Why are ‘sides’–people who dislike penetrative sex–still stigmatised?

In the queer community, their queerness is questioned and delegitimised every step of the way. In the cishet world, the judgements are more sinister

The frescoes of Pompeii. 

The erotic art of the Han dynasty. 

The largest chapter of the Kamasutra. 

Apart from influencing the way erotic art is processed and understood, these masterpieces have another common denominator running through them — the stunning, varied depiction of penetrative sex. In many ancient cultures, sexual acts were often depicted as a way of celebrating fertility and the continuation of the species. For example, in ancient Greek and Roman art, sexual acts are showcased in various forms, such as erotic pottery and frescoes. During the Renaissance period, artists began to depict sexuality in more explicit ways, with works such as Michelangelo's David and Botticelli's The Birth of Venus"featuring nudity and sensual poses.

Cue: ‘sides’, or people who have never been able to relate to such art. The term was introduced in 2013, courtesy of a Huffington Post article written by sex and relationship therapist, Dr Joe Kort. It essentially refers to folks who don’t enjoy penetrative sex but may or may not be asexual. Typically, they might prefer other avenues of stimulation—oral, dry humping or frottage, skin-to-skin contact, making out and so on.

Although the revelatory article by Kort largely focused on gay men who didn’t enjoy penetration, the term has since been used for pretty much anyone, of any sexual orientation and gender, whose journey towards pleasure doesn’t pass through, or culminate in, penetration. Cishet, queer, gender fluid—all are welcome under the inclusive umbrella of sides.

But what happens when sides navigate a world where being side is against the sanitised, universally accepted norms of pleasure? What happens when their very expression of love is questioned, just because it doesn’t take into account penetration? 

Beyond penetration 

“It was just the fear of the sex,” says Mrinalini, 32, a Bengaluru-based entrepreneur. “I don’t think the fear of the pain of penetration that every single woman has experienced gets documented enough.”

Mrinalini says that she hasn’t ever had peno-vaginal sex. She doesn’t hate penises, doesn’t hate men either. If anything, she counts herself one of the lucky few to have been surrounded by a nurturing father when her mother passed away at birth, a partner who doesn’t gaslight her and does the bare minimum in a relationship without making a fuss about it, and a male reporting manager who doesn’t take her for granted or mansplains her. “It’s assumed that penetrative sex is the default to the human condition and women must readily submit to it, no questions asked,” she adds. “It is the same attitude that also assumes all women must bear children.”

When she found out from her queer friend, only two years back, that there was a term for the way she approached sex, or for the way she didn’t approach penetration, Mrinalini felt seen. She realised the power that words have in making us feel less lonely, in the way they gave shape to an experience that was largely universal.

“I’d be lying if I said that it is easy dating as a side. I’ve had a number of men shaming me for being a ‘tease’. I genuinely don’t hate them for it. But I can sleep in peace knowing that I don’t break the news of my being a side on the bed. The moment the conversation shifts to the sexual stage of chats, I immediately let them know.” 

It was a common meeting of minds when she met her current partner last year. It was a coincidence too good to be true: he was a side, too. His reasons, though, were different. He hated the idea of penetration with all his might for the pressures it came with—the pressure to perform, to last longer, to sustain an erection, to subconsciously compete with Johnny Sins. After a cost-benefit analysis, he had realised sooner than later it just wasn’t worth it. 

The so-called normal world

According to Deepak Kashyap, a queer-affirmative therapist, we’ve all been raised with the notion that penetrative sex is ‘normal’ and anything that flies in its face is just weird.

“We all have ideas of what’s normal—normal girth, normal stamina, normal performance. But can we use the term ‘functional’ instead of ‘normal’? What might be normal to you may not be normal to me. So am I allowed to tell you that something else is functional to me?”

He adds that the idea of normal is problematic because anything that doesn’t fit its definition often gives rise to disgust. This is where being a side comes in, and all the hate and stigma attached to being one. Another dimension to this road to normalcy, of any kind, he says, goes through popular depictions of any sexuality, kink or gender. 

“We didn’t understand homosexuality because there just weren’t enough movies made about them and we didn’t see any queer folks physically around us. That is changing now, and so being queer is not that out of normal anymore,” he says. “For sides now, it’s the same as being queer in India back in the day. I always tell my patients that the questions will abound for this very reason. Just like how lesbians are asked how they have sex, simply because there isn’t enough awareness about them, the sides will be asked these questions, too.”

Dating as a side, then, must be seen not as a road brimming with stigma and hate but as a chance to broaden the idea of pleasure—one date at a time. This is precisely what intimacy coach Pallavi Barnwal, too, advocates. If penetrative sex has become synonymous to the pinnacle of pleasure, it’s incumbent upon the sides to change the narrative, to broaden it, and not be weighed down by it.

“Instead of bringing down penetrative sex, a side must talk about the alternatives that are clearly more pleasurable. We need to start having discussions about bondage, novelty, experimenting with taboo kinks, or adding power play in sex through fantasy. These are the themes that must be talked about to give an expansive view of pleasure as the goal,” she says. 

Barnwal recently had a ‘side’ client, a man, who discovered pleasure by letting his partner squirt in his Americano, which he then sipped. “This is not bizarre; there’s actually a term for it, called ‘snowballing’. If you ask me, this is definitely more interesting, intimate and liberating than penetrative sex.”

The intimacy coach says that she herself had hookups who would boast about their penis girth, and their ability to be hard for hours, but that’s where it ended. They never touched her in a way that could be intimate, and foreplay was alien to them. 

Rishi, a 23-year-old make-up artist who identifies as a side and gender fluid, tells The Established that being a side indeed helped them look at sex from a more holistic perspective. Instead of being constrained by it, being side opened doors they never knew existed. “I discovered tantric sex, which is really not as woo-woo as it sounds. The stereotype is that it’s all about delayed orgasms but it’s really about taking the effort of decorating your room, of looking at sex as an activity that’s not knee-jerk and one that dissolves like quicksand. Why can’t we allow ourselves these freedoms? For how long can we limit ourselves to the lazy trinity of get hard, fuck, and ejaculate?”

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