Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Defining (Hetero)Sex

2001; Elsevier BV; Volume: 24; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0277-5395(01)00160-1

1879-243X

Kathryn McPhillips, Virginia Braun, Nicola Gavey,

Gender, Feminism, and Media

It has been claimed that a "coital imperative" exists in (at least) Western cultures, which renders intercourse as the quintessence of heterosexual sex. Moreover, this imperative is taken for granted as the most normal and natural form of heterosex. We interrogate definitions of sex in the talk of 15 women and 15 men to ask "how imperative is the coital imperative?" We identify some of the ways in which intercourse is prioritized, over and above other sexual practices, as "real" sex. However, we also draw attention to tensions and fissures in participants' talk about what sex is. We suggest that these features of the talk about sex and intercourse reveal that alternative discursive spaces do exist (albeit in a limited and less accessible form) through which the hegemony of the coital imperative can be challenged. We conclude that there are strong justifications for promoting noncoital sex as one option for safer heterosex.