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Since the DSM working group began announcing their proposals for new sexual diagnoses, I've been slowly making my way through the research that their proposals are based on, trying to glean some idea of how they arrived at what sometimes seem like fantastical proposals for the next twenty years of psychiatric intervention in our sex lives.

In the meantime the media's fascination with sex addiction has increased, thanks to the latest celebrity sex news (I'm waiting for someone to call Mo'Nique's husband a sex addict and Mo'Nique herself an enabler based on her refreshing honesty in an interview with Barbara Walters about her marriage).

You don't need me to point you to articles that misunderstand and misrepresent sex addiction. That's most of them. I thought I'd point out two articles in the past two months that try to do the opposite.

Michael Bader - Sex Addiction: A B.S. Excuse for Not Thinking

Raymond Lawrence - America's Sexual Burlesque: The Brave New World of Sexual Addiction

Related - What Is Sex Addiction? ; Am I A Sex Addict? ; What's Wrong with Sex Addiction?

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Tipping the Scales on Sex Addiction originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 09:02:14.

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My friend and colleague Heather Corinna (founder of Scarleteen and sex educator extraordinaire) is doing a large survey on multi-generational experiences with and attitudes about casual sex. Heather is simply one of the smartest sex people I know, and every conversation I have with her could go on for days. But since we're both busy I just went and participated in the survey, and it inspired to to think more than I ever had before about what exactly we're talking about when we talk about casual sex.

Chance encounters, one-night stands, hook ups, anonymous sex, meaningless sex, friends with benefits, booty call, the zipless fuck. All of these are terms people have used to describe what researchers and an increasing number of media pop psychologists call casual sex. The terminology has changed over time, but one might argue that our fascination with casual sex has never wavered. But with so many terms, what exactly do we mean when we talk about casual sex?

How Researcher's Define Casual Sex
Like so many other sex definitions, there isn't a single agreed upon definition for casual sex. Which makes interpreting the wide range of research on the impact of casual sex somewhat daunting. Researchers have defined casual sex in different ways, depending in part on the purpose of their research and in part on their approach (e.g. psychology versus sociology versus nursing, etc...).

Despite variations one consistent element to most definitions of casual sex is that it is sex with someone you don't consider to be a spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend or partner, and that it is sex without any significant relationship commitments attached. Some researchers attach a time period to casual sex; labeling casual sex, for example, as sex with someone you have known for two weeks or less. Again, there is no general agreement on what the term means, but here are some of the other ways that researchers have bracketed casual sex as separate and unique from other sexual encounters:

• casual sex implies a particular kind of relationship devoid of emotional connection
• casual sex implies a type of attraction, for example primarily physical rather than based on personality or shared values
• casual sex refers to the intention of one or both partners, usually the intention that this not turn into a relationship
• casual sex means only having sex once or twice, or only having certain kinds of sex
• casual sex happens when you've spent more time together having sex than not having sex

Each of these points could be thought of as describing a continuum on which we all plant ourselves, determining where our line is between casual and non-casual sex.

"Most People's" Definition of Casual Sex
One way to define casual sex is just to start asking people. This can be a good way to collect information and get a sense of how others think about casual sex. In talking to them you may develop your own definition. But we always need to be wary of confusing information collected anecdotally (or, if you will, casually) with information that is collected in a systematic way. It's not that people are more or less honest when talking to researchers, it's just that good research addresses things like individual bias and the bias of the person collecting the information. So you could ask twelve of your real life friends or all 300 of your Facebook friends, but don't confuse what they say with what most people think. Chances are, they aren't most people.

What's Casual About Casual Sex?
I would suggest that the casual in casual sex refers to the level of commitment that sex usually implies in traditional sexual and gender scripts.  So these traditional scripts tell us that having sex "means" something.  It might mean that we're getting serious, taking it to the next level.  It might mean that we only want one night of connection and we don't want more (and by having sex before we know each other we're saying we don't expect to know each other more).  It might mean a thousand other things.

Casual sex, on the other hand, is sex without a particular meaning or possible sex that has no meaning at all outside of the actual sexual encounter.

When sex is casual, I think the word is used to mean that the sex is detached from those traditional sexual and gender scripts. This is, I would suggest, precisely what is so threatening about casual sex. Casual sex isn't sex by the rules. Casual sex thumbs it's nose (or other body parts) at convention by being something that is supposed to meaningful but may mean nothing at all. This isn't to say that casual sex is inherently radical or even a good thing. Rather that casual sex is threatening on a social level because it calls into question many of our foundational beliefs about sex. That may also be what makes it so attractive for some.

A Modestly Proposed Definition of Casual Sex
My own working definition of casual sex is this:

Casual sex that takes place without any commitment beyond the sexual encounter.  It might be with strangers, friends, or even old lovers. But the defining characteristic of casual sex, what makes it casual, is the separation of the sexual encounter from a sexual or intimate relationship.

Casual sex might be considered a little Taoist; by not meaning any one thing, casual sex may mean any number of things. Frustratingly for some, it may be that the defining feature of casual sex is that it evades any concrete definition.

Take Heather's Survey!

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What's Casual About Casual Sex? originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 00:01:48.

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Once a month Doing It Decent considers the ethics of a sexual situation from our readers. Grappling with a touchy sexual ethics issue? Send an email to sexuality.guide@about.com. All questions will be posted anonymously with identifying information removed.

This week's question: Buying Sex Toys for Teens

I watched the episode of Oprah where she had a doctor on who recommended buying vibrators for your teenager. I have several vibrators myself and I had never thought about it before, but I have a teenage daughter and would have no problem getting her one. But I'm not sure what she'd think about it. Also, I'm divorced and I know my ex would completely disapprove. I could really use your advice.

My parents never bought me a vibrator. But I remember when I saw my first vibrator. It was tucked between the headboard and mattress of my parents king size bed. It was one of those old school coil style massagers that didn't look sexual at all. Yet somehow, as soon as I flipped the switch I knew what it was for. I also remember the first time I discovered their stash of porn magazines, and when I first discovered that some of the books on their shelves were full of stories of people having sex (just looking at the spines they all looked the same - boring). My father was a sex therapist and my mother was a librarian, so I may not have had the most typical of sexual upbringings, but I often think about those moments of discovery and as an adult I easily identify them as part of my sexual development.

It's hard to know how that process would have been different if my parents had taken me shopping for porn magazines, or handed me a vibrator for my 14th birthday. I think it's safe to say that these parental choices might have resulted in awkwardness, but probably wouldn't have damaged me too badly.

I offer this alternative narrative not to suggest that you should or shouldn't buy your teenage daughter a vibrator, but simply to point out that the path of least resistance isn't always the way to go; and that sexual development happens in many ways.

Before I respond to your two-pronged question, and because this is a column about sexual ethics, it behooves me to point out that the Oprah episode of which you speak, an episode I've only seen clips from but have been directed to dozens of times by readers, is itself an example of questionable ethics. Not on Oprah's part, but on the part of the guest, Jennifer Berman. Berman is a psychologist and an Oprah regular. She also shills for one of the big sex toy companies. Her branded products are of passable but not exceptional quality. From several, equally interesting vantage points, appearing on a television program as a sexual health professional and pushing your own sex toys isn't the most ethical of things to do. That's for another column.

Back to your question. I'd have to say the first part, whether or not you should by your teenager a vibrator isn't, in and of itself, an ethical question. The fact that you're not sure how your daughter will react suggests to me that your first step should be to ask her. Actually your first step might be to broach the subject. Have you ever talked about sex toys before? You might want to check in to see if it's okay if you ask her about it and then start with more general questions (does she know about them? do her and her friends ever talk about them? does she know anyone who has ever tried a sex toy?) Unless you talk about sex all the time, approaching her with "how would you feel if I bought you a vibrator?" might be jarring. Remember that every conversation you have about sex is an opportunity for learning (for both of you!) and it's also a chance to model respectful boundaries about sex.

Ethically speaking, the second part of your question is where it's at. What you're asking is whether or not it's ethical to do something that you know clearly conflicts with the values of someone you are co-parenting with? In this case you believe that to raise a sexually healthy daughter you should buy her a vibrator, so how much should you take into account the values of a co-parent?

Before I dive in, I want to remind us both that asking whether this is ethical may be very different from asking whether it's smart or prudent or wise. There are many situations where our actions would be better guided by the latter questions than the former.

What I want to ask in this situation is where do your ethical duties lie. And who are you responsible to, or responsible for? It's a perfect example of how complicated and tangled things get when we become families. One way to approach this question is to think about who in this situation you have an ethical obligation to, and what those obligations are. Let's make a list.

Keep reading...who do you answer to when it comes to raising sexually healthy teens?

Got a question of sexual ethics?

Previously - Cyber Faking It ; Is Public Sex Ethical? ; If They Don't Ask, Do You Tell? ; Loud Sex in the House ; Herpes, When Do I Tell?

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Doing It Decent - Buying Sex Toys for Teens originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 00:01:24.

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If you're in London this Friday, March 5, the Critical Sexology Seminar looks fascinating. The topic is "Sex Blogging, Gender, and Sexual Subcultures".

The speakers are:

Dr. Kaye Mitchell (Centre for New Writing, University of Manchester) "Raunch vs. Prude: Contemporary Sex Blogs and Erotic Memoirs by Women"

Dr. Meg Barker and Prof. Rosalind Gill (Psychology, Open University) "Sexual Subjectification and 'Bitchy Jones's Diary'"

Kitty Stryker (Sex blogger, author of PurrVersatility) "'En/forced femme': The Peep Show Experience of Blogging as a Sex Worker"

According to their site, the Critical Sexology Seminar series is,

...a London-based, interdisciplinary seminar series for psychologists, psychoanalysts, medical doctors, literary and cultural studies scholars, philosophers, artists, lawyers and historians with a critical interest in the construction and management of gender and sexuality in the medical, discursive and cultural spheres.

The series is organized by Lisa Downing (University of Exeter), Meg Barker (Open University) and Robert Gillett (Queen Mary, University of London).

Attendance is free and open to all. For more information you can check out their website.

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Critical Sexology Seminar: Sex Blogging, Gender, and Sexual Subcultures originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 00:01:10.

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