{"id":279301,"date":"2010-02-05T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rhrealitycheck.org\/blog\/2010\/02\/02\/get-real-am-i-normal-who-cares"},"modified":"2010-02-04T19:24:15","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T00:24:15","slug":"get-real-am-i-normal-who-cares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/279301","title":{"rendered":"Get Real! Am I Normal? Who Cares?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n\tThis article is published in partnership with Scarleteen.org.<\/a><\/em>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\n\tAnonymous asks:<\/strong>\n\t<\/p>\n

\tAm I\/is he\/is she\/is this\/are we normal?<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n \n<\/p>\n

\nHeather Corinna replies:<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\nAs anyone
\nwho works in sex education or sexuality can tell you, when it comes to the
\nquestions people ask us, variations on the theme of "Am I normal?"
\nreign supreme.\n<\/p>\n

\nI just
\nspent a half hour going through our\u00a0advice question<\/a>\u00a0queue, doing a search on each page for the word
\n"normal." At the moment, we have around 55 pages of unanswered
\nquestions. There’s five to 15 questions on each page. I found only two
\npages where there was\u00a0not<\/strong>\u00a0at least one question with the term "normal" in it;
\nwhere the heart of the question wasn’t "Am I — or is he, she or ze —
\nnormal?"\n<\/p>\n

\nSome
\nquestions about normality are really about health. That’s a little different.
\nOf course, from my view, that’s also less about normal and more about healthy.
\nIf, for instance, someone has delayed puberty but no health issues they need to
\naddress causing it, then it doesn’t really matter if it’s normal because that
\nperson is healthy and not in need of healthcare or lifestyle changes to support
\nhealth. Maybe someone’s uterus is radically different than the uteri of most
\nother female-bodied people, or someone’s penis is bigger or smaller, but again,
\nmore times than not, those folks may or may not be exactly "normal"
\nbut they’re healthy, so it’s all good. We may have a disability that is
\nexceptionally rare and thus, not normal by definition, and it may also present
\nhealth problems so may not technically be healthy, but in cases like that,
\nwhat’s normal doesn’t matter: what matters is finding a way for us to be
\ncomfortable, be supported and accepted and to live a life we want and enjoy.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhat I’m
\nmostly (though "My body looks like X, is this normal?" falls under
\nthis, too) talking about here is this kind of concern about normalcy:\n<\/p>\n

\nIs it normal for me, as a woman, to be attracted to other women?
\nIs it normal for me, as a man, to only be attracted to women? Is it normal for
\nme not to feel attracted to anybody? Is it normal by boyfriend is excited by
\ndoing this, that or the other thing with his ejaculate? Is it normal I
\nfantasize about this, that or the other thing and find it exciting? Is it
\nnormal if I reach orgasm from this thing? How about this one? Is it normal I
\ndon’t reach orgasm from this thing that someone else does? Is it normal I don’t
\nreach orgasm yet at all? Is it normal I orgasm easily? Is it normal it’s tough
\nfor me to reach orgasm? What’s the normal amount of time to wait for sex with a
\npartner? Is having sex with a partner on the first date, in the first week, in
\nthe first year normal? Is it normal for me, as a girl, to want to have sex? Is
\nit normal for me, at 13, to have sexual feelings? Is it normal for me, as a
\nguy, not to have interest in sex? Is it normal to watch porn? Is it normal for
\na guy to say no to sex? Is it normal for a girl to say yes? How can we have a
\nnormal sex life? How can we be like normal couples? Is it normal to laugh
\nduring sex? Is it normal to cry after orgasm? Is it normal to feel good about
\nsex? Is it normal to feel bad about sex? Is it normal to only reach orgasm by
\nmyself? Is it normal to only reach orgasm with a partner? Is it normal to
\nmasturbate? Is it normal to masturbate if I’m a girl, if I’m 14, if I’m not
\nejaculating, if I don’t get off, if I do get off, if I have a sexual partner?
\nIs it normal to feel nervous about sex? Is it normal not to feel nervous? Is
\nwanting sex twice a day, every day, once a week, a few times a month, once a
\nyear, once every decade, or never normal? Is it normal to like this kind of
\nsex? Is it normal not to like this kind? Is it normal to feel a lot from this
\nkind of stimulation, but not that kind? Is it normal to only want casual sex?
\nIs it normal to only want sex in a marriage? Is it normal for my love
\nrelationship not to be sexual? Is it normal for me to have so many questions
\nabout sex and what’s normal in the first place?<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe
\nanswer to any of those questions and others like them can vary. The answer may
\nbe yes, maybe, not really (which is the least common answer of all), I don’t
\nknow, and, most often, that it sounds like that’s normal for you right now, or
\nhas been normal for you so far. "Normal according to whom?" is
\nanother common reply. "No," when it comes to questions like those, is
\nnever the answer. However, no matter what the answer is, they all beg the
\nquestion,\u00a0"Why
\ndoes normal matter?"<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nUnderstand
\nthat I totally totally get how important being normal can feel for people,
\nespecially for younger people who often feel they don’t or won’t fit in
\nanywhere and are concerned sex will be no exception. Working with people and
\nsexuality for as long as I have, I absolutely recognize that there are many
\npeople who feel it’s critically important their sexuality and sex lives meet
\nthe real or perceived standards of others or culture-at-large (whatever the
\nheck that even is).\n<\/p>\n

\nWhile I
\nget that intellectually, I only kind of get it from an personal standpoint. I
\nmyself figured from a very early age onward that I was a weirdo in general,
\nprobably not normal, and that my sexuality and sex life was likely no
\nexception. And I decided not to give a hoot and just let my freak flag fly,
\nespecially since it all felt great to me and people I chose to be sexual with,
\nand I had little respect or care for most "norms" I met and many of
\nthe people who promoted them. Of course, the irony is that in hindsight, doing
\nthat job I do now, I know full well that for as much as anyone is normal, I was
\nand am normal, too, even in my weirdness.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe most concise definition of normal is "being approximately
\naverage."\n<\/p>\n

\nDoesn’t
\nthat sound so super exciting? I sure hope in my life I can reach the amazing
\ngoal of being approximately average. Who needs world peace, the end of global
\nhunger, to develop the cure for HIV or to win a Pulitzer when we could
\naccomplish\u00a0that<\/em>? Sorry,
\nsnark attack. I’m done now.\n<\/p>\n

\nThat
\ndefinition makes clear that the idea of normalcy in sexuality is an oxymoron.
\nBecause there is no average for all people. Not even an approximate one. When
\nit all comes down to it with sex and sexuality, because of how diverse we all
\nare, either everyone is normal or no one is.\n<\/p>\n

\nThere is
\nno one sexual normal: nor for men, not for women, not for those who are or
\nidentify as neither. Not for straight people or queer people, married people or
\nnot-married people, young people or old people or any other group of people
\nthere is. Anyone who tells you there is either doesn’t know much about human
\nsexuality or wants you to think they, you or others are normal or abnormal
\nbecause of some kind of personal agenda.\n<\/p>\n

\nAnother
\ndefinition of normal is "conforming with or constituting a norm or
\nstandard or level or type or social norm; not abnormal," which I think is
\nmore often what a lot of people are concerned about with sexuality. But that’s
\nalso problematic. What’s a social norm? More specifically, how big is the
\nsocial group making that a norm? For anyone making a norm, what’s their
\ncriteria in doing so? How broad has their study been on what everyone
\ndoes\/is\/feels, if they’ve done any real study at all? Why are they saying
\nsomething is normal: is it because they really think it is, or just because
\nthey badly want it, or themselves, to be? Are they saying something is normal
\nin order to educate and inform people to earnestly help better their lives, or to
\ntry and control people for their own benefit? What about the fact that so
\noften, people who are loudest about what is or should be "normal" are
\npeople for whom that given standard isn’t even what’s normal for them? (I’m
\ntalking to you Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, Mark Foley and all the myriad folks
\nout there like you.)\n<\/p>\n

\nI have
\nsomething really important I want to tell you. Based on everything I know, from
\nthe many years I’ve worked in sexuality now, from my own life, from the lives
\nof people who I have been close to sexually, or who have talked with me about
\ntheir sexualities and sexual lives, one of the biggest favors you can do for
\nyour sexual self, any sexual partnerships you may have, and for people as a
\nwhole, is to\u00a0stop
\nasking that question<\/strong>. To learn to say\u00a0"To
\nhell with normal."<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nWe\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0have a
\nfew pervasive, worldwide social norms: one of the biggies with sex is an
\nintense concern about being normal. That pervasive norm (and a few others
\nrelated to it) also has a pervasive consequence, which is that a whole lot of
\npeople’s strong concern about normalcy and trying to meet standards of normalcy
\ntends to get in the way of people having sex lives and sexualities they feel
\ngood about, that are really for and about them, and that result in satisfying
\nlives and experiences. Going batty trying to seek out or be what’s sexually
\nnormal often results in feeling like an outside in your own sexuality, like you
\naren’t connected with it at all, like you aren’t at home in it, like it’s an
\nempty room, than it does in finding sex and sexuality to be a place of joy, a
\nplace of richness, to be a place you feel at home in, alone or with partners.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe
\nsooner you can get past worrying about if you’re normal or not, the sooner you
\ncan start discovering what\u00a0your<\/em>\u00a0unique, own sexuality is like and what you really want from it.
\nThe sooner you do\u00a0that<\/em>, the
\nsooner you’ll be able to create and experience a sexual life that’s really a
\ngood fit for you — not anyone else, you — and to a level of comfort with your
\nown sexuality that will feel good to you, physically and emotionally. Ask any
\nsexologist or sex therapist for a second opinion on that: I can assure you that
\nthey’ll concur.\n<\/p>\n

\nWe’ve
\nsaid it before, and we’ll keep saying it:\u00a0what’s
\nmost normal and most common in sexuality is diversity.<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\nAny ideas
\nanyone may have that there is one default sexuality or sex life, one set of
\nsexual things or ideas that most people — or all people except you —
\nidealize, want, experience, enjoy or sign unto — are incorrect. It’s normal to
\nhave a range of emotional and physical reactions to all kinds of sex as well as
\nto not-sex-at-all. It’s normal for people to be sexually attracted to any
\nnumber of different kinds of people or to not be sexually attracted to people.
\nIt’s normal for people to like all kinds of sexual things and dislike all kinds
\nof sexual things by themselves, with a given partner, or full-stop. It’s normal
\nto masturbate or not to. It’s normal to have sexual feelings or desires at any
\ngiven age, it’s normal to want this much sex or that little. It’s normal to
\nhave a wide array of sexual fantasy. If something is normal for a person of one
\nsex or gender, it’s normal for a person of another. It’s normal to say yes to
\nsomething sexual and normal to decline. It’s normal to orgasm and not to
\norgasm. It’s normal to feel excited sometimes and normal to feel bored to tears
\nat other times.\n<\/p>\n

\nWith
\nanything like that, given things may be more or less common either for all
\npeople, those of a given gender, age, orientation or some other exceptionally
\nbroad classification of people, those of a given community or peer group, but
\nif they are happening to you, for the time being or for your whole life,
\nthey’re your normal right now. And I swear to you, that really is all that is
\ntruly relevant and all that’s earnestly productive and beneficial to you and
\neveryone else.\n<\/p>\n

\nIf you
\nfeel you must, you can still ask me if you’re normal. I’m not saying what I am
\nbecause\u00a0I<\/em>\u00a0need you to stop asking. But I’m going to keep giving you the same
\nanswer. I’m going to keep telling you that there are few things under the sun
\nwhen it comes to sexuality that only one person in the world thinks about (or
\ndoesn’t), wants (or doesn’t) or enjoys (or doesn’t), and that if you’re feeling
\nthe way you are, having the experiences you are, and all of that is real to
\nyou, that it’s normal for you. And that question is also going to keep you
\nstuck in the same place: there are far more interesting questions to ask which
\nwill elicit far more useful answers.\n<\/p>\n

\nSex and
\nsexuality are "normal" in that they are, in all their diversity, as
\nwell as in their absence, one common part of most people’s lives, and one
\ncommon part of who nearly all of us are. But we can never say any one given
\nthing is normal or abnormal because to do so would also be to say that there is
\none kind of sexuality or sex life, one kind of sexual experience or desire,
\nwhich is "approximately average" for all people. That’s something any
\nof us who have worked in sex for a while, and who considers all the information
\nwe take in about it with as little bias and projection as possible, knows just
\nisn’t true or real.\n<\/p>\n

\nYou don’t
\nhave to be normal. No one does, and everyone has stuff about themselves or
\ntheir sexuality that one person or another would not consider normal, because
\nnot only does sexuality widely vary, so do people’s opinions about what is and
\nisn’t normal. If you find yourself in any kind of sexual situation or
\npartnership where your "being normal" is way important to you or
\nsomeone else — where it’s far more important than being yourself — you’re
\nprobably in a situation or partnership that just isn’t a good fit for you.\n<\/p>\n

\nAll you
\nhave to be, or strive to be, is comfortable with who you really are sexually,
\nand to honor and respect who anyone else really is. If we’re talking about your
\nsexuality or masturbation alone and it feels physically and emotionally good to
\nyou, chances are very high it is all good. No worries. If it doesn’t, either
\nyou just need to try something different, or look into, sometimes with help,
\nwhy you feel bad. With sexual partnerships, same deal: does what you’re doing,
\nor how you’ve both framed this, feel physically and emotionally good to you and
\nthat other person (or people)? Okay, then. And if not, it’s time to do some
\ntalking, make some adjustments (physical, interpersonal and\/or mental) or reconsider
\nif a given situation really is the right one for everyone involved in terms of
\nwhat they want, what feels right to them, and where they’re at right now.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt stands
\nto mention that if you have the idea that who you are sexually, or what you
\nlike or want, is something you are convinced absolutely no one else in the
\nworld will share or understand, you should know that that is profoundly
\nunlikely: if there’s something you like, while not everyone may like it, at
\nleast one other person does, too. Probably way more than just one. By all
\nmeans, in some cases, finding sexual partners or partnerships that are
\nperfectly compatible, that are a really good fit for both people can be tougher
\nthan in others (and that also can change: we may be very compatible with one
\nperson for years, then have changes one or both of us experience change that
\nfit). But at the same time, it’s often harder than the world makes it sound for
\nanyone to find others with whom they have a great sexual fit, and all the more
\nso when we’re also trying to seek out sexual relationships that also are a good
\nfit in other ways; that are bigger relationships than primarily sexual ones,
\nand where we’re compatible in every way possible.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt might
\nhelp to think about the people in the world you admire most. It’s likely that a
\nbig part of why you do is that there is something exceptional about them:
\nsomething different. Maybe they had a challenge or adversity they have faced
\nremarkably well, better than a lot of other people have. Maybe they’re different
\nin a way you can relate to, and they don’t hide that difference or act like
\nthere’s something bad about being different in some way. Maybe they have asked
\nsomething of themselves or others that is more than what people will usually
\nask. Whatever it is, it’s unlikely that you feel inspired by someone else
\nbecause they’re just that normal, just so awesomely homogenous. When you like
\nor admire other people, the first thing that comes to your mind when you think
\nabout how cool they are probably is\u00a0not<\/strong>\u00a0"Wow, they are so totally average!"<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nSo, let
\nwhatever it is you think may be your freak flag fly. If you don’t, how will
\nsomeone else like you (or not like you, but who benefits from knowing you), who
\nthinks you’re amazing, ever find you? People talk about sexual risks all the
\ntime, but all to often they leave out what it means to take a risk of being
\nourselves, and that that risk — which risky like anything else — is mostly
\nlikely to result in positive, wanted consequences and results, not negative
\nthings we don’t want.\n<\/p>\n

\nSex and
\nsexuality is supposed to be about\u00a0personal<\/em>\u00a0expression: it’s a way of exploring and expressing who we and
\nothers are, what unique alchemy we make and relationship we have with a partner
\nor partners, and it’s a perpetually unanswered question because every time we
\nask it in each experience, we’re never exactly the same person twice, and our
\nsexuality is ever-evolving, just like all of who we are. If it was a place best
\nsuited to all of us being exactly the same, to never changing or doing anything
\ndifferently, I assure you that we all would have gotten really bored with it a
\nlong time ago.\n<\/p>\n

\nNow if
\nyou’re asking me, this is something we should strive to do in every aspect of
\nour lives: to be as much of who we uniquely are not just in sex, but in
\neverything. Sex and sexuality is a good place to get some experience accepting
\nyou and others for who we are, and being as authentic as you can. But it’s also
\na place where trying to be like an idea of everyone else, trying to meet a
\ngiven standard or worrying more about what’s normal than what feels good for
\nyou and what feels like it’s really about you, is particularly poorly suited,
\nespecially if you want a sexuality and sexual life that are anything
\nbut…well, approximately average.\n<\/p>\n

Which I don’t think anyone at all — even someone who asks if they’re
\nnormal — really wants. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article is published in partnership with Scarleteen.org. Anonymous asks: Am I\/is he\/is she\/is this\/are we normal?   Heather Corinna replies: As anyone who works in sex education or sexuality can tell you, when it comes to the questions people ask us, variations on the theme of "Am I normal?" reign supreme. I just spent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4824,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4824"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}