I came across this interesting article via @DrPetra a while ago. It talks about our socially prevalent definition of sex.

Foreplay is defined by Webster’s dictionary consistent with the heterosexual, male-focused way most people in our culture describe it. Webster’s online dictionary states that foreplay is: “erotic stimulation preceding intercourse” and the “action or behaviour that precedes an event.” In this definition, foreplay is all that comes before the main event–with the main event being heterosexual intercourse.

In most people’s minds, the article argues, sex is defined as intercourse, and it doesn’t even “count” as sex unless the man has an orgasm. To underline the point, apparently when President Clinton was facing impeachment for having or not having “sexual relations with that woman”, a poll in the US found that most Americans thought that oral sex wasn’t really sex. And rumour had it that the ongoing joke in Israel at the time was that the Americans weren’t doing it right. There is a more serious point to this though.
There is a lot of concern and moral outrage in our society about pornography, and particularly about teenagers using pornography as a substitute for sex education. Most mainstream porn, after all, hardly treats women with respect, tends to be fairly formulaic (to the point of being funny), and does tend to leave young and impressionable minds with the wrong idea of sex.
And yet, here I would argue that the fragile minds of our children have a far greater enemy when it comes to healthy sexuality and sexual equality than porn: the romantic comedy. Let’s have a look at some of the messages romantic comedies send to young women (and men) about what is expected of them in a relationship.

• As a woman, your only value is as the love interest. Your life should revolve around getting the guy. Nothing else is worth talking about. (How many romantic comedies can you think of that pass the Bechdel Test?
• If you’re lucky, you might be allowed to be brainy and beautiful. But really, just being pretty is enough. Don’t worry your little head about anything else.
• You may be an independent woman. You may even have a hugely successful career. But all of that is temporary and you won’t care about it anymore when you meet the guy. He will become the centre of your universe.

So far, so good, and damaging enough. But here’s where the romantic comedy (and more generally the Hollywood view of sex) really does its worst. Imagine it: The hero finally gets the girl/the girl finally finds the meaning of her life in the form of the guy; they run towards each other, they embrace, they kiss. Next thing you know they’re in bed together, and you’re invited to imagine that they’re having intercourse. I bet I know what you see in your mind’s eye right now: soft lighting, he’s on top, the covers are strategically draped over them and she, for all the world, looks like she’s in absolute ecstasy from having his hands… stroke her face. Yeah. Can you remember the last time you saw a man hand between a woman’s legs in a Hollywood sex scene?
There are two things profoundly wrong with this picture. The first, and arguably more obvious one, is what I’ve already alluded to above. Let’s face it, the vast, overwhelming majority of women do not orgasm from intercourse alone. (Even those who do, generally only do so when they’re on top.) And if you’re a man and this is news to you, one romantic comedy I can recommend is “When Harry Met Sally”. So what your typical Hollywood sex scene does is basically perpetuate the myth that sex is vaginal intercourse in which the male partner has an orgasm, thus completely devaluing women’s sexuality and their sexual experience.
But the next bit is even worse. Replay that movie again in your head: guy meets girl, predictable plot happens, guy gets girl, they snog, next they’re having sex with a stirring piano soundtrack in the background. What’s missing? At no point do they actually talk about having sex. No mention of who’s got the condom, let alone any communication of what either of them actually likes to do in bed. And so generation after generation of kids grow up, unable to talk to their partners about sex – not just unable, unaware that this is something one should possibly consider doing. Because let’s face it, parents aren’t terribly good at talking to kids about sex and rely on schools to do it, and schools… well, unless you’ve got an exceptionally good teacher all you get is the condom/banana talk – if you’re lucky.
So next time you hear anyone spluttering moral outrage about how easily kids can access porn these days, maybe you could ask them how much damage porn does to the healthy sexuality of teenagers compared to romantic comedies. Porn is far from harmless, but it is the social acceptance of the Hollywood model of sexuality that makes it so insidious and at least as damaging as porn.