Some years back I had an epiphany. In trying to present a presentation of open-marriage in my first attempt at building a sex positive blog, I had failed to conceptualize a key issue that needed to be addressed: sex as a social activity.
Sex among friends can (and I believe should) be a social activity for most people.
Take a moment to think that through and it becomes a profound and status quo threatening statement.
Western culture teaches the concept that sexual interaction is a quasi-spiritual activity that should be pursued for a deeper reason than just surface pleasure, culminating in a deep bond between participants AND/OR sexual activity should be a overwhelmingly erotic experience where the participants are utterly consumed with their sexual desires, culminated in mind blowing orgasm.
These two positions are often set against one another as the two possibilities for sex positive behavior. One and/or the other is reinforced by religion, music, TV, movies, novels, poetry and even porn. It seems that it is just assumed that good sex has either the spiritual or hyper-erotic meaning. Alternatively, it is just assumed that sex without passion or love is pointless and empty for the participants and thus is inferior.
Now this has not always been the case. In pre-Christian Europe sex was much more casual. This is not just true of the classical world (Greece/Rome) but of my northern European ancestors as well. Sex was routinely a part of entertaining guests at one's home or at social gatherings. The limited view of sex appears to have Mesopotamian origins and traveled to the west on the back of monotheism. I make this point to say human sex was not always put on a pedestal, nor does it have to be.
I propose, based on over 20 years of experience in the open-marriage community, another option.
Sex can be with friends, just for fun. Sex among friends does not need a purpose other than just having a good time. In the open-marriage community, the euphemism for sex is "play." I think that is significant and instructive. Sex, at least some of the time is just adult play.
This is true for one on one, but is even truer with groups of friends. As a married couple, we’ve had fun sex with many friends over the years. In those cases, it is often noted later the “sex” wasn’t super intense but it was so much fun doing it with and in front of each other. Conversely, we've had sex with acquaintances that developed into friendship relationships.
This isn't just limited to couples or opposite sex relationships. Over the years, we both have had fun sex with same sex friends. Not romantic sex, but and not even necessarily leading to orgasm; just messing around, no big deal. Well…. I say it was sex because I know in my wife's case she later would say she and her friends kissed and licked one another’s clit’s, but she wouldn't even call it sex. She just said they were having fun messing around. Sometimes one of them would orgasm, but often they did not, nor did they try. I too have had similar experiences with male friends. Some just want to know what it is like to have another guy suck them off. In my case or my wife's, we would just call it sexual “messing around” not sex, but the point is that these times were not romantic nor hot and heavy, just fun.
We’ve also had many occasions of sexual fun as a couple that was clearly sexual, but falls short of what I would call “group sex” in that there was no intercourse and only light and temporary oral sex. Or like the night when I first came to this concept about casual sex, we had been with friends and we had all talked of sex and the husband briefly sucked my wife’s tits, but it was all just sexual fun; adult fun. One counterintuitive thing about this kind of casual sexual fun, it appears to become less taboo as people get older. I don't know if it has something to do with adults past child bearing years can have sexual fun with no risk of pregnancy, or that older people in decades long relationships are not looking for new life partners, or that older people are just more comfortable with their bodies. Perhaps it is all three. But, it appears that people who have grown children are much more comfortable with sex as a social activity than young people.
In conclusion, I encourage you to consider rethinking what sex can be. Think about including “sexual fun” as a social activity with friends to your life. Next time you have a get together, don’t be afraid to use sexuality as part of the adult fun. You will likely find far more couples and singles open to sexualized fun than you imagine.