You know more about sex than you realize. If this is surprising to you, if you think, perhaps, that you didn’t get enough sex education, or there are all sorts of “sexual things” you are ignorant of, consider the fact that most of our sexual learning isn’t formal. Most of it is observational, a lot of it is second hand, and much of it comes in the form of sexual expectations.
We have expectations about ourselves and others, about what good sex feels like, what healthy sex looks like, about what it means to be or have a sexually desirable partner, about how we must talk, look, move around, and act in order to be a sexually successful person.
Sexual expectations may be unavoidable, but when we don’t challenge them they can be devastating to our sexuality. Our expectations don’t appear out of nowhere, they aren’t universal or natural truths. The expectations we have, and the ones people have about us, are tied to our gender, age, identity and orientation, class, race, and more. And just as these aspects of who we are can ground us, they can also limit our experience.
Here are six common sexual expectations. Are any familiar to you? When you think about them more carefully, how many of them are getting in the way of you exploring and expressing your own sexuality?
Sex Is Private
Most are taught early on that sex is something to talk about in private (if at all) and something to be done in private (if at all). This message is delivered so early and often that it becomes an expectation of what real sex is. Which can cause more than a few problems.
While we’re told that sex is private, we aren’t usually told much about what private means.
Where is the line, for example, between public displays of affection and sex in public? And how are we supposed to learn about sex when we aren’t supposed to talk about it in public?
We also don’t all have the same access to privacy. It may be ideal for all sexual experiences to take place in completely private spaces, but it isn’t always realistic. If you expect that sex is something that requires privacy, and you don’t have that kind of privacy, does that mean you can’t have sex?
This becomes a problem for people who have kids, roommates, thin walls, nosey neighbors, not to mention those of us who live with extended family, and those of us who need people to help us do things like get in and out of bed, get dressed, and use the bathroom.
The answer of course is that you can have sex with somewhat less privacy, but many of us may be waiting around a long time before we figure that out. And since we’re not supposed to talk about sex, it can be harder to figure this out.
What if instead of expecting that sex must come with complete privacy we thought about the reasons why we say sex is private. Sex should feel safe, yes. Having sex shouldn’t include making others around you see or hear you having sex. Sometimes this requires a compromise, which also requires us to actually talk about sex.
Sex Is Cool
The image of the great lover is usually a person who is cool, someone who is never surprised, always self-possessed and unfazed. Sex may feel cool, and you may feel cool having sex, but the truth is that it’s hard, if not impossible, to always look and act cool when you’re having sex.
The media (and mainstream pornography) offer up a very different image of great sex, one where no hair is out of place and everyone moves in just the right way at the right time. It may be entertaining to watch, but it’s not that much fun to have. If you are using energy trying to contain yourself, worrying about whether your hair is out of place, or if you’re sweating too much, you are wasting energy that could be spent on focus, fun, and feeling.
What if instead of expecting coolness, we expected of ourselves and our partners that we are human, imperfect and awkward, but game and more interested in giving and receiving pleasure than impressing or being impressed? It’s unfortunate that in theory cool is often associated with sexy, since in practice being enthusiastic goes a lot farther than being aloof.
You Have Sex Figured Out
This expectation will weigh more heavily on some of us than others (for example, people might expect a man to have it all figured out, but not a woman) but most of us feel at some point like we are supposed to have “it” figured out. This is ridiculous when you consider how little we’re ever told about sex. And this expectation brings with it all sorts of problems.
If both partners expect the other to have it all figured out, when do either of you ever get to talk about what that “it” is? Another tragic premise underlying this expectation is that your sexual desires are fixed and finite. Having “it” figured out suggests there’s some end point when you know everything you need to know. This isn’t how sexuality (or gender for that matter) works. Whether you’ve had sex a thousand times or never, each sexual relationship is its own thing, and it isn’t something you can figure out on your own. It’s something we figure out, and fumble through, together.
What if instead of having sex figured out, we expected our partners to be open to, and about, what they don’t know? What if our only expectation about sexual knowledge was that we come to our sexual relationships with a desire to learn about our partner?
Sex With You Is Going to Be Like Sex With Them, and Vice Versa
It’s hard to say where our habit of sexual comparison comes from, but a common expectation we have, and one that offers no sexual benefits to speak of, is that people who share an identity will be like each other sexually. You hear this all the time: stereotypes based on gender (like men from a certain country are all one way, or trans women are all another way) stereotypes based on race and ethnicity, career, or one’s relationship with one’s family (e.g. men who are “too close” to their mothers).
This expectation sets us up to miss out on so much of what is individual and quirky and beautiful in any partner. Even when a partner defies expectations, we experience it in the context of what we expect, which makes it hard to appreciate our partner as they are.
Being on the receiving end of this expectation is also a major turn off. It can feel as if we’re always being misjudged, or like we aren’t ever fully connecting. It can also feel like we don’t get to bring all, or even most, of ourselves to our sexual interactions. When we come up against expectations, particularly tied to gender, race, class, and our bodies, it can feel like we either need to perform or hide parts of who we are.
Some people say that this expectation “makes sense“. They say that in every stereotype there is some truth.
That may be, but what if instead of expecting people to be just like everyone else they look like, sound like, or share a particular background with, we expected people to bring all of who they are to our sexual encounters? Each of us is many things, many identities, and while there is a lot we share, we each put together who we are in a unique way. That unique expression can be found not only in how we live our lives, but in how we have sex.
No News Is Good News
There is so much we don’t talk about when it comes to sex. The public conversations we do have about sex tend to be sanitized, and don’t include the range of feelings, thoughts, and activities that make up our actual sex lives. While it can seem like sex is everywhere, it’s also true that there is a lot of silence that surrounds sex.
This norm of silence feeds an expectation that we talk about sex when we have to, that if there’s a problem we’ll hear about it. In other words, no news is good news. But silence isn’t neutral, and just because you aren’t talking about sex doesn’t mean things aren’t happening in your relationship. A lot happens in silence. We fill in blanks, we get angry, we get sad, we stay confused. We project all our fears and angers and hopes into space. And when it comes to other people’s sex lives we assume that if they aren’t talking they are happy.
What if instead of being relieved and grateful that we don’t have to talk about the hard stuff, we held an expectation that sex is tricky to talk about and that that’s okay. If we went into acknowledging why it’s hard, and that what makes it hard isn’t a failing of our own, we might be gentle with ourselves and with our partners.
Sex Is Great
Sex can be great and it’s nice to aspire to great sex, but sex isn’t always great. Sometimes it isn’t even good, sometimes sex is bad. Still, fueled by an industry that wants to sell us everything from tooth whiteners to sex toys, most of us end up feeling like sex should be great, and if we aren’t having great sex there’s something wrong with us.
What great sex looks like will be different for each person, but this expectation is one of many that turn sex into a goal oriented activity, one that can be done right or wrong in some objective way. That’s one way to think about sex. Here’s another.
What if instead of expecting sex to be great we approached sex as the complicated experience it is.
What if we expected it to be what it is: sometimes a form of communication, sometimes a kind of release, sometimes an opportunity to meet someone in an intimate way, sometimes a chance to express who we are, or learn something about ourselves. In other words, what if we got rid of the word “great” and simply expected sex to be?
