By the Numbers

by Annabeth Leong

I can't think about the topic "over-sexed" without going for the data. From an early age, I felt weird about myself whenever I heard about women and sex—whether I was hearing what women are "supposed" to be like, what women are actually doing, or listening to what other women said they were doing.

In Alfred Kinsey's 1953 Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, he reported that unmarried women had a mean of 0.5 orgasms a week, and married women had 2.2. By that definition, I'm not over-sexed—I'm exponentially sexed (expo-sexed?).

For basically my whole sexual life, I've averaged a minimum of an orgasm a day, and often many more. I masturbate to fall asleep, so that's how I know it's at least one. I'm sure I've missed days here and there, but I definitely made up for those with recreational masturbation or experiences with lovers. Also, being coupled has often caused me to have fewer orgasms than I do when I'm single—when you live alone, it's not awkward to randomly masturbate on the living room couch, but when your lover's around, unless they're into that, it might be.

So, basically, when I read numbers like Kinsey's, I get pretty damn confused. Are all these women being surveyed telling lies? Or am I just that much hornier than everyone else? Do I need hospitalization? Or perhaps a shock collar? (Damn it, the idea of a shock collar turns me on…)

But Kinsey's book came out in 1953. Maybe those low, low numbers are the result of patriarchal oppression. If you don't know to call your sex organs anything other than "down there," and you're told you'll definitely go to hell if you dare to feel around down there, maybe it's hard to find the clit.

Modern numbers don't make me feel much better, though. Here's a clip from Jesse Bering's book Perv:

In a 2006 survey of 1,171 Swedish women, 80 of them (around 7 percent) were labeled "hypersexual." Why the researchers settled on thirteen orgasms per month as the critical dividing line between "normal sexuality" and "hypersexuality" in women is something of a puzzle (there's nothing special or catastrophic about that figure so far as I can tell), but nonetheless any kvinna finding herself on the wrong side of that line was considered "hypersexual." The bar for the Swedish male respondents in the same survey was set somewhat higher. Men needed a minimum of seventeen orgasms a month (another dubious figure) to be classified as "hypersexual."

Bering takes an appropriately skeptical tone about what really seem to be arbitrary definitions of hypersexuality, but I don't even need to get into that argument to feel like a weirdo nympho. Only 80 of those 1,171 Swedish women have more than thirteen orgasms a month? I shudder to think where my personal slice of the pie would be if I were in that survey. Would I have any company at all, or would they delete my figures because it's often a good idea to remove extreme outliers?

I want to pause here to emphasize that I'm not humble-bragging. I don't mean to imply that the frequency of my masturbation is somehow superior or even sexier. And I don't mean my incredulity at these comparisons to come off as shaming other women. I truly don't mean to throw any shade on women who choose to orgasm less often than I do.

I think maybe everyone is wondering what normal is. If we could remove our societal value judgments about normal or abnormal sexuality, maybe we could all just be ourselves and please ourselves without worrying so much.

Others have brought up the slut/frigid bitch dichotomy. Women are punished for both too much and too little sexual desire, and "too much" and "too little" are often defined in relation to the amount of sexual desire a male partner has.

My experiences, though, are all with the slut end of the spectrum. Frequency of orgasms isn't the only number that matters there. There's also number of partners. There was a movie that came out in 2011 called What's Your Number? It's about a woman who freaks the fuck out in response to a magazine article that correlates having more than twenty partners and having trouble finding a husband. She's been with nineteen people, and she thinks she needs to be sure that the next man she gets with is her husband.

I'll just say that I found the number twenty…quaint. I'll never forget going to a clinic to get tested and learning that having more than three partners in a year was considered promiscuous. That particular year, I'd had thirteen.

These numbers about partners are another vector along which I've always felt bizarre and over-sexed. Part of what's always been strange to me is that I can't imagine being any other way. How else would I fall asleep? And as far as the number of partners, aside from issues of coercion and the way people treat you when you're known as the town slut, I've just never seen the point in waiting when all parties involved know what they want to do. I've never been sure how people manage to hold back so much.

And I think this gets me to a very similar place to where Jean ended up. It would be so great to live in a world where we could be our true sexual selves without shame (assuming consent and safer sex practices). What if we stopped counting these things? What if I stopped counting?

For a long time, I tracked lovers according to several complicated systems. I lived in fear of discovering I'd forgotten a lover's last name, or wasn't sure exactly what I'd done with them. I obsessed over what did and didn't "count" as sex. But I think all that was part of the effort to be normal when I didn't feel normal, or to cling to whatever sense of normal I could.

What isn't normal, but should be, is to learn what's right for oneself and go with it.

I'll end with a plug for the best book of sex science aimed at women that I've ever read. Emily Nagoski's Come As You Are is the first book I've read that explained things I experienced, treated a wide variety of sexual personalities as normal, and never once made me feel like a slut. What if I'm not over-sexed at all, but properly sexed for me? I highly recommend that book.

(I'm posting on the weekend to make up for missing my normal day in this cycle. Back to normal next time, everyone!)

The Rituals of Children

When you're a parent, you spend a lot of time hoping your baby is "normal"-- whatever "normal" is. There are articles and books out there dedicated to every childhood disorder, disease and condition and you watch and you wait and you hold your breath hoping that this little cough or that little facial tic isn't the sign of something bigger, scarier.

Being an older mother when my children were born (42 for the first, 44 for the second), I am hypersensitive to the idea of "normal." When strangers feel compelled to ask you while you're pregnant if you're worried about Down Syndrome or autism because of, well your age, you become sensitive. You rub your large watermelon-sized belly and you try to be polite even while you want to slap them silly for being so insensitive and downright cruel. Or maybe that's just me.

Rituals are the things of day-to-day life. The weekday rituals, the weekend rituals, the holiday rituals, the home rituals, the work rituals. They happen without thought. They are not truly rituals with a capital R, steeped in mysticism and profound significance; they are routines-- small r-- just a part of normal life. But what is routine and what is ritual? What is normal and what is abnormal? What is healthy and what is pathological?

I watch my two year old-- he's almost 29 months now, so nearly 2 and 1/2-- and how he processes household routines. He is at the age where he wants to do everything we do even though he doesn't always understand why we do things. He knows his dirty clothes go in the hamper and he puts them there each morning, but he doesn't know why he can't dig his favorite shirt out of the hamper and wear it again tomorrow. He knows the wrapper from his favorite cheese snack goes in the trash, but he doesn't understand why he can't pull something else out of the trash can and play with it. He understands that he has to share his toys with his little brother, but doesn't understand why he can't also share all of his food, too.

My son is trying to fit into the world-- our little world-- and make sense of the things that his young mind haven't quite figured out yet. At the same time, I'm trying to understand his garbled requests and the must-be-fulfilled rituals that aren't just delaying nap time or bedtime, but are crucial to his sense of order. And I wonder if this or that is "normal" or if it's a sign of something else. And then I wonder why "normal" is so narrow and rigid when it's clear that he is a beautiful, healthy, happy boy no matter what he does.

He lines his Hot Wheels cars up on the edge of his toddler bed each night before I tuck him in. A dozen or so cars are assigned sentry posts against the railing, the rest of the crate of cars tucked at the foot of the bed. He carries his Big Monkey around the house and on outings in the truck, his comfort toy, his "lovey." He changes seats at the kitchen table for various things. Dinner is in his own chair with the booster seat. Pre-bedtime fruit cup is in my chair. Breakfast is in the chair next to his brother. Three or four times a week, he drags the condiments out of the refrigerator and lines them up on the table-- ketchup, mustard, barbecue sauce, mayonnaise-- even if we're not having anything that requires condiments. Often, he will asks for dollops of each to be placed on his plate with his meal. Even if it's spaghetti, even if it's a bagel. He prefers his orange socks over all other color socks. He must find just the right CD for bedtime (lately, it's Matchbox 20) and turn on his star turtle. He much watch "video-video-video" on my iPhone; he is fascinated by videos of himself and will wave and hold up various Hot Wheels cars to show his video-twin. He must always push the button to open the garage door to let me leave.

And so it goes. Some routines/rituals fade away and are replaced by new ones. Some cause me a moment's pause-- is it normal for a child to line things up the way he does or to run full force at the wall again and again and then laugh hysterically when he crashes into it? Is it normal the way he repeats a word three times? Some of his antics just make me shake my head. He is a toddler, after all. A two year old trying to understand our adult rituals and making up a few of his own. Trying to learn the language so he can communicate what he needs instead of pat-pat-patting the refrigerator for more "joosh-joosh-joosh" or the floor so I will sit next to him. Trying to fit in and be a part of his community, even though his community so far doesn't extend beyond our house.

Rituals serve the purpose of helping us cope with life, fit in with our peers and live in our community. We wear blue and gold to honor our favorite sports team, we put on costumes to celebrate a holiday, we blow out candles to mark another year of life. We have rituals that are just our own-- a favorite color socks when you're two might be you're lucky color socks when you're twenty.

I'm rediscovering the importance of little rituals through the eyes of my son. The ritual of singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" at bedtime or when he's hurt. The rituals of cheek kisses and high-fives and head-butts before I leave the house. The little things that make his world feel safe and secure-- the little things that make my world feel safe and secure, too. His brother isn't quite eight months old yet and is already showing preferences for toys and patting the table and making screeching noises to communicate. His rituals will form soon, the things that make him feel safe and secure. And because I've already gone through so much with his brother, I will worry less about what is normal and spend more time enjoying the individualism of his necessary rituals.  Yes-yes-yes, I will.