We didn't have sex. We just fooled around.

You might have spent an hour kissing, touching, and going down on each other. But because penetration didn't happen, you "didn't have sex." And that's a pretty common way to look at it.

A lot of us haven't given it a second thought. We just know that's not sex.

Kissing, touching, and oral are foreplay. Penetration is the main event. Then someone orgasms and things start winding down.

There's nothing wrong with sex going that way. But it's interesting how we've all just agreed that that's how it's supposed to go.

What Counts as Sex?

Even the word foreplay heavily implies that it's the stuff you do before you actually have sex.

But oral can be incredibly pleasurable. So can using your hands or enjoying a toy together.

When researchers asked, about half of people didn't count things like hand jobs or fingering as sex, and nearly a third said the same about oral. Of course, almost everyone agreed that penetration counts.

That means two people could spend an entire evening enjoying each other and walk away with different answers about whether they'd actually had sex.

You can hear it in the way people talk about their experiences. "We only had oral sex. We didn't go all the way. We only did hand stuff."

Sometimes those are simply convenient ways to describe what happened. But there's something interesting about it: they're describing the evening in terms of what they didn't do.

The Order We're Used to Following

Think about the phrase “going all the way.”

It makes sex sound like something with a destination, and everything before penetration is just part of getting there.

You can pick up that idea long before you have much sexual experience. Sex education tends to focus on intercourse because of pregnancy, and movies often follow a familiar progression from kissing to getting undressed to penetration.

Eventually, that sequence can become so familiar that you follow it without giving it much thought.

Imagine you're going down on your partner. They're clearly loving it, and you're enjoying yourself, too. But after a while, you start wondering whether it's time to move on to penetration.

Not because your partner wants you to stop. Not because you're bored. Because that's what you're "supposed" to do next.

Something you genuinely love doing together has somehow acquired a time limit.

What If You're Already at the Good Part?

Intercourse isn't necessarily the part of sex everyone enjoys most. You might love penetration some nights and be far more interested in something else on others.

For many women, penetration alone isn't enough to reach orgasm. Research has found that clitoral stimulation is either necessary for orgasm during intercourse or makes those orgasms feel better for most women.

That doesn't mean women can't love penetration. Plenty do.

But it does make you wonder why we've gotten so comfortable treating other kinds of stimulation as prep for intercourse, when those activities might be more pleasurable.

Of course, orgasm isn't the only reason to have sex. You might love the sensation of penetration without ever orgasming from it. Or you might spend an entire evening touching each other and have a wonderful time without either of you finishing.

The point is that you don't necessarily need to move on to something else. Sometimes the best thing you can do when you're both enjoying something is to keep doing it.

When Sex Feels Like It Depends on Your Erection

Treating penetration as the main event can also make your erection feel like the thing that determines whether sex gets to happen at all.

Imagine you've spent a while enjoying yourself with your partner. They're having a great time, and so are you. Then, when you're ready for intercourse, your erection isn't cooperating.

Maybe you get frustrated. You might even apologize because you "couldn't have sex." But think about what you're actually apologizing for.

You've just spent a bunch of time enjoying each other sexually. Your partner may have even orgasmed. And somehow you're walking away feeling like you didn't have sex at all.

Suddenly, penetration is the thing that decides whether the whole evening goes the way it's supposed to. And instead of enjoying what's happening, you're worrying about the part that might not happen.

Of course, if you really wanted intercourse, not being able to have it can still be disappointing. And thinking about sex differently isn't going to magically fix an erection problem.

But there's a difference between being disappointed that you couldn't do something you wanted and feeling like the entire experience was a failure because of it.

Your erection doesn't have to decide whether everything else you enjoyed was worthwhile.

Penetration Can Be the Main Event Without Having to Be

If you and your partner love penetration and want it almost every time, great. But sometimes you might prefer oral. Other times, you might get completely caught up in touching each other.

You don't have to turn those experiences into something more for them to be satisfying. And that doesn't mean orgasm needs to become the new goal, either.

You can have a wonderful time without anyone finishing. You can also orgasm and keep enjoying each other afterward.

Penetration can be your favorite part without being the thing that decides whether the rest of it counts.

The next time you catch yourself thinking it's time to move on from foreplay, it might be worth considering whether either of you actually wants to. Because if you're both having a great time, there's no reason to assume you haven't gotten to the good part yet.