head" was. When my coun- selor, Mike, said he got "head" from a girl in ahot tub at one of his travel hockey tournaments, I had a hard time imagining what he was talk- ing about. The idea of a "girl suck- ing on penis" had never occurred to me, strange as that may be. All my bunkmates appeared to already know what it was. Another time Mike told us the story of how he hooked up with the camp direc- tor's kids' babysitter. He told my bunkmates and I late at night about how he and the babysitter had gone out to the docks and started hook- ing up. He told us how he started to take off her pants to "finger" her - another new concept - but then she said, "No, I'm on my period" (and I did know what that was). Then Mike said, "Well, I'm not." I have another confession: I humped my pillows imagining they were my female middle school teachers, who weren't hot but in fact pretty gross and old. I don't remember exactly when it ended - maybe sophomore year of high school? - but at some point I knew: This has got to stop. I would insert my dick between the pillow and the pillowcase, and then just sort of lay on top of it and hump it. I would pull out just before ejaculat- ing - because who wants to sleep on a cummy pillow? - and then cum into my pajamas. Which leads me to another disturbing memory: Being afraid of putting my pajamas with the dried up semen on them in no meta/postmodern-watching going on. So I should probably also men- tion my first sexual encounter, perhaps to the remiss of my now captive audience. Her name was Emily and she was a red head. It was the most fantastic pleasure I'd ever had. After overcoming my ner- vousness and associated flaccidity, I had, as Great Uncle Woody would say, "the sexual intensity of a jungle cat." I could not get enough. But I had a lingering disgust with the vagina. It was obscene to me, just like the glossy vaginas in the porno I had encountered at camp. I knew that I didn't want it tobe obscene. I had a lot of anxiety about being gay She said "them," as if she has observed me regularly being con- descending toward them. How can one be condescendingeto a vagina?! "It's OK, though," she said. "It's a relief that you don't love vagi- nas because I don't really care for penises. But I like them still." That's nice: My girlfriend and I are mutually disgusted by each other's genitals. Is there a point to all this? Let's find one. First, I don't know much about what's going on in anyone else's head besides my own, and it's especially difficult to make gener- alizations about something that's as private and personal as sexual- ity. But it's OK to feel lots of weir conflicting emotions about sex, sexual organs, middle school teachers, pop stars, etc. What's harm- ful is to repress those emotions. Express- ing them on the other hand, can be cathartic, and you don't have to embarrass yourself in print, like I am. Also I'm ruined for all women. No womal will ever satisfy like I want her to because I've created these impossible-to-obtain ideals in my mastur- bation fantasies. This explains my disgust with the reality of the vagina and the lack of sex organs in my fan- tasies. Can I blame the Victoria Secret ads? Maybe, but I as an indi- vidual agent deserve some responsibility. And, lastly, we should ask our- selves where we learn about sex. I argue that we learn basically noth- ing important about it in sex ed and reproductive health classes. We learn about sex from our camp counselors and from ripped-out pages of porn magazines. The sources vary for each of us, but the underlying point is that sex for human beings is not primarily something biological (e.g., penised going into vaginas) despite what our sex ed teachers tell us. It's something psychological that our social environment manipulates and sometimes, in cases such as mine, perverts. The really interest- ing aspects of sex and sexuality are socially psychological. WATCH MORE AT MICHI.GANDAILY.COM T H E statement Magazine Editor: Photo Editor: Managing Editor: Carlina Duan Ruby Wallau Katie Burke Deputy Editors: Illustrator: Copy Editors: Max Radwin Megan Mulholland Mark Ossolinski Amrutha Sivakumar Editor in Chief: Meaghan Thompson Design Editor: Peter Shahin Amy Mackenst COVER BY RUBY WALLAU AND AMY MACKENS "And what did she say?" we all asked excitedly. "Nothing," Mike said, "but then she started blowing me." Years later, when I was hooking up with my current girlfriend for the second or third time, she said the same thing, "I'm on period," and then I said what Mike said: "Well, I'm not." But that time it didn't work. She just sort of squirmed awkwardly and let out a nervous laugh. The joke came off not as cool or suave, but as degrading. In retro- spect I doubt if it worked for Mike either. I'm sure he embellished the - story to give his horny pubescent campers something to jack off to. And it worked, especially because we'd all already had our own baby- sitter fantasies. with the rest of my family's laundry, because what if the semen from my pajamas transferred onto my mom's undergarments and, well, um, you know, impregnated her? What's even more disturbing is the Freud- ian conjecture that that may have been a repressed fantasy. And I've never been a porn guy either. I've always preferred imag- ining sexual scenarios for myself and Ms. Beyonce, because no one could recreate the fucked up shit that goes on in my head. Maybe I never overcame that initial dis- gust with porn that I had at sum- mer camp. Porn still seems too obscene. When I'm watching it, I'm also watching myself. When I mas- turbate to fantasies with my eyes closed, I'm totally in it and there's as a young adolescent. I was occa- sionally disgusted with parts of the female anatomy and bras and stuff, which at other times I was also attracted to. In my masturbation fantasies, I never recall imagining a vulva - only tits and asses. Some- one (e.g., Ms. Beyonce) was giving pleasure to me. I was "inside them," but the geometrics of the insertion were always vague. When I showed my current girl- friend a draft of this article, and she learned that I find vaginas obscene, she said "that's so you." To which I replied, "What does that mean? Are there other facets of my personal- ity that resemble this vagina aver- sion?" She then elaborated, saying that I'm "condescending toward them."