Writing the blog and reading the comments is a very educational experience for me. I’m developing as an educator in ways I never could in more traditional venues. One of the things I’m finding is that stuff I love and think is really important turns out to be… not very important or useful to anyone else, and in some cases obfuscating and destructive. Examples:
1. My technical definition of “sex” as “genetic recombination of two individuals’ DNA.” It’s correct (there are those who disagree with me on that) but does it actually help anyone, or does it only create confusion and controversy? Let me clarify that I was ASTONISHED when it turned out to be controversial – it’s NOT a controversial definition, not among anyone who does this kind of work – but then I realized that people were using cultural, human standards to assess a biological, species-neutral definition, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, since we’re human. So maybe that’s the kind of thing I shouldn’t spend too much time trying to teach about.
2. The fact that the sexual motivation system is not a drive but rather an incentive motivation system. I wrote a long series of posts about this last summer and ultimately came to the conclusion that it was a technical difference so fine it held no practical value. If it FEELS like a drive, does it matter that it is not, in fact, a drive? *I* think so, but… anyway, it’s a complicated, difficult distinction that takes a lot of explaining, and the payoff isn’t very big, so I’m probably better off putting my effort elsewhere.
3. What’s true at the population level has nothing to do with what’s true about any given INDIVIDUAL in the population. I spend most of my time talking about populations, which is how most social science is done. It’s not invalid to talk about populations. But folks will inevitably read about populations and think about themselves, individually. And maybe half of people will feel that what’s true about the population is true about them too… but the other half will feel alienated. Also talking about populations does inevitably NOT talk about individuals who vary from the norm. Must I add a disclaimer to every discussion of social science, about how what’s true at the population level isn’t necessarily true about YOU? Yup.
What I’ve learned is that the way I think about sex, after all these years of education and training and experience and research and all the rest of it, is so THOROUGHLY different from the way other people think about it, that big chunks of my point of view are just too radical to be of interest or use, and parts of it are so radical as to seem offensive or just plain incorrect.
What MOST people need is not geeky picayune details, but the broad essentials, with some insight into why no one ever told them all this before and why it’s hard to believe what’s true. What IS important?
Confidence and joy.
Pay attention to your partner.
It’s not about orgasm.
Enjoy the sex you’re having.
The rest is details.
You forgot one:
*Enjoy reading Emily Nagoski’s nerdily thorough, wonderfully detailed work and share it over dinner with everyone who’s anyone you love.
….and the rest is details.
Warmly,
A guy who wouldn’t want it any other way.
I wonder how valid findings that only speak to the population-level really are. I am training as a social psychologist, so we are always generalizing to the population with our work. But I wonder if a theoretical approach is really complete if it doesn’t also have a way of dealing with individual differences. Differences are caused by something; there are processes at work, and those should be just as interesting theoretically.
Noooooo. I read Sex Nerd for the… nerdy stuff.
Don’t ever change Emily.
I concur. Few things can give me the same level of excitement as semipermeable (not really hard and not really soft) scientific discussions of sex. Every new post excites me in a way few other things can.
Which is as much a matter of, in a manner of speaking, valence as it is intensity, for me.
I have to disagree about the issue of sex not being a drive. For me, seeing that in writing was totally exciting and revolutionary. It changed the way I viewed nearly everything about rape culture and gender stereotypes. I think if what you are saying on this could be understood by our entire culture, a whole lot of wrongs could be righted. Please, educate on!
Maybe your personal level of detail isn’t appropriate for college students who had a laughable excuse for sex ed in high school (though certainly appropriate for Advanced Sexuality or whatever the 2000-level course is), but we readers follow a blog called The Sex Nerd…I think we are here precisely because we geek out on your level of detail. Press on!
The population-level thing really got to me, as a reader of your blog. Because my sexual world is pretty queer and alternative in a number of ways, a lot of statements you made that might be true at the population level are false within my sphere of experience, and I wondered how someone as clearly smart, educated, and curious as you could be so oblivious. At some point you made it explicit that you were generalizing to the population level, and then I understood. So yes, please do add those disclaimers.
Another reason that’s important is that, as you’ve seen, people are overly concerned with being “normal” sexually, and will take a statement of “people of my demographic usually do this” to mean “I should do this, and if I don’t, there might be something wrong with me.” So a few statements cautioning against that confusion are important, I think, whenever you say something about the population level.
Bah, humbug! The three things you mention, that seem to have no effect or a stupefying effect on some persons, are very important. You may see resistance to definitions and you may experience controversy, but it is important to bring a determined scientific bent to conversations such as the ones you have here. Yes, you may have to rephrase or disclaim (often) but I think there is a great value to persisting in and insisting on a finer scientific discernment of terms. I understand the importance of lay discourse and bringing human idiom to a very human topic. But lay discourse can be unspecific, full of cultural baggage and highly muddied.
It may be our job as general readers to remind you not to disappear into scientific nerdery. But it is also your privilege to challenge our sloppy use of terminology.
I’m here for the nerdery. Let it continue unabated.
I really loved your definition of sex as “genetic recombination of two individuals’ DNA.” I can see how it could be confusing to people with different definitions of the word… but just thinking about it is so liberating! If you only hear the part about “your ancestors were straight”, it might seem confining. But if all the wild diversity of human sexual behavior derives from genetic recombination, then it’s all equally valid and necessary behavior for humans to have. So it levels the playing field. It says that you can’t have straight sex without also having gay sex, and kinky sex, and whatever kind of sexual behavior you might get squeamish about. Natural selection has put its big stamp of approval on all that stuff. And I think it’s an especially important idea for the kind of people Ginny is talking about, above, who are concerned with being “normal” sexually.
So for me, at least, it was a really powerful idea. I’m glad you talked about it, Emily. Although maybe for some people it is obfuscating and destructive. Hmm. Maybe it could use some refining, so it doesn’t give off a heteronormative vibe at first glance. Anyway, I thought it was valuable. So thanks.
I definitely have to agree with Ginny’s comment: I think the population v. individual distinction matters A LOT, or at least it has to me since I started following your blog! It’s something I already conceptually understood but hadn’t often seen applied to most of the issues you discuss (my exposure to the idea was mostly limited to sophomore year college biology). Having you add that disclaimer repeatedly has actually really helped me to make peace with the idea that it can be okay from a policy or scientific standpoint to make descriptive statements about population-level realities without those realities necessarily saying anything whatsoever about a given individual (keeping in mind also that just about everybody deviates to some extent from the population-level norm). I think it is completely fabulous and essential to keep coming back to that idea in conversations where I am discussing anything from sex to marriage to economics. It really bridges the gap between peoples’ dueling tendencies/instincts to generalize and to use their own anecdotal experiences as a frame of reference, which I think can be a confusing tension.
3. What’s true at the population level has nothing to do with what’s true about any given INDIVIDUAL in the population. I spend most of my time talking about populations, which is how most social science is done. It’s not invalid to talk about populations. But folks will inevitably read about populations and think about themselves, individually. And maybe half of people will feel that what’s true about the population is true about them too… but the other half will feel alienated. Also talking about populations does inevitably NOT talk about individuals who vary from the norm. Must I add a disclaimer to every discussion of social science, about how what’s true at the population level isn’t necessarily true about YOU? Yup.
Yup, it makes sense, as your texts are meant to be anti-oppressive. I think such a disclaimer would be pretty superfluous if a long history of sexual oppression didn’t exist and weren’t still very relevant in our present day.
As it is, sadly readers of your texts are very used to social oppression of sexual behaviour being justified this way:
Majority -> norm -> normative -> prescribed for everyone.
and
Minority -> abnormal -> pathologised/criminalised/constructed as ‘unnatural’ -> forbidden.
In sexuality research, the following has a long history:
Minority -> abnormal -> unasked in empirical research/unvoiced/censored -> made to appear nonexistent.
So one way of dealing with our long history and present day relevance of using ‘scientific research’ as a tool to oppress people is to repeat and repeat and repeat – or rephrase, if it gets boring – this disclaimer. Another way is to show again and again how the empirical variance within populations is one of the broad essentials . I believe it won’t be ad nauseam (to the point of getting sick of it), but rather ad maiorem gaudiam (for more joy).
Em, don’t stop. Your nerdly quest has cast blessings upon my healing process. After a 23 year marriage I’m re-learning sex and sexuality, and your blog has been a boon. I totally get your rabbit trails and your obsessions and I learn something, or feel affirmed, each time I visit. Your work is good.
<3
All these things are exactly why I read your blog! Seeing these things laid out so clearly has really helped my understanding of sex come into focus, like the zoom lens on a camera panning out or something. They may be tough for many to wrap their heads around, but they’re so important once you do change your angle of vision enough to see it.
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