Im putting this subject in the natural sciences…because biology was basically the only thing that seemed semi related to my question at hand.
Which, is, out of total curiosity to what other people think:
How important is sex in a relationship?
…
Im trying to word this correctly. What I am trying to get at, is having a romantic relationship with someone you love possible without having any sex involved? Will waiting untill marriage make sex gain significance when it finally happens?
Sex generally leads to all sorts of honesty.
Get to tell her things you never told anyone else.
Most of sexual pleasure is emotional-psychological-social.
For humans, it’s basically sharing emotions and climaxing dreams, etc.
i agree with what i believe Dan~ is saying about sex being primarily emotional/psychological. in this aspect, sex is very important in bringing a relationship closer together on levels other than the most obvious physical ones. after all, if a relationship that an intimate couple has cannot stand apart from their other relationships with friends, family, coworkers, then it is far less meaningful. less meaning leads to less caring, less love, less attachment. at this point, it’s just an run-of-the-mill friend, not a very good basis for sharing your life’s most sacred moments together.
on the other hand, the evolutionary side of me pulls at the “sex is merely to procreate” aspect. this leads to zero emotional attachment and would merely serve as a physical act.
ideally, there should be other ways in which to gain the emotional attachment that sex brings to the average, monogamous couple. if the couple could achieve the same results that seperate their relationship from any other relationship that they have, then sex can serve as just another fun activity.
hopefully this would not reduce the act of sex to meaningless and thus infidelity though. to me, sex is a very intimate act, no matter the emotional ties it brings.
Me and my mom get along just fine without it.
You and your mom are rather asexual?
must be dramatic…id’e rather not test that such thing upon myself.
DDF
Nah, just making a joke- but there is a deeply hidden point in there somewhere. It’s something like this- there’s all sorts of very meaningful relationships that don’t involve sex. In fact, to specify the kind of relationship we all know we’re talking about, we’d practically have to come out and say “A sexual relationship”. Is sex important to a sexual relationship? You betcha.
On the diving board of trust
Wearing a coat of understanding
They dive into the soul
Of the other.
The goal being:
Celebrate the glory of what the other is.
Sex is an act of mutual pride.
A+
I hate to always play the relativist/perspectivist card (makes for much less entertaining posts, I’m sure) but sex is one of those things only as important as you make it.
A lot of people on this board, for example, might be of the opinion, as I am, intellectual connection and quality coversation is the most important attruibute of a relationship; yet somehow I think there’s plenty of people who do not think this way and manage to have perfectly fine relationships.
Sex is the same way. I don’t think one is going to have necessarily missed out on the best in life if they’ve continuously sought sexual and physical connections ahead of intellectual ones in their - ahem - sexual relationships. But I’d say the same about the opposite.
Do what feels right. Sex is slightly - slightly - overrated.
so in order to answer,
we need to determine what, if anything, that sex brings to the relationship for everyone.
this is, of course, keeping in mind what Daybreak just mentioned in that it is only as important as we individually make it. while we can put more emphasis or even de-emphasis it, sex must actually provide something that is inherent in its nature if it is to even be discussed as being important in a relationship or not for the general population (otherwise it is nothing more than what we make it).
my thoughts, are that it is inherently a bit more than just for procreation purposes. otherwise animals would not bother being monogamous, which is a negative evolutionary trait.
what it brings to every one, every animal, every thing, is a communication of a level of respect that each party has for each other. after all, if one animal wants to procreate, they are going to look for the most suitable mate they can find. sex, therefore, is the act of this mental determination that the other is the best out there.
Angela: If your boyfriend wants to get laid, it’s not worth it. If you believe in marriage before sex, hold your ground.
But “marriage” before sex is so ambiguous. I suspect much marriage is because the man wants sex and the woman wants to ensure he’s not running off right after. Then there’s prearranged marriages that seem to make no consideration toward the benefit of the newlyweds.
Because this is in the Natural Sciences, I’m prone to consider the biological aspects.
I could say that, aside from the aftereffects, sex is beneficial to both partners for long-term health. Marriage has little to do with it. But females are indeed more prone to develop attachment and therefore get stress from loss of the partner.
Maybe the biological solution for heterosexual females is to adopt male stand-in clones that can’t be told apart from one another and share each other’s knowledge. Those males hop in and out of the relationship, coming for a quick fix and the female contends with the illusion of a single devoted man.
You see, as with many of Dan~'s individual comments, this is little more than a truism, but it’s the last bit that most concerns me. I once wrote that for a lot of people sex is primarily an act of sociability, rather than intimacy. I stand by that claim. Extensive preludes take place where the best looking people in the club circle each other like jackels. Sometimes the overly keen, or plain desperate, will use the toilets in the club. Everyone sees them go in, everyone sees them go out. There’s even the occasional cheer by total strangers, generally the jealous, uptight types, or just people who talk loudly because they’ve got nothing to say. Eventually, the social foreplay is over, and the signifiers are out in full force. People groping each other as their friends vomit over a bridge into a canal. Boys giving girls their coats, not out of chivalry but so that she is ‘marked’ for the rest of the evening as theirs. The actual sex is usually instantly forgettable, more a punctuation at the end of a long night’s socialising than the actual aim in itself. The aim is deferred onto a dozen other conversations at other moments in time, perhaps ones that will never take place.
siatd,
You make me glad I am not single again. 
I think that sex (we are talking between lovers not mothers 
) is a small percentage of what makes a relationship work, but it makes the other remaining percent possible. Without the intimacy, the day to day BS is just that - and it takes the bond of it to flourish. Otherwise, you are just living with your brother (or mother).
I used to believe in waiting until you were (monogomous) or married (a million years ago) but I don’t anymore. I think it is such an important part of a relationship that you should understand that part of your partner, what it means to them and if you are sexually compatible. I still think that sleeping around only makes you feel used up, and that takes from your soul. I have had too many friends who have done this and they have been hardened by it. Treat sex like your religion and cherish it.
You only have one body.
Bishop,
You are greatly oversimplifying the role of sex and relationships in an evolutionary context.
It is not just about having as many offspring as possible, it is about having as many offspring that reproduce as possible. Now, different organisms have different strategies for this -- an individual giant puffball mushroom releases enough spores so that if only ~50% of them were to reach adult size, the entire surface of the earth would be covered in them, literally. There wouldn't be room for anything else.
Humans, on the other hand, take a different approach. In order to be born with brains as big as ours, we need to be born well before we are done developing. Having a big brain is a definate selective advantage, but to get that brain we have a loooong period of helplessness. The infant needs to be taken care of during these periods, and so the mother is pretty much unable to provide for herself as well. That necessitates a provider, which is best supplied through social monogamy. For the male, this isn't a terribly bad deal either, since they are providing for their own genetic future.
Now, there are various ways to cheat this system -- for example, if you can con another man into raising your children, or have enough wealth to support multiple wives. That is where you get various mating games. Enter the whole social aspect of dating.
SIATD,
Yeah, I pretty much agree.
yes, your are right, i was definitely simplifing the matter.
looking back i see that i may be approaching the “how important is sex to a relationship” Q from the wrong angle. i was coming from the evolutionary origin of its importance. however, if we work from the current significance of sex in our existing society, essentially taking evolution out of the equation, we get what SIATD said.
sex is currently a major factor which most of our lives revolve around in some significant way or another. granted, some more than others, but the effects are immense to us all. and from that, the importance to a relationship is equal. the more sex involved in the relationship the closer it will become.
how does family work into that equation, you ask. it’s the product of sex, therefore very important.
the more important the relationship the greater the impact sex (sex, lack of sex, discussion of sex, etc) will have on it.
It may be unoriginal, but isn’t the correct response “Yes, please”?
My vote for the most clever post of the year. Short, sweet, pure perfection.
What’s important is intimacy - that’s the object of the exercise. Sex is one avenue to initmacy.
Bullshit, though. What’s usually the most important thing is control and role-fulfillment, and sex is definitley a tool in the toolchest for that.
Either way, it is a means, and not an end.
Sex is one of those baser instincts that we can’t shake – we don’t want to. We don’t need to feel as horny as we do all the time, evolutionarily. Not anymore.
I think many people over-analyze sex. I’ve been in relationships with minimal to no intercourse, and the opposite. You can’t control it, really (unless you’re into that type of stuff). Very few people are ‘players’ that can, but more importantly, that want to, pick up girls every night (or at will).
Those players I speak of know how to manipulate harmonies to go in their favor; but really, we’re just wandering through different frequencies waiting for a chemical reaction – at least in the purely physical sense.
Then… we have to juggle the rest.
well put. but now to bring that full circle to the beginning;
for me, i need a screwdriver (no pun intended) to get anything done around the house. can’t be productive without it. but a hammer, while very useful, i can improvise and utilize other tools to achieve the same purpose.