I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the language we use to talk about sexuality and gender so often falls short, both in therapy spaces and everyday conversation. I see it in my work, in my relationships, and honestly, even sometimes in my own thinking when it gets too narrow.

Think about the terms we use to describe sexual orientation. Or the term “sexual orientation”, itself. We often take this term to answer the question of “Who am I or are they attracted to?”, then we follow this question with answer built on a direction of attractedness aimed toward people who share our sex/gender, people who do not or people who do or do not. It’s kind of a relational question, but it also kind of isn’t. It does ask “who am I” and “who is the other person(s)”, but it doesn’t ask about the context around us so much… and it also conflates sex and gender, without recognizing the distinctions between them.

Another example. When we talk about gender, we most often think about personal identity labels like masc, femme, trans or cis. Now I do very much appreciate expanding the conversation past trans or cis into femme and masc; but even in this, we miss the complexity of the reality that humans are socially rooted creatures; in fact, one of the forbears of American psychology suggested that social interest was the main goal of human development. Where does our social connectedness, in a wider sense fit in?

Gender and Sexuality researcher Sari van Anders asks this exact question, “How do we move beyond simple terms and expand into the territory of context?” She has created a model where we can take multiple pieces of ourselves and those around us, considering our they interact with the larger cultural context around all of us.

Larger applications of her work ask us to consider these immediate factors (though Dr van Anders does tell us that there are innumerably more that she doesn’t mention):

• • The gender/sex of our partners
  • Our number of partners
  • The nurturance/eroticism balance in our relationships
  • The characteristics of partners (and ourselves) beyond gender and sex
  • The interplay of fantasy and reality in our interests and our own selfhood.

She posits that these factors (and more…yes she leaves space for us to add our own) give us a better understanding of sexuality and gender…as well as the risks of social marginalization or the potential joys of social support in each configuration.

Here are a few examples of social support v marginalization, I’ll let you think through some of the other factors mentioned above on you own

In most social circles, folks whose gender expression align most closely to femme or masc (in the eyes of larger culture) generally receive the most social support. Folks, who find themselves in a middle ground face marginalization.

Conversely, when we think of partner number, a person with one partner (not more or fewer) will generally receive the greatest level of social support; whereas the person having “too few” (zero) or “too many” (more than one) partners will face a larger degree of marginalization in the public eye. This is particularly true for folks who already inhabit marginalized identit(ies).

A final “social rule” to consider is what sexual and relational configurations can be combined with the greatest likelihood of social support and which will likely face the greatest risk of social marginalization. Looking at cultural examples, we know the relationships comprised of a singular AMAB (assigned male at birth) masc man and a singular AFAB (assigned female at birth) femme woman will receive the greatest social support. Social forces have decided that the relational combination of two dissimilar gender/sex humans is preferred over other configurations, dues to a web of (often arbitrary) social, cultural, economic, and political forces. A configuration such as this one will often find itself with both more cultural support and social mobility. As we move away from this relational and sexual configuration, we will find both less social support and mobility.

Sex/gender/sexuality will always confound our attempts to fence them in, but we can expand and refine our language to better describe real human experience and connection. After all, isn’t the goal of well-constructed language to connect and deepen our relatedness with others and with our own selves?

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A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with a few therapists about how sex has been showing up in our sessions. Sexual response and desire were two LOUD topics that came up! And it comes as no surprise. Response and desire are two fixtures of sexuality that are rarely talked about, and when they are they are we often misunderstand them.

Back in grad school, we learned this old-school model of sexual response based on the work of two sexologists—Virginia Johnson and William Masters. To be fair, their research (from the 1960s!) was groundbreaking for its time. But as we’ve learned more (by, you know, talking to more humans), it turns out their model didn’t go far enough.

Here’s the deal: Masters and Johnson’s model (1966) was largely shaped by male sexual response patterns, which left out a lot of nuance in women’s experiences, as well as queer folks.

Their model describes sexual response as four linear stages:

Excitement – The body starts responding (increased heart rate, lubrication, etc.).
Plateau – Arousal builds in intensity, leading up to orgasm.
Orgasm – Peak arousal, AKA “cumming.”
Resolution – The body returns to baseline.

But here’s what we know now: not everyone responds this way. Cis men often do, but many others don’t.

This is where Rosemary Basson (2000) comes in. Studying women’s sexuality, she found:

Orgasm isn’t always a clear endpoint. Many women experience rolling orgasms, where pleasure continues rather than sharply declining. (I’ve noticed this sometimes with natal men during anal sex—orgasm doesn’t always mean ejaculation.)
Desire doesn’t always come first. Many people don’t start with spontaneous excitement but can become aroused through intimacy, touch, or emotional connection—flipping the Masters & Johnson script.
Emotional connection matters. M&J didn’t focus much on intimacy, but for many, emotional closeness is a major factor in sexual response.
Take home: Sexual pleasure isn’t one-size-fits-all. It’s often circular, nonlinear, and way more complex than we were taught.

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