Basic Types of Sexual  Behavior

2. Heterosexual Intercourse

Not only Coitus

Coitus. Anatomical drawing by Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) Windsor, British Royal Collection

Coitus is the only form of sexual intercourse that can lead to procreation, and in our culture it has therefore long been extolled as superior. According to Jewish and Christian religious traditions, sex and procreation were meant to be inseparable. Any sexual activity that, by its very nature, could not lead to pregnancy was considered sinful and had to be discouraged. Indeed, in most Western countries the sin eventually also became a crime. For centuries, noncoital intercourse was considered a serious offense, and the punishment could be very severe. Finally, modern psychiatrists turned the crime into a disease by claiming that adults who did not prefer coitus to any other sexual activity were mentally ill, or at least "immature".
The overemphasis on coitus has needlessly impoverished many lives. Modern sex therapists have found that the constant preoccupation with penis and vagina and the neglect of other "erogenous zones" of the body can actually make men and women insensitive and thus impair their sexual functioning (see Course 5). Indeed, as long as coitus is described as the supreme and ultimate form of sexual intercourse, all other forms will obviously have to be considered inferior. At best, they are regarded as "variations" or "substitutions", or as some sort of "prologue" or "epilogue" to the "main event". In other words, couples will still feel obliged to justify their spontaneous sexual experiments by trying to lead up to coitus. They will continue to divide sexual intercourse into acts, chapters, or escalating phases, and they will remain unable to develop their full erotic potential.