I take the position that sex has the potential to be both a significant and desirable component of a relationship. This position appears to be sufficiently controvertial that it is in need of justification and defense, and I am thus here to defend it.
What happens when people have sex? Let us consider it very generally, and assume people with reasonable sex drives who are interested and capable. Very simply, sex feels good, and generates happy feelings and emotions, which are then associated with the other person (or people) present.
Alternatively, if you decide to refrain from having sex, you can sit around feeling horny and frustrated, and associate those feelings with each other instead.
Having sex causes certain cognitive consequences. They aren't inherently good or bad; it's up to you to apply them appropriately such that you achieve the results you want. I think if you have an otherwise healthy and positive relationship with someone, you can obtain significant benefit from having sex - it feels good while you're doing it, and you get good feelings associated with the other person for free! Of course, it's up to you to select situations where these consequences are desirable - where you do care about the person in question and having more good feelings associated with them is in accordance with your overall desires.
If you choose to not have sex, you're handicapping yourself by refusing to use a tool which can contribute significantly towards having a stable, happy relationship. There may well be good reasons for this; perhaps, for example, you are not yet sure about your opinion of the other person or level of interest in the relationship and don't want to invest in it by associating lots of good feelings with the other person and vice-versa. This state of indecision should be short-lived, however. In the long run, I fear that people who elect not to have sex will often lose the relationship; the relationship would have to be exceptional in other ways to compare favorably to others which have not handicapped themselves by declining the positive associations from sex. Some people may also decline to have sex because one or more of the people present do not have a significant sex drive or because the sex is simply bad; in those cases the comments here may not be applicable.
In addition to incorrect application, some people have very bad associations with the idea of sex itself. Some people think that sex is bad because their God has told them that it is a sin and they must not do it. Obviously these people are stuck with what their God requires, however unfortunate it may be. I feel sorry for them, and I hope that some day they can come to have a relationship with their God which is less cruel and abusive.
Other people think that sex is bad because their church or some other societal institution has told them so. Society, unfortunately, is quite fond of banning tools because they think that you won't use them responsibly. Before you forego sex because society said so, keep in mind that our society is also trying to stop you from having video games, toenail clippers, and spray paint.
I've also heard people say that they don't want to have sex because they want to make sure they're desirable enough in other ways to keep the other person interested without it. I've never heard anyone refrain from talking in a relationship, though, in order to make sure they're desirable enough in other ways to keep the other person interested. or hit the other person regularly just to make sure they're desirable enough to keep the relationship without kindness. Thus, if you feel this way about sex, you might want to think about it carefully and make sure it isn't just a meme that society snuck in when you weren't looking, and you really do want to handicap yourself by declining to use a tool that can help make good relationships.
Empirically, I have seen very few people who developed problems because they were having sex in a relationship which was otherwise good, and all of those who did had problems because of religious or other stigma attached to sex and not because of the effect it had on their relationship with the other person. On the other hand, I have observed some number of relationships end which I suspect would not have ended if they had included sex.
My obsevations in the case of sex outside of any sort of meaningful relationship have been more mixed. The people I've seen have lots of casual sex and have it work for them have tended to be people who are favorably disposed towards humanity at large and generally taken towards strong emotion anyway, such that ending up with strong positive feelings towards a wide range of people does not alter their basic worldview. These people might in fact disagree about my comment above and say that they do have a meaningful relationship with all the the people they're taking to bed. On the other side of things, people who are more internally conflicted about it, either because they do not feel good about sex generally or do not feel good about the people they're having it with, do not seem to achieve the same results. These are the people who end up having a couple of drinks before they take somebody home, in order to help resolve the contradiction in their desires. In the majority of these cases, I'm not sure that having the sex is actually making an improvement in their overall happiness.
In summary, I think that sex is neither inherently bad nor unimportant. It is a cognitive tool which can be used well or poorly; when used well, it becomes an integral part of functional relationships, just like caring and communication.
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