Why Your Body Count Isn’t Inclusive

Throughout my college experience, one question that I seem to continually run into besides “What do you plan on doing with a degree in Film History?” is “What’s your body count?” Whether it’s a pickup line from a frat boy, a hopelessly curious inquisition from a friend, or a subtle dig from a stranger, the question is never not awkward. Something more awkward than this, however, is assuming body count only refers to a p in v sexual scenario and dismissing other acts that might not fit into this rigid and antiquated model. 

I first began considering this idea when my hometown friends and I got into an argument about whether or not oral sex could and should be counted in one’s body count. On the one hand, it did not quite seem to fit into “real” or “complete” sex but it also was not something to dismiss as insignificant. Oral sex still implicated the risks of “normal” sexual encounters meaning intimacy, vulnerability, and of course exposure to sexually transmitted diseases, but not the big implication of the possibility of getting pregnant. This is when I began to confront the deeply ingrained idea of Western, Christian cultures that sex is meant to be for the purpose of reproduction to further the human race. 

Despite my desire to be more sex-positive and less judgmental, I was still walking around with the assumption that oral sex was not really sex because it could not result in pregnancy. If you are not familiar with the issues of this philosophy, it implies sex cannot exist just for pleasure or in the social context of wanting to feel close to another human being. This also assumes that having sex can result in pregnancy for everyone (or at least one of the people involved) which not only erases people who cannot have children but also harmfully forces a heteronormative framework on sex.

This idea and assumption I had made about the gender identities that should be included in sex wrecked me. I could not believe that this antiquated idea had been informing my assumptions and understandings of body count and sex in general. Being confronted with this belief turned my conceptualization of body count on its head. I suddenly realized that the reason body count could include oral sex went beyond whether or not the participants deemed it significant enough to mean sex. After all, not everyone wants to or does engage in penetrative sex involving penises and vaginas. If I was having oral sex with another girl, it would still be sex, and ideally pleasurable sex, without the implication of procreation but with a shared sense of vulnerability and intimacy. 

Maybe body count should not matter in the first place, but at least let’s acknowledge the fact that a man’s penis doesn’t have to be involved for sex to be occurring. If individuals do decide body count is important to them, I do not think there is a one size fits all definition or model of body count. I believe it is important to consider why we are defining body count the way we do by asking questions like...

Is it to reinforce and perpetuate the importance and superiority of heterosexual relationships? 

Is it to shame women for being too prudish or too promiscuous? 

Is it to brag and demean other humans as sexual objects or means to an end to which we feel entitled? 

Is it to perpetuate the idea sex is for procreation and reject the idea that it should produce pleasure, god forbid for anyone other than cishet men, as well as intimacy and social connectedness? 

All of these questions run through my head as I reconsider the function body count serves in our society, especially amongst young people.

For me, body count refers to any meaningful sexual encounter I have. This is intentionally vague and subjective to capture my own experiences with sex and intimacy. Maybe body count does not matter to you or maybe it helps inform your own conceptualization of your sexuality and sex life. In either case, let’s try to keep our language and frameworks as inclusive and intersectional as possible to account for the spectrum of sexuality, sexual experiences, and the variety of opinions out there.