Circlusion, the new penetration to be practiced urgently

Circlusion . The term may not ring a bell. But behind these three syllables which tend to impose themselves hides a new sexual practice which, according to those who define it, opposes or completes penetration. You do not understand anything ? Explanations (clear) and advice to “ surround” (and enjoy your sexuality).

In recent months, the term circlusion has appeared here and there. We grant you, we do not come across him more than on the words “ flavescent ” (which means “ golden blond ”) or “ infrangible ” (solid).

But let's not get lost in the land of the dictionary and come back to our brave circlusion, ready to shake up and reinvent our sexuality. This neologism was born in 2016 in the mind of the German feminist writer Bini Adamczak and is opposed, according to her, to penetration. In a dedicated article *, she writes: “ Penetration means to introduce or insert. Circlusion means to surround or wrap. Here is. By using the term circlusion, the relationship of activity and passivity is reversed ” .

In other words (ours), the circlusion is the fact of wrapping the penis , the finger or the sextoy . When we “ circle ”, in short, we circle and actively receive. Let us say that we are aware of being the penetrated (or the penetrated), but that we take part in the project by including the penetrating object. Can you see a little better?

To fully understand the circlusion, (sometimes it is still vague at this stage), let us quote the metaphor of Bini Adamczak : “ When a screw is screwed in a nut, there is penetration; when the nut is screwed onto the screw, there is circlusion ” . There you have it?

Of course, and as the author adds, “ in reality, the two processes take place simultaneously ”. In this, penetration and circlusion are not so contrary. It is more a question of point of view.

Take a scene. Sex. A heterosexual couple . The guy goes back and forth in his partner's vagina. So he penetrates her. And she ? She circled him. Since she encompasses his penis with her vagina. She is the nut, he is the screw. And if we love this image so much, it's because it resets the equality counters to zero: penetration shows itself again and again as a dominant practice that we no longer even question. Speaking of circlusion, we remind you that women are not starfish, and that receiving a penis is action.

Lou and Leontin , queer and feminist activists who maintain the Sapphosutra Instagram account and have dedicated a post to circlusion to explain the concept, similarly think that they should not oppose penetration and circlusion. Already because these two practices, in fact, possibly play out at the same time, then because the man too, in the hetero context, can circumscribe. Basically, if he gets a finger in the buttocks, he circled the finger. “ The circlusion should open onto new imaginaries and new sexual scripts, considering the possibility of sometimes being the one who penetrates, and the one who circles. In the sense that its two practices are not opposed, but complementary, interchangeable ”, explain Lou and Leontin.

In short, let us say that the man can also be penetrated, therefore also encircle, since he will come to include the sextoy, the index finger or the banana that he receives in the anus or the mouth, which allows the woman to 'to be in a position of penetrating in turn. The advantage in all of this? "It revisits the story of domination," says Martin Page, author ofBeyond penetration (ed. The new Attila). “Thanks to circlusion, we can no longer consider penetration as a dominant practice ”. Indeed, the person who encircles also acts, so he is not so dominated.

According to Martin Page , the term circlusion upsets “ our old patterns ”. And that's good. But should we, for all that, remove the penetration of our vocabulary? No. This is not the point. “ We do not want to exclude the penetration” , specifies the essayist who adds: “ We can keep the penetration but hear that the person who penetrates does not necessarily dominate, he can also be attracted by the fact of being dominated in the circlusion . ”

Don't go, it's very clear: to feel that your penis is enveloped, welcomed, squeezed, is also to be dominated as you enter, you see? Thus, if everyone dominates in their own way, we come out of the dominant and dominated relationship, or at least, we are much more free to dominate or to be dominated in turn by always remaining in the same position. same position and same practice. Martin Page then tells us that the word circlusion enriches our vocabulary and that excluding the word penetration would impoverish it. However, this is not the idea. The more terms, the more possibilities, the more magic, the more fun.

We come there. It was a bit long but that needed explanation before practice. But what practice? This is where it is interesting. The circlusion is above all a matter of point of view, a way of taking back one's place by remembering that the vagina (when you are a woman and that you are in full vaginal penetration) encloses the penis and is not satisfied with to be visited. “ But is it just descriptive or is it a matter of movement ? ”, Asks Martin Page, who notes that the answer… does not exist or does not really exist.

Let's say that we can “ simply ” say to ourselves that we are circling. There you go, just tell yourself. And tell his partner. To feel stronger and on an equal footing, to erase the balance of power and put the penetrating act in its place. But you can also move and, in the case of vaginal penetration, contract the muscles of the perineum to be in the action in the true sense of the term, or even wave your pelvis to accompany the penetrative movement. A good way to understand circlusion, to practice it, to grasp it in all its corners.

But for what purpose, concretely? “ The battle is also linguistic” , specifies Martin Page . So yes, thanks to the circlusion, we leave the dominant penetration, but in real life, in our beds, this is what changes: by circling, we become aware of our body, our muscles of the vagina or the anus , our erogenous zones, our power, the pleasure given and received. So let's contract, exist, circle.

* Adamczak, Bini. 2016. “Come on. Discussion about a new word that is imposing and will revolutionize the way we talk about sex ”, analyze & kritik 614. En ligne: www.akweb.de

Also discover 20 sexual delusions to test once in a lifetime and the new generation of sextoys .