SEX: Qu'est-ce que c'est?

Sometime in my mid-teens the thought occurred to me that I should begin compiling a list of the men with whom I was having--or had had--sex. It appealed to my sense of order to have a neatly organized, chronologically-arranged list of lovers. Besides, the numbers were starting to rise by then and, ever practical, I considered that at some future date I might start forgetting their names.

From age fifteen to age twenty-six, I would dutifully update my list annually with a few (or, in exceptionally frisky years, a dozen) new names. Then, at age twenty-six, I stopped. I would like to say that I finally outgrew this vain and childish hobby, or that I spontaneously developed a sense of decency, but frankly neither maturity nor decency had a lick to do with it.

What happened was that, year by year, it was getting harder for me to KNOW who I'd had sex with. I don't mean that I was having zipless fucks: even at a young age, I was too hygiene-conscious for anonymous sex. The problem was that it was getting harder to define what sex was, and therefore to know who really qualified for my list.

For example, it didn't occur to me until my twenties that, in all probability, the high school buddy I once whimsically fellated at a Grateful Dead concert belonged on my list. Until then, his name and those of some indeterminate, yet alarmingly high, sum of other boys and men, had sort of hovered above my list, like the ghosts in "Topper:" not quite dead but certainly not alive.

Obviously, I had had a kind of sex with them, since I couldn't pretend a penis in my mouth was anything other than a sexual occasion. On the other hand, I hadn't had intercourse with them and that, for many years, was my minimum standard.

As my twenties roared along, this whole issue of who I'd had or hadn't had sex with and who I was or wasn't having sex with, grew ever more poignant as I found myself dating a marriage-minded man who, naturally, wanted to know whether his potential bride to be was Snow White or the Whore of Babylon. My list came in awfully handy, giving me a record of the totals, the dates, and the names. While he was hardly reassured by this document, I'm afraid he was severely shocked some time later when I casually made reference to an affair I'd had with a high school teacher.

For, while we had done virtually everything else a man and a woman can do together, and done them in some places you wouldn't think they could be done, we somehow skipped the intercourse part. So Teach hadn't made my Who's Who of heavy breathing.

Grudgingly, then, I accepted that I really didn't know anymore who I'd had sex with and I abandoned my list.

This was in 1981. Skip ahead to 1997. Sex therapists, sex experts, sexual surrogates, and sex everything-else's abound. If you can't find a sex counselor in your neighborhood, you can dial one up on MTV. And since I make a living writing and talking about sex, I am One Of Them. But the more I listen to them, the more books I read about how to have a perfect sex life, the more I ache to hear any one of them address this very basic question: what IS sex? As best I can tell, no one has a clue. Of course, forming strong opinions in the absence of knowledge is what America is all about. Instead, everyone has a theory.

For ex-President Jimmy Carter--as recorded in the famous "Playboy" interview--and for Bible thumpers coast to coast, sex begins when you lust in your heart. Now, all my lusts have begun either in the pink organ somewhat lower or the gray one somewhat higher. So, by their standards, I am pure. Glory Hallelujah.

Some believe that sex requires penetration. By this standard, a French kiss is sex and a hand-job is not. I sort of like this standard myself--I've always said that idle hands are the Devil's playground--but it isn't terribly logical.

Then there is an elite kind of hedonist who believes that real sex requires orgasm. I am all for orgasms, on general principle, but there have been times when I've had an orgasm while dreaming of a man I was involved with, though I was inorgasmic in the flesh. So, applying this theory's logic, does this mean my dreamsex with him was realer than my real sex with him?

It seems to me that this opens the door to some rather surrealistic and bizarre permutations. Like--if John Hinkley had wet-dreams over Jodie Foster was he already halfway involved in a sexual relationship with her?

Do you see what I'm driving at here?

In response to those who would counter the above theory by insisting that another person must be involved in some fashion for it to be real sex, I have only one word: masturbation.

If that isn't real, I don't know what is.

If sexual pleasure is a strictly biological event, a matter of rubbing the genitalia to elicit erotic feelings, then what about sadomasochists who can have orgasms without direct stimulation of the genitalia? Are we not having sex, even when we have orgasms?

Then there are the far more esoteric considerations about sex. What if, for example, one person thinks he or she is having sex and the other one does not? The most serious issues under this heading concern things like rape, date rape, and incest. At what point exactly does consent enter into it? And how much does one's state of mind have to do with it?

For example, when a stranger caresses one's knee in a dark theater, is that sex? Or is it sex only if one enjoys it? Or, is it sex only if one does NOT enjoy it? What if one simply sighs in exasperation, removes the offending hand, changes seats, and then forgets all about it? Does the molester then get downgraded from "sex criminal" to "asshole"?

What about the strap-hanger whose bulging erection grinds into your back on the subway during rush-hour? He may be as upset as you, trapped by circumstances beyond his control, his anatomy lurching traitorously. Or he may be a geek who haunts subway cars precisely for such opportunities. Sex or not sex?

Let's say you dismiss it and move on. Then later you discover a greasy stain on your coat. Uh-oh! It *was* sex! But what if, the next day, the dry-cleaner says, "Oh, I see we have a little mayonnaise here," and you recall a certain drippy sandwich you ate.

Is that inhuman monster who violated you now someone who could have been your friend?

As for me, I try not to define what is and isn't sex anymore. But if I were to start a new list, I'd have two columns: the left hand one would be reserved for the names of the not-so-innocent. Over the right-hand column, I'd write the only question that matters to me now: "Did I enjoy it?"