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scheme on the basis of the fact that while different-sex couples can engage in reproductive sex, same-sex couples cannot. But reproduction is hardly the only reason different-sex couples engage in sexual activity. It cannot be. For purely mechanical reasons—because a specific sexual act must be performed by two fertile people of different biological sexes at the right time of the menstrual cycle for conception to even be possible—procreative sexual activity can only possibly account for a small subset of all sexual activity between women and men.
    In truth, sexual activity is social activity. Our culture is often loath to recognize this, although we do embrace the idea that sexual activity can be about the social functions of expressing affection and intensifying social and emotional bonds. Indeed, many people believe that sex is only justified by love. But sexual activity has many other social roles to play. It can be a reward, a mode of exchange, a way to affirm loyalty, or an appeasement. It can be a commodity, a way of providing reassurance, and a rite of passage. As a source of pleasure it has few equals. It’s an age-old means of asserting dominance and a visceral mode by which to demonstrate submission. It can furthermore be a means of gaining control, a way to humiliate and violate, and a way to punish. And any given sex act, no matter who engages in it, can and often will involve more than one of these dynamics.
    The subjective experience of the erotic and of pleasure is, perhaps unsurprisingly, also enormously variable. It’s not just that desiresdiffer from one person to the next, or that some sexual episodes are transcendent and others are only so-so, but that identical objects or actions can provoke entirely different reactions depending on circumstances. Not everything that is potentially desirable is
actually
desirable. Not all “sex” is sexy. A lover we once found irresistible becomes repulsive after a nasty breakup. A sex act we enjoyed with one partner may just not do it for us when we try it with another. Some argue that it may not even be appropriate to call some examples of “sexual acts”—rape, for example—sexual at all.
    All of this brings us back around to the issue of heterosexuality and what we must take into account if we are going to illuminate it in any way. Human sexuality, as should be clear by now, encompasses much more than the ways that the biological sex(es) or social gender(s) of the people we fancy compare to our own. Whom we choose as erotic-activity partners is just one aspect of what we do sexually. Words like “heterosexual” may hint at, but do not accurately denote, all the complexities (or vagaries, or ambiguities) of an individual’s actual lived experience of sexuality.
    Because there is so much inbuilt variability where sexuality is concerned, there are five caveats worth keeping in mind for any exploration of sexual orientation. First, the biological sex and social gender of a prospective partner are only two of many characteristics in which an individual may take a sexual interest, and their relative importance is subjective and variable. Second, sexual desire (what we like or want) and sexual behavior (what we actually do) are not the same thing, and may or may not be related. Third, sexual and/or erotic activity take on considerably more forms than we may be personally accustomed to recognize, and certainly more forms exist overall than are sanctioned by any given culture. Fourth, we have to remember that all sexual activity is social activity, while only a small subset of all sexual activity is also reproductive activity. This means that it behooves us to think about sexual activity first as social, and only consider it as (potentially) reproductive when it actually is. And last, we must bear in mind that the relationships between perception, thought, emotion, and behavior are neither automatic nor consistent. In many