This piece is for anyone who’s ever paused during sex and thought, “Wait, why am I doing it like this?” Whether you’re queer, straight, somewhere in between, or still figuring it out—welcome to the in-between binary spaces, where desire is allowed to be curious, messy, and most importantly, yours.
Acting The Part: Sex as a Performance
Think about the last time you had sex. How you moved, looked, moaned, it might’ve felt like you were an actor in a film you didn’t audition for, following someone else’s script. Welcome to the wild world of gender performance in sex, where even our most intimate moments can be choreographed by society. The good news? Once you recognize you’re performing, you can choose to write your own script beyond gender roles.
Bedroom or Theater?
Let’s give a quick shoutout to Judith Butler, who gave us the idea that gender isn’t something we are, it’s something we do. It’s performed. And in the bedroom, this script can get louder.
In hetero dynamics, we often see a predictable formula: he initiates, she responds. He’s quiet, she’s expressive. He orgasms, she either feels it or performs it. These aren’t biologically dictated, they’re learned scripts through gender roles that keep us from being present. And even when we step outside the binary, these patterns sneak in. Queer relationships often echo masculine/feminine gender roles — tops and bottoms, doms and subs, masc and femme—because we’ve all grown up in the same binary culture. These aren’t necessarily bad roles, but they can become limiting if they’re unconscious.
Case Study: Jiz Lee & Queer Porn that Pays
Jiz Lee is a non – binary , gender queer porn performer and advocate for ethical, queer, consent-driven porn. They co-star in Pink & White Productions.
CrashPad Series, which specifically breaks binary norms, no forced scripts, just real bodies exploring consent and pleasure as they are.
Jiz’s work shows how queer porn can be a site of sexual liberation, eschewing hetero scripts and daring us to feel, not perform.
Not Even Queers Are Immune
Queer sex doesn’t automatically break heteronormative scripts. Top/bottom, butch/femme dynamics, or the pressure for trans folks to “prove” their gender. These roles often mirror what we were raised to expect. It’s internalized heteronormativity wars in disguise.
And it’s okay to follow a script, but if we do it unconsciously, we may never explore what we truly want. That’s how “missing out on good sex” happens.
A study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found that 95% of heterosexual men reach orgasm during sex, but only 65% of heterosexual women do.
In a UK YouGov survey, 61% of men say they always orgasm, compared to just 30% of women.
Another recent study found that men orgasm in 90% of encounters, while women only do so in 54% coining the term “Orgasm Pursuit Gap”, since both partners mainly prioritize male pleasure.
These aren’t biological issues, they’re cultural products shaped by gender roles and societal expectations. Women in queer relationships (especially lesbian couples) close that gap significantly, orgasming ~86% of encounters, according to PubMed. Often due to more mutual stimulation and equity in pleasure.
The Reflection Revolution For Authentic Sexuality
Exploring your sexuality beyond what we have been taught requires some honest self-reflection. The key is to separate what you genuinely find enjoyable, and what you’ve just learned to want or do. Here are three steps to kick off your self-discovery:
- Desire exploration: Think about what turns you on, what you usually go for, what feels like a “normal” choice. Can you make links between these preferences and your (early) cultural experiences? Did you suppress certain desires because you felt that they were “wrong”?
- Performance audit: Make a note of what behaviors you perform because you think you should rather than because you want to. What would you do if no one could judge you? What alternatives are there?
- Self-analysis: Now try to imagine multiple explanations for each behavior. For example, do you enjoy being submissive because you authentically like letting others take control, or because you’ve learned to associate submission with being desirable? Or with femininity? Remember that multiple explanations can co-exist. This stuff is complex!
It’s okay if your authentic choices match the script. The goal is awareness, not rebellion.
Practical Tip
Swap screen-viewed porn for erotic literature. Visual porn often reinforces rigid gender roles and power dynamics. Erotic writing, however, is fluid, it invites imagination, nuance, and emotional resonance.
Check out queer anthologies or gender-fluid erotica that use imagination to subvert binaries.
Finally, here’s your gentle challenge: next time you’re intimate with someone, notice what you’re doing and why. Pay attention to the scripts running in the background. And maybe, just maybe, try improvising a little. The results might surprise you, and they’ll definitely be more authentic to you.
That’s the essence of going beyond binary, playing by your heart, not by outdated gender rules.
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