What is sexuality?
The phrase “sexuality” refers to how we think about our bodies, sex, and relationships.
That means, contrary to popular belief, sexuality is much more than being “gay” or “straight.” Your sexual orientation is only one aspect of who you are.
Your sexuality is also made up of the following elements:
- The gender you were socialized as and the sex you were assigned at birth.
- gender identity.
- previous sexual encounters
- history of trauma
- the way you feel about your body, sex, and pleasure
- Kinks, fetishes, and sexual preferences
- libido, sex interest, and physiological and physical signals of want and arousal
- values and beliefs around sex, as well as those you were raised to have.
“Whether you were born with a penis or a vulva will absolutely influence how sex feels to some level,” says Justin Lehmiller, PhD, author of “Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life.”
Why? Because the mechanics of having sex, as well as the mechanics of achieving orgasm, will differ.
“We know, for example, that persons born with vulvas are more likely than people born with penises to have many orgasms,” he explains.
Those who have penises have a longer refractory period than those who have not.
Despite this, Melancon observes that “there are still a lot of parallels in how persons of different biological sexes feel their sexuality.”
And so does your gender.
Persons who were socialized as girls are taught to be significantly more sex-averse than people who were socialized as boys.
While the particular messages you hear depend on your culture, religion, and society, most boys are taught that masturbation is acceptable and that having sex with as many people as possible increases their coolness factor.
Meanwhile, females are frequently taught that masturbation is unclean and that sex should be saved for marriage.
“Manhood is established in part on promoting unrestricted sexuality, whereas womanhood is built on rejecting or suppressing it,” Melancon argues. The “sexual double standard” is a term used to describe this situation.
While this may appear to be beneficial to men, she warns that it might also have negative implications.
“As a result, males are stigmatized for having fewer sexual partners or experiences, they are encouraged to take more sexual risks, and their emotional needs in intimate relationships are ignored.”
