Are We Having Sex Now or What?

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In Greta Christina’s essay, “Are We Having Sex Now or What?,” Christina contemplates the definition of sex, and provides counter examples to why her proposed definitions are invalid. Interestingly, rather than blatantly trying to present the readers with a definition, Christina recounts her past and tries to determine which of her personal sexual encounters, whether with men or women, were considered sex. Then, she tries to formulate a definition that is able to describe all the times she had sex. Although she is able to come up with a couple different definitions, she ultimately ends up where she started—still searching for an answer to her question. One of the definitions that Christina presents is that sex is the acknowledgement and sexual enjoyment of at least one of the individuals who partakes in the sex that he or she just had sex. She reaches this definition after previous definitions that she had come up with because they were too exclusive. The generic definition of sex, which is penile-vaginal intercourse, was definitely too limiting because it did not take into account any of her sexual encounters with women. Then she came up with a definition for sex to be anything that both individuals agree on to be sex, whether or not it was enjoyable. However, this definition was too restricting and messy because people are inevitably going to have differing opinions on what is and is not considered to be sex. With her new definition, she is able to include many more instances to be sex, and furthermore it does not limit sex to be only between a man and a woman. To further her definition, she states that sex must be both conscious and consenting. This eliminates both rape and any sexual activity where one or both of the individuals are unconscious for any reason as sex. She also states in her definition that the sex should involve sexual pleasure for at least one
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