In our society, it is considered inappropriate to talk about sex. Because of this, plenty of analogies are installed to veil the conversation while still having it, but few are accurate or positive. The most common metaphor we use is to describe it like baseball: someone “scores,” there are “bases” to hit, and the ever-present fear of “striking out.” This language is not only competitive and unhealthy, it’s inaccurate to what sex is really about.
SEX ACTS AS A PIZZA
Sex educator Al Vernacchio saw this need for a better way to talk about sex. In his famous Ted Talk, he confronts the issues with the baseball metaphor and presents the solution: Sex as pizza.
During baseball season and (usually) on a pretty tight schedule. When do we have pizza? When we’re hungry We can decide that we’re hungry but recognize that it’s not a good time to eat. Or maybe it’s the best time to eat and you can really indulge. When playing baseball, there is an instant understanding of competition and opposition. When eating pizza, however, there is a sense of community and shared experience. When playing baseball, there is very little communication. Baseball has structured rules and an end goal. Pizza, however, entails communication and even negotiation. Baseball has specific equipment, making it not accessible for everyone. Baseball is less universally understood than pizza is as well. Pizza has millions of flavor and topping combinations, finding a way to meet everyone’s needs. The only goal in baseball is to win. The goal of pizza is satisfaction.
SEXUALITY AS A GARDEN
In her book, Come As You Are, Dr. Emily Nagoski seeks to find a better metaphor for sex and sexuality. She presents the metaphor of a garden. On the day you’re born, you are given a little plot of land, slightly different from everyone else’s, and uniquely yours. Since you’re an infant, your family, culture, and environment take care of your garden for you. They plant the basics—that is the basics as they see them—about being human. As you age, you learn to tend to your own garden. You also learn that some things are simply not meant to grow in your garden. Whatever was previously planted was done so without your knowledge or consent. The people around you plated attitudes, behaviors, and knowledge about everything, but specifically skewed information on bodies, love, safety, and pleasure.
Tending to a garden is no easy task—as a notorious plant killer, I say this with conviction. It’s especially difficult when it’s already overrun with misinformation, poor self-esteem, and a lack of understanding. As Nagoski says, if you want to have a healthy garden that you choose, “you have to go row by row and figure out what you want to keep and nurture...and what you want to dig out and replace with something healthier.” This gets easier with time and learning (or perhaps unlearning). You might come to learn the plants in your garden need less water or need the extra sun or need encouragement compared to the gardens around you. Do what your garden needs, not everyone else’s.
IDENTITY AS THE GENDERBREAD PERSON
Popularized by Sam Killerman, The Genderbread Person is a visually simple way of breaking down the complexities of gender and sexuality. Picture a gingerbread man (it is that time of the year, after all), freshly baked and ready to be decorated. For decorating, there are four categories to choose from: the head, the heart, the pelvis, and the cookie as a whole. With these four categories, the options are limitless; every single cookie is sure to be unique.
The first three decoration categories have to do with gender. Firstly, Gender Expression is the cookie as a whole, the decoration on the sides, or perhaps the food color you chose to use if any. Gender Expression is how you demonstrate who you are. Gender Expression is one’s outward characteristics such as appearance, behavior, and attitude. These tend to communicate a person’s identity without much talking on the cookie’s part.
Gender Identity is the head of the cookie; it is the cookie’s brain. Gender Identity is one’s internal understanding of their gender and their self. Gender Identity is who you think you are. It is how you interpret your unique chemistry—like your hormones. Then there is the Anatomical Sex, which is represented as the pelvis of the cookie. The Anatomical Sex, or biological sex, refers to the physical makeup of the body, the objectively measurable organs, hormones, chromosomes one possesses.
The fourth and final part of the cookie is its heart or its Attraction. Unlike the other three decorations, Attraction deals with sexuality, not gender. Attraction is the sexual and romantic ways in which humans are drawn to one another. Because gender and sexuality are separate entities, someone’s gender expression, identity, or anatomical sex may have nothing to do with whom they’re attracted to.
By Shelby Lueders