A programming note: tomorrow's final Crappy Hour will be a group affair. Meaning you.

Between 8:30 and 10:00, you can submit question or comments on the day's news by going to this site and running the live feed — then hop back over the Jezebel to submit some more and talk with other commenters from 10-11. I'll be answering questions and responding to comments live from 10:00-11:00 in honor of my last day.

In fact, about 37 percent of women consider oral sex "sex" — and 63 percent of them don't. Men are more likely to consider oral sex to be "sex." Different people consider different things "cheating" — just look at Mark Sanford, who said yesterday he'd not had sex with anyone else but had danced with other women when married men ought not do that.

To a degree, it's probably partly generational — I first realized that other people's definitions of what constitutes "sex" differed from mine in 1998 when I blurted out in class that Clinton hadn't "had sex" with Monica Lewinsky, it was just oral. Suffice it to say, I got some pretty interesting looks from some of my more conservative classmates... and my professor. In his mind, Clinton had, indeed, "had sex" with Monica Lewinsky; in my mind, "sex" was vaginal or anal penetration, and fellatio and cunnilingus didn't "count."

My gay friends schooled me on this point as well. While one professed to be saving his ass for marriage (literally), he didn't consider himself to not be having sex when going down on men; my lesbian pals wondered aloud what the hell kind of terrible oral sex I was having by comparison that I didn't consider it "sex." Yet, somehow, I continued, for a while, to consider oral pleasures less intimate than penetrative sex and, therefore, not "sex." And if surveys are correct, I was not alone — hell, if all the stories about people engaging in anal sex to avoid virginity loss is true, it appears that even the definitions of my teenage years have gotten a bit... stretched.

Looking back on it, though, it's all rather a lot of self-justification based on a desire to engage in sexual activity (and give and receive sexual pleasure) and the rampant, heteronormative concept that "actual" sex involves a penis penetrating a vagina. It seems, to me, to be tied up quite nicely in Jessica Valenti's concept of the "purity myth" in which virginity and so-called Godly sex is mythologized and fetishized to a point where there is no sex in our minds but that which could result in procreation — regardless of the similar health risks of oral sex and the intimacy involved in performing it... or engaging in anal penetration.

And, granted, one doesn't need to get graphic with people who are overly curious about the status of physical intimacy in relationships, but we ought to start asking ourselves why we're defining other forms of physical intimacy that even go by the name "sex" (oral sex, anal sex) as "not sex" in order to differentiate between them and vaginal intercourse. Because, at the end of the day, doing so is buying into some pretty traditional and heteronormative concepts about what "sex" ought to be, and from what acts "real" intimacy can stem.

Americans Not Explicit When Defining What Sex Is [Associated Press]

Earlier: The Purity Myth's Jessica Valenti Talks Virginity, Weddings & Miss California

Related: Full size female advertisement [Coloribus]
Full size male advertisement [Coloribus]

Lately, more than ever, there seems to have been a resurgence of second wave-y anti-porn sentiment in feminism — and even on Jezebel — which to me, is weird for many reasons, perhaps most notably because mainstream people seem to be embracing the idea of pornography more than ever. I mean, the pages of O magazine even recommend a sex-positive attitude about porn, for crying out loud. Tristan agreed that it's growing trend, citing Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs as an example.

"Porn has always been, and continues to be a huge issue for women. I don't know if the debate will ever be over," Tristan said, "But it's hard to hear from other feminists. They haven't seen my porn, they haven't seen Candida Royalle or Belladonna. So they don't see that porn is not one monolithic thing that's all bad."

When asked how she deals with that, she said that she believes everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that they should watch her movies before expressing it to her. "Porn is complicated. [The perception of it by the public] has been over simplified. Porn is as cerebral as it is visceral."

And that makes sense, considering many of her movies are educational. Her Expert Guides series (for anal, cunnilingus and fellatio) sort of break the porno mold: She's into organic and authentic climaxes. ("I would rather the actors share a part of their sexuality, than have me tell them what to do.") And in the Guide to Cunnilingus, there aren't any penis penetration shots, which, she said, Vivid initially told her wouldn't work, because "if there's no cock, there's no scene."

But changing the way things are done is all part of Tristan's master plan. "Everything I do is deliberate—very deliberate."

[Image by Jeff Koga for Fleshbot]

Earlier: Fear And Clothing In Las Vegas
Last Night I Boned An AVN Award Nominee
You Never Forget Your First Time: My Day At The Adult Entertainment Expo
Related: 2008 AVN Awards: Dispatches From The Front
(Lots And Lots More) AVN 2008 Red Carpet Photos: Still Gagging On The Glamour