Here’s a story I’m embarrassed to share. (Gosh, that should just be the tagline of this blog, shouldn’t it?)
My first serious relationship was a monogamous one, but I still thought it would be fine to show off my naked body online. Of course, it crossed my mind that my boyfriend might have an issue with it, but the odds seemed too low to bring it up. (I know. I know. Don’t worry, I’ve learned better communication skills since then!)
So I would post nudes on illicit subreddits, and tease Twitter with my cleavage, and even do occasional cam shows – getting naked, jerking off with toys, the whole shebang. (I know. I KNOW.)
Of course, when my boyfriend found out about this, he was upset. We talked about it, and I stopped. Part of our initial disagreement on this matter came from differing definitions of relationship boundaries, which we should’ve talked about earlier – I believed my body was mine to show off as I pleased, short of actually having any kind of sex with other people. But the other basis for our disagreement was that exact definition of sex. I had, by that point, broadened my view of sex to include things like fingering, handjobs, and oral sex, but it had never really occurred to me to consider cam shows a type of sex. They were a sexual interaction, sure, and they could be sex work in some transactional contexts, but I didn’t think of them as the type of sex one would have to reserve only for one’s partner in a monogamous relationship.
Fast-forward the better part of a decade, and now I’m in a long-distance relationship. By necessity, I’ve come to view the various types of digitally-enabled long-distance sexual communication I engage in – sexting, phone sex, and yes, cam shows – as valid forms of sex. After all, they make up the bulk of my sex life at this point, and are every bit as arousing, exciting, intimate, and connective as the in-person sex I have with my partner. It would be selling both of us short to insist that these things are not sex.
Nothing sexual is ever quite that simple, though. I can’t say I always felt like I was “having sex” when I performed online for paying customers, trying to tune out their watchful eyes as I fucked myself with a dildo – but was I having sex? Do both people have to have their webcams turned on for it to “count” as sex? Is a sex cam show (as in, a show where two or more people are fucking on camera) different from a masturbation cam show, in that the viewer is more of a viewer than a direct participant? As we’ve seen countless times before, technology solves many sexual problems, but raises a slew of new sexual questions at the same time.
Bummer alert: I’m thinking about these types of questions a lot more now that we’re in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak. A BuzzFeed article reports some people are sexting with their Tinder matches in lieu of meeting them at bustling bars and the like. The virus may abound in public places, but you’re more-or-less safe behind the screen of your phone, tucked securely away in your apartment. Around the time of the AIDS crisis, the concept of “safer sex” spread to the masses, but just last year I saw a Reddit post from an “incel” claiming that sex with a condom on doesn’t “count” as real sex. Digital forms of sex, too, are simultaneously decried as a poor substitute for “the real thing” and lauded as a safer alternative to physical closeness. Whether the “protection” you’re using is a condom or a smartphone, I don’t think the sex you’re having is any less real than unprotected and traditional types.
I think ultimately we are free to define sex in different ways; we don’t all have to agree on one definition, and we couldn’t even if we tried. I look forward to a future where our definition of sex gets broader and broader, so it can include more people, more safely.
Heads up: this post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.