Our sexuality and sexual relating

Like our val­ues, our sex­u­al­i­ty and our rela­tion­ships with oth­ers and our­selves are core parts of being human and can rich­ly feed our flour­ish­ing and ful­fil­ment. Here, start­ing with our sex­u­al­i­ty, we con­sid­er the poten­tial of each to deep­en the human expe­ri­ence, reflect­ing on themes of accep­tance, attune­ment, vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, and play. This explo­ration in turn pro­vides a van­tage point from which we ask dif­fer­ent ques­tions about the expe­ri­ence and impact of porn.

An out­dat­ed but still preva­lent view is that evo­lu­tion has giv­en us sex­u­al feel­ings sim­ply for us to have our own chil­dren. This view can rein­force beliefs which dimin­ish peo­ple and their sex­u­al­i­ty (such as the view that men are ​‘hard-wired’ to seek as many sex­u­al part­ners as pos­si­ble) and is in fact at odds with mod­ern evo­lu­tion­ary the­o­ry and research. This instead sees sex­u­al feel­ings being select­ed by evo­lu­tion to sup­port var­i­ous oth­er func­tions beyond direct con­cep­tion, such as bond­ing between par­ents, bond­ing between ​‘allo­par­ents’ (for exam­ple women who co-par­ent) and bond­ing with­in groups, which all come under the label of ​‘affil­i­a­tion’⁶³. This broad view of evo­lu­tion expand­ing the role of sex­u­al feel­ings com­ple­ments our every­day expe­ri­ence of human sex­u­al­i­ty hav­ing a mul­ti­tude of poten­tials, includ­ing its abil­i­ty to deep­en and ener­gise human rela­tion­ships, evoke and enable vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, inter­play with spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, and act as a cen­tral ener­gis­ing force.

Sex­u­al chem­istry between two peo­ple, described as ​‘a mys­te­ri­ous, phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and sex­u­al state’⁶⁴, is a delight­ful, syn­er­gis­tic human expe­ri­ence which both ener­gis­es and affirms, whether it be an imme­di­ate expe­ri­ence upon meet­ing or some­thing that evolves over time. Respond­ing to the request to describe roman­tic chem­istry, par­tic­i­pants in a study by Kel­ly Camp­bell and col­leagues brought to life this beau­ti­ful dimen­sion of human expe­ri­ence with com­ments such as ​‘roman­tic chem­istry feels like float­ing. It makes me feel con­fi­dent, pow­er­ful… it feels like I have every­thing I need and want’; ​‘absorb­ing, riv­et­ing, inescapable… as if the world sud­den­ly became back­ground to this one per­son’; ​‘you are able to be your­self, you want to be real with that per­son’. Chem­istry involves an inter­ac­tive process in which peo­ple both appre­ci­ate one anoth­er and enjoy the other’s appre­ci­a­tion. There is a feel­ing of being drawn to the oth­er and a desire for mutu­al open­ness⁶⁵.

Sex­u­al expe­ri­ences them­selves can be broad­ly divid­ed into those com­pris­ing a form of inti­ma­cy and con­nec­tion, and those that are focussed on roles, per­for­mance, acts and scripts ⁶⁶ – though these are per­haps more accu­rate­ly seen as two ends of a spec­trum. Those at the inti­mate end often fol­low from chem­istry, and involve flow and attune­ment. Sex­u­al desire height­ens and is height­ened by mutu­al vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and cher­ish­ing of one anoth­er. Research stud­ies find that both ear­ly to mid-ado­les­cent boys and girls pri­mar­i­ly desire sex­u­al expe­ri­ences for inti­ma­cy and emo­tion­al con­nec­tion⁶⁷, but boys, per­haps increas­ing­ly as they enter late ado­les­cence and ear­ly adult­hood, feel the pres­sure to nego­ti­ate these desires with con­flict­ing norms of mas­culin­i­ty⁶⁸.

In an influ­en­tial philo­soph­i­cal work, Mar­tin Buber marks a dis­tinc­tion between ​‘I‑It’ and ​‘I‑Thou’ rela­tion­ships, with those that are I‑Thou involv­ing reci­procity, self-tran­scen­dence and pres­ence⁶⁹. In these rela­tion­ships, two peo­ple come togeth­er in what Buber terms ​‘the between’ – this is beyond either indi­vid­ual and involves mutu­al attune­ment and dia­logue. Mark Levand and Nicolle Zapi­en draw on Buber’s think­ing to describe expe­ri­ences of sex­u­al inti­ma­cy which are both pro­found and eth­i­cal⁷⁰. In these expe­ri­ences peo­ple are focussed on one anoth­er in the moment in ​‘reflec­tive embod­ied engage­ment’, and there is an open­ness to see­ing the oth­er per­son and being seen one­self, all of this involv­ing an ele­ment that is pre-con­scious. This, they com­pelling­ly argue, is the heart of sex­u­al con­sent, and so con­sent requires the will­ing­ness of both peo­ple to enter into an ​‘I‑Thou’ rela­tion­ship with the oth­er: ​‘while like­ly pep­pered with moments of I‑It rela­tion­al­i­ty and dis­trac­tion from the present moment… one is always able to renew the will­ing­ness and open­ness to the I‑Thou and to con­sent anew through choice’.

This think­ing on human rela­tion­ships and sex­u­al inti­ma­cy res­onates deeply with James Carse’s phi­los­o­phy of life as finite and infi­nite play. ​‘There are at least two kinds of game’, he writes, ​‘a finite game is played for the pur­pose of win­ning, an infi­nite game for the pur­pose of con­tin­u­ing the play’ ⁷¹. The same activ­i­ty in life (for exam­ple, edu­ca­tion, work, par­ent­ing, rela­tion­ships, sex­u­al relat­ing) can be played in either fash­ion. Finite play involves rules, pre­dic­tion, scripts, ​‘the­atre’ (i.e. per­for­mance for an audi­ence), and, of course, win­ners, losers and end­ings. In con­trast infi­nite play involves open­ness – to dis­cov­ery of self and oth­ers, to change, to sur­prise, to touch – touch being a rec­i­p­ro­cal expe­ri­ence in which peo­ple, with choice and spon­tane­ity, con­nect to each other’s cen­tre and change as a result. In infi­nite sex­u­al­i­ty there­fore ​‘it is not their bod­ies but their per­sons [that peo­ple] make acces­si­ble to oth­ers’ and there is the para­dox ​‘that by regard­ing sex­u­al­i­ty as an expres­sion of the per­son and not the body, it becomes ful­ly embod­ied play’. Rather than sex­u­al expe­ri­ences involv­ing seduc­tive and sex­u­al acts being learnt, devel­oped and ​‘improved’ upon, in infi­nite sex­u­al­i­ty, peo­ple are instead learn­ing ​‘how to be more con­crete­ly and orig­i­nal­ly them­selves, to be the genius of their own actions, to be whole.’ A fur­ther para­dox (with par­al­lels in oth­er spheres of human relat­ing) is that in sex­u­al expe­ri­ences like this, in which goals of per­son­al sat­is­fac­tion are not the focus, peo­ple nev­er­the­less find them­selves more sat­is­fied⁷².

Draw­ing this all togeth­er, there is a rich sphere of human exis­tence and expe­ri­ence in which peo­ple sex­u­al­ly con­nect to one anoth­er with open­ness, flow and embod­i­ment, and in which they mutu­al­ly see, val­ue and touch one another’s per­son. In a fas­ci­nat­ing study by Sharon Lamb and col­leagues, young het­ero­sex­u­al men were inter­viewed about what goes through their mind dur­ing sex. Two types of sex­u­al expe­ri­ence were recount­ed, one in which notions of gen­der, per­for­mance and con­trol were empha­sised, the oth­er cen­tred on equal­i­ty and con­ti­nu­ity between part­ners. In accounts of this sec­ond form of sex, feel­ings of spe­cial­ness, pres­ence and con­nec­tion were pal­pa­ble (although were hard to artic­u­late) as was the let­ting go of pre-con­cieved roles and expectations:

‘It was more of two peo­ple com­ing togeth­er to be as close to one per­son as two peo­ple can be um, and kind of um, I guess I kind of let go of my mas­culin­i­ty in a way’

‘Oth­er than us hav­ing dif­fer­ent gen­i­talia there shouldn’t real­ly be any dif­fer­ence whether there is male or female, that like in that moment it’s us no mat­ter what like the out­side impact is… it’s what we both want together’

‘It was some­thing com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent… all my thoughts were direct­ed to how great this was, this, this new expe­ri­ence, it’s just total­ly mind-blowing’

In the oth­er form of sex they described, par­tic­i­pants focussed on achieve­ment and being the best (close­ly accord­ing with Carse’s notion of finite sex­u­al­i­ty). This sex was seen as a place in which mas­culin­i­ty need­ed to be per­formed and proved, whether to them­selves, the women they were with, or the inter­nalised watch­ing eye of oth­er males. Echo­ing mes­sages from pornog­ra­phy, suc­cess was seen as involv­ing women’s vocal­i­sa­tions of plea­sure – these need­ing to be achieved with­out overt com­mu­ni­ca­tion and there was no recog­ni­tion that they might in fact them­selves be per­for­ma­tive. It was a ​‘job’ which could be done well or poor­ly, result­ing in either ​‘feel­ings of proud­ness’ or ​‘feel­ings of incom­pe­tence’.

The insights of this study dove­tail with those of oth­ers to demon­strate how cer­tain notions of mas­culin­i­ty under­mine the human poten­tial for ful­fill­ing con­nec­tion (both in sex­u­al and non-sex­u­al rela­tion­ships), as well as self-accep­tance, embod­i­ment and intrin­si­cal­ly moti­vat­ed liv­ing⁷³. Whilst they dif­fer in con­tent, mes­sages about how to be a woman (or girl) can lead to sim­i­lar loss­es⁷⁴. A com­plex nexus of gen­der norms, objec­ti­fi­ca­tion, shame and judg­ment, work togeth­er work to con­strict and dis­con­nect us from our­selves and one anoth­er⁷⁵. Boys and men are invit­ed by main­stream porn and oth­er actors (includ­ing some media and peer groups) to adopt a ver­sion of mas­culin­i­ty in which they should objec­ti­fy girls and women, be dom­i­nant and in con­trol, and sup­press and dis­avow their emo­tions⁷⁶. To not do so is to risk rejec­tion, con­tempt and shame, in par­tic­u­lar from oth­er males⁷⁷. Girls and women are taught that their appear­ance needs to fit a cer­tain nar­row stan­dard and that, espe­cial­ly in sex, they need to please men (whether through sub­mis­sion or a per­for­mance of dom­i­nance)⁷⁸. Depart­ing from these norms again risks shame and judgement.

In line with Carse’s con­cep­tu­al­i­sa­tion of finite sex­u­al­i­ty, sex can reduce to each per­son act­ing out a per­for­mance of mas­culin­i­ty or fem­i­nin­i­ty. Indeed, beyond gen­der, pornog­ra­phy always presents sex as per­for­mance: the sex is act­ed and/​or filmed for the watch­ing eye. The­atre and voyeurism become inex­tri­ca­bly tied up with sexuality.

All of this returns us to the issue of objec­ti­fi­ca­tion – where peo­ple are treat­ed as less than human and the pri­ma­ry focus is on their appear­ance or ​‘func­tion’. Peo­ple on screens, strangers in the street, peers, dat­ing part­ners, spous­es, even our­selves (by our­selves) can be objec­ti­fied. Think­ing specif­i­cal­ly about part­ner objec­ti­fi­ca­tion, this by its very nature, pre­cludes the infi­nite play of con­nec­tion and touch, and places the sex­u­al expe­ri­ence in the same cat­e­go­ry as porn – in which nov­el­ty is often need­ed to main­tain inter­est. Research finds that when peo­ple objec­ti­fy their part­ners they tend to be less sat­is­fied in their rela­tion­ships⁸⁰, and some stud­ies sug­gest that their part­ners or ex-part­ners feel the same⁸¹. Stud­ies find that porn increas­es this ten­den­cy, as well as increas­ing the like­li­hood of self-objec­ti­fi­ca­tion⁸². Porn view­ing encour­ages peo­ple to focus on both them­selves and their part­ner as their body, ver­sus in their body.

The process of self-objec­ti­fi­ca­tion has been the focus of much research⁸³. It involves sev­er­al inter­lock­ing ele­ments: inter­nal­is­ing appear­ance ideals (I think it’s impor­tant to look the way porn, wider media or soci­ety pro­motes as attrac­tive); valu­ing appear­ance over com­pe­tence (how my body looks is more impor­tant than oth­er things about it); and sur­veilling one’s body (I need to habit­u­al­ly mon­i­tor my appear­ance to check if I’m mea­sur­ing up). As might be antic­i­pat­ed, research finds that this approach is asso­ci­at­ed with body dis­sat­is­fac­tion, neg­a­tive feel­ings about one’s body, low­ered self-esteem, and increased self-con­scious­ness dur­ing sex­u­al activ­i­ty⁸⁴. In one study for exam­ple, fre­quen­cy of porn use was asso­ci­at­ed with men inter­nal­is­ing an ide­al of lean mus­cu­lar­i­ty and mon­i­tor­ing their bod­ies, and this self-objec­ti­fi­ca­tion was asso­ci­at­ed with body dis­sat­is­fac­tion and less body appre­ci­a­tion⁸⁵. Fur­ther stud­ies sug­gest that men’s porn use can also increase their female partner’s self-objec­ti­fi­ca­tion, in turn lead­ing to reduced self-esteem and neg­a­tive feel­ings⁸⁶.

Some peo­ple when self-objec­ti­fy­ing will per­ceive their bod­ies to mea­sure up well and so may not expe­ri­ence the vis­cer­al body dis­sat­is­fac­tion or shame. This, how­ev­er, does not pro­tect them from the habit­u­al sur­veil­lance and ​‘body-work’ to avoid shame, nor does it make space for full embod­i­ment and self-con­tent­ment. Whether you think you are a valu­able or cheap­er object, the dis­em­bod­i­ment and main­te­nance work involved in being an object per­sist. Wider ques­tions about self-objec­ti­fi­ca­tion also remain to be explored – for exam­ple, if when we objec­ti­fy oth­ers we see them as less sen­si­tive to pain and deserv­ing of moral treat­ment, do we feel the same way about our­selves when we self-objec­ti­fy? Do we treat our­selves with less respect and expect less from others?

So tak­ing stock, we humans have the poten­tial for sex­u­al expe­ri­ences that involve the entwin­ing of plea­sure, delight, and emo­tion­al and bod­i­ly attune­ment to self and oth­er. There is diver­si­ty here, for exam­ple this sex could be between two peo­ple who have recent­ly met and expe­ri­enced great sex­u­al chem­istry, or between two peo­ple in a long-term rela­tion­ship and there­fore involv­ing deep­er lev­els of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and inti­ma­cy. What is always there is the mutu­al, inter­act­ing delight and plea­sure in being with the oth­er per­son in their body. As we’ve explored, pornog­ra­phy works against this way of sex­u­al relat­ing, and there­fore under­mines one of the most pro­found forms of human relat­ing. It does this in large part by ren­der­ing sex as per­for­mance-and-watch­ing and peo­ple as bod­ies and gen­dered roles. In this oper­a­tion, cer­tain per­for­mances, bod­ies and roles are deemed attrac­tive and sexy, oth­ers not so. All of this is not only rel­e­vant to sex­u­al relat­ing with one anoth­er but also to how we relate to one oth­er and our­selves more widely.