(hell, yeah) Scarleteen

We keep getting questions like this one again and again, so time for review! :)

I think that I am on my way to being ready to have sex with my boyfriend but I am just worried about the whole moaning thing…during masturbation I sometimes moan, but mostly keep it quiet. Are you supposed to moan when having sex? If so, is there a technique to what you are saying or do you just do it?

One of the biggest messages I (and most other sex educators I know) wish everyone would receive and embrace is that when it comes to how you express yourself sexually with things like this, there is no “supposed to.” All there is, and should be, is what feels true and real for you, what you find feels good for you and what you find doesn’t.

It’s hard for people to really create and nurture a sexuality and sexual life that feels like their own — like an expression of who they are, rather than who someone else is, looks or seems like — and they enjoy if and when they’re trying to follow someone else’s script or somebody else’s idea of how to be or respond sexually. If we were making a list of the top ten things that tend to keep people from having sex lives they really enjoy, focusing on responding to sex in ways they feel they should, rather than going with how they are really, truly, feeling and responding would be right up at the top.

Human sexuality and sex are so diverse because people are so diverse. No one sex life, way of having sex or way of responding to sex fits all. The trick is to explore and experiment to find out who we are sexually, how we feel, what we want, what we like and what feels right for us, very individually. If anyone expects sex with one partner to be just like sex with another, or thinks that the way they watched one person responding to sex is how everyone else is going to respond, they’re going to need to adjust those expectations.

By all means, there are some parts of partnered sex where we can’t just do our own thing, because we’re not the only person there. There are ways we need to do our best to be mindful about how we behave sexually with others and ourselves to help prevent and avoid physical or emotional harm, and with some of those things, we may need to adjust how we’d behave if we weren’t thinking about those things. For instance, even if it doesn’t feel 100% natural to ask others for consent and express our own, it’s very important to do that. We need to make sure the things that feel good to us also feel good to others, so we can’t just go with our own flow completely when someone else is also part of what’s going on, who doesn’t have the same body we do and who isn’t the same person we are. If we don’t want to take big risks with our health, we also need to keep safety in mind with any sex that we have, doing the things we can to reduce the risk of injury and illness for ourselves and our partners.

But when it comes to how you experience pleasure and respond to it in ways that aren’t about things like safety, consent, and how far someone’s leg can really go back behind their head or what they really do or don’t want to risk with their life or body, there are no rules like you’re thinking. No one is going to be harmed if you do or don’t shave your legs, if your partner likes to keep their socks on or not, by what words you use for your gender or body parts or if you moan or you don’t. (Well, not unless you’re so loud you put someone at risk of being evicted from their apartment. Then you might want to turn it down a bit.) But otherwise? There’s no supposed-to here: just what feels okay to you and to your partner on the whole and in the moment.

What’s the technique with making sounds (or not)? You experience sex however you do at a given time, and if sounds feel like they want to come out of your mouth, you let them out. If they don’t, you don’t try and force it. You just be you, having whatever experience you’re having, and you just let your vocal chords reflect that, like the rest of your body and the ways you express yourself. And you think about it enough to just make sure that whatever is coming out of your mouth isn’t something likely to hurt the other person’s feelings or make them feel unsafe.

Read the rest here.