Excuse Me, Dr. Sexpert; Did You Just Say “Sex Itself May Not Be Important”?

What makes a person a “sexpert“? Is it their training and education, or is merely being highly experienced in having sex enough to qualify one for the title?

Can anybody simply declare themselves a sexpert, make themselves available for interviews, then get booked on trashy daytime TV talk shows? If so, how much does a gig like that pay?

Calico doesn’t know the answer to any of these questions, nor does she plan on becoming a sexpert herself. That doesn’t mean she can’t make fun of a sexpert, though — even if she has to unfairly pluck a single statement made by that sexpert from its original context to do so.

What the hell am I talking about? There’s only one way to find out — read Calico’s latest post: Excuse Me, Dr. Sexpert; Did You Just Say “Sex Itself May Not Be Important”?

by Calico Rudasill, Sssh.com Porn and Sex Info for Women and Couples

While I write a lot about sex and sex-related topics, I don’t consider myself a “sexpert.”

Sure, one reason I don’t consider myself a sexpert because that’s not a real word, but I also don’t do so because I think if I’m going to call myself an expert on something, my expertise should be based on something more than simply doing that thing a lot over the years I’ve been alive.

After all, I’ve driven hundreds of thousands of miles over the decades, but anybody who has ever watched me try to parallel park would be hard-pressed to declare me a “drivpert” or whatever made-up term applies to those who are expert in the act of operating a motor vehicle.

Maybe I’m wrong to dismiss my own ‘sexpertise,’ though, because I keep reading and hearing things said by people who are identified as sexperts – and wondering WTF they’re talking about and how they came to be considered experts on sex.

This Is The Internet – Don’t Trouble Me With Context Or Nuance

To be fair, if you look at his credentials, Dr. Justin Lehmiller sure sounds like someone worthy of the sexpert label – even if he looks more like someone who was recently stranded on a fictional uncharted island.

I should also be fair in noting that what I’m about to quote Lehmiller as saying – and which caused me to spit a substantial amount of my latte onto my keyboard – is something I’m going to uproot completely from its original context and intentionally misread.

I’m doing this not because I have anything against the young PhD, but because it’s my post and if I must stretch beyond all reason to make it compelling and amusing, then stretch beyond reason I will.

So, what did Lehmiller say which has me questioning not just his sexpertise, but his very humanity?

“Sex itself may not be important.”

What. The. Fuck.

Look, if you do work for the damn Kinsey Institute, which Lehmiller does, that’s a statement which simply can never emit from your mouth. If sex isn’t important, then the Kinsey Institute’s entire raison d’être, or raisin ala mode, or rosen duh entre, or whatever the appropriate French phrase may be, is a fiction.

Sex is important, of course. Among other things, it’s the only thing worth doing on a Tuesday night around here, now that the local art theater has moved the weekly Rocky Horror Picture Show singalong night to Thursdays.

OK, Let’s Be Real Here (For A Minute)

As you have probably (hopefully?) surmised, I don’t truly question Lehmiller’s sexpert credentials based on the single line of his I quoted. Truthfully, in context, his words make perfect sense.

Lehmiller was talking about sexless marriages, and why so many of them seem to last without descending into horrible cesspools of mutual frustration and hatred.

“Sex is a way people often meet emotional needs, but there may be other ways without necessarily having sex with your partner,” Lehmiller said.

Naturally, this isn’t to say every sexless marriage carries on without a hitch.

“When you end up in a sexless marriage and it’s not what you want, people tend to focus on that very negatively.”

He had no way of knowing it, but Lehmiller was describing exactly the sort of person I’d become, were my marriage to turn sexless.

Thankfully, my husband knows this – which is why when he doesn’t feel like having sex on a given night, he sends in a body-double he has on retainer, thinking I won’t notice. (I do notice, obviously, but that body-double fellow turns out to be quite talented, so I play along happily.)

OK, Enough Realness – Let’s Unfairly Make Fun Of The Sexpert A Little More

In addition to his apparent, very charitable willingness to speak to Canadian journalists, Lehmiller maintains a blog on which he writes about things like “How To Maintain A Great Sex Life As You Get Older” and “Why We Need More Research On Sex And Aging” and “What I Learned From An Afternoon With Two 77-Year-Old Sex Workers.”

Hmm… Why am I starting to get the feeling Dr. Lehmiller’s “research on sex and aging” is far more hands-on than simply taking surveys and parsing data points?