Sex: How much does physical love mean to you?

Just curious here.

This is sort of an offshoot of a topic created in the Abortion thread (Although please keep all talk of that particular subject off this board). I'm just curious as to what people think on this matter, in this day and age. Does the average person still value it as important? Or do you follow the lessons taught by media such as Sex and the City, which portray sex as a near meaningless thing?

JMA

 

I could never have sex without love. I'm not capable of it.


And love does not require sex....if that makes any sense.

 

I'm waiting til marriage for sex. I only want to have sex with that one special person who I loved enough to want to marry and spend the rest of my life with. But if other people want to have meaningless sex, it's their business. I just think it's rather sad.

 

Kessel-

It makes perfect sense, and neither could I.

But are examples that are provided by shows such as Sex and the City the norm of society? Are people who believe like you and I becoming the minority?

JMA

 

becoming??? we've been the minority for at least 3-4 decades

 

My opinion is that if two people truly love each other, then marrage is a formality, and sex is ok. But either in a loving marrage, or that case would I ever have sex.

 

in my opinion, sex is ok when both people love each other and both feel ready for it. marriage is good (and if you really love someone, chances are you'll be getting married soon anyway), but i don't think you have to wait till you're married.

for instance i'd have no problem with having sex with a girlfriend that i was in love with and that fealt the same way about me and was ready for intimacy and comitment. i also have no problem with waiting till engagment or even marriage if my partner wants to wait that long.

then of coarse there's always lesser degrees of pleasure/sexual activities that a couple in love can do without actual intercourse.

 

I say lie back and enjoy it while you still can. That's what I believe.

 

"Or do you follow the lessons taught by media such as Sex and the City, which portray sex as a near meaningless thing?"

Hey, come on now, Sex and the City is a great show. I don't think you've ever actually watched it or have some skewed peceptions, I watch it pretty regularly, and all of them seem to think of sex as VERY VERY VERY meaningful.

 

Hey, come on now, Sex and the City is a great show. I don't think you've ever actually watched it or have some skewed peceptions, I watch it pretty regularly, and all of them seem to think of sex as VERY VERY VERY meaningful.

PFFT! Ask a question before making a statement like that! I own the first 2 seasons on DVD, my mom owns the 3rd and I've seen it in it's entirety, and I've seen seasons 4 and 5 on TV. I know Carrie, Charolotte, Samantha, and Miranda better than I know some of my real life female friends!

All of them seem to think of sex as very very meaningful? Hmmm.

Samantha thinks sex is meaningful? Would that explain why in the first 3 seasons she beds another man at least every other episode. She constantly uses the mantra "It's just sex".

Carrie I might agree with...but in Season 2 she sleeps with at least 4 different men. In the span of a 16 (?) episode season, that's quite a bit. In the most recent season, after a 5 month sexual hiatus, she was heard to say "I'm gonna get laid!". All she wants is sex from Mr. Big. That's the entire point of the episode. That it's "Just sex".

Miranda, in Season 3, beds a cop in a drunken haze, along with probably 3 other guys, including poor Steve, whom she is stringing along like a fish. Poor guy.

Charlotte in season 2 and 3 sleeps with just as many men as Carrie or Miranda (Nobody can top Samantha), up until she meets Trey. Her sexual desires threaten to overtake her however, when he can't meet her needs. So she seeks outside assistance...from Trey's gardner at the MacDougal family home.

I think that about covers it. Sex and the City promotes a very free-spirited sexual example. All of them have consequence free sex on an episodic basis.

Try again.

JMA

 

Well, if you watch the show so regularly, you must like it! Also, Samantha has a loose attitude, but she's pretty obsessed with sex to think it doesn't mean much right?

And so what if Carrie sleeps with four different guys that year? How do you know she didn't intimately value every one of those?

In addition, just because sex CAN be fun and casual doesn't mean it ALWAYS has to be super serious and meaningful.

Basically, for someone to think sex is meaningful, does it have to fit your standard?

 

Sex and the City shows the actions of the minority, tries to pass it off as the majority, and tries to pass it off as harmless and without consequences. It just doesn't work that way. You think they could have at least one character that has just one sexual partner per season, or even none.

Six Feet Under on the other hand, shows the mental consequences and the threat of a "loose" sexuality. The character David who is a homosexual Christian that runs a funeral home has been struggiling with his sexual identity all his life. When his Cop boyfriend dumps him because of David's shame and not being able to stand up for himself, David goes to all the wrong places, taking all the wrong drugs, and sleeping with all the wrong people. David's character progreses through the series, and at the end he realises he's been repressing his sexuality all his life, and has even been deeply ashamed of himself.

The lesson is that while you shouldn't repress your sexual emotions, you shouldn't overcompensate by sleeping with people you hardly know, or don't care about.

Sex is always best when it's with someone you care deeply for.

 

Hello All

Monogamy for certain people is difficult to achieve, I don?t believe one should judge a person by how many partners one has had or the lack thereof.

To say that one is keeping ones self to the perfect person limits one in the eventual partner one is to find, also I believe that there is an emotional dissention that can develop with having multiple partners.

The question is what is right for you, with the ever present AIDS issue not mention the possibility of falling pregnant, there are risks either way, have many partners and maybe even loose the partner because you are there to have sex and not to meet the person you wish to live with the rest your life, on the other hand because of ones decision to not have sex until marriage you may also loose the one you love because he or she may want to see if you are sexually compatible with each other.

Now I know it is the oldest argument in the book, I have seen marriages falling apart as a result of not knowing who they were actually living with and sex was one of the gravest issues. With so much choice in life it is sometimes difficult to know if the decision that you are making is the right one at the time, there is no right answer to this rather in this issue follow your heart and not your ????? .

Sincerely

Master-Aries

 

Well this has gone a little of topic...
But anyway, i am a believer of being in love with the person you have sex with, but sometimes your at a party and well theres a hot girl, and you start dancing, and one thing leads to another......OK ill stop there
------
Comic Book Guy

 

Interesting question, JMA, but I think people may have different ways of interpreting the word 'important'.

I've never seen that programme, but it sounds to me as though the characters in Sex and the City consider it important to have a physical relationship, without that necessarily entailing some deep emotional commitment. Perhaps I'm making an incorrect assumption there and am being influenced by the fact that it's an attitude with which I can identify. That doesn't mean to say I don't think the two can go together or that it's not one of life's better experiences when they do. However, I don't consider the lack of a long-term partner a reason for celibacy in my own case; at least, I haven't done so in the past and doubt I will in the future, should the situation arise.

 

It's not that being in love and having that deep spiritual connection isn't the "best" with sex, but who's to say cheap meaningless sex can't ALSO be good? Like the old adage, sex is like pizza, even when it's bad it's usually pretty good.

Also, I admire it when people have values and say "I won't have sex until marriage, that's what I believe." Or "I won't have sex with someone I don't care about."

What does bug me is when people are all like "this other person had cheap meaningless sex for fun! That's so terrible and wrong and degrading, they shouldn't do that." I am all about personal morality, you live your life according to your rules. But why do we have to condemn people who live there lives differently?

It's kind of like with homosexuals. Why do people have a problem with gays having sex with gays? I mean, maybe you don't want to have sex with a man if you are a man, but this "anti-cheap sex" attitude reminds me of how people are so offended that other people they don't even know are living their lives differently than how you think they should.

 

Sex is life (literally). I know for a fact that I can have can sex and not be ashamed, however I have found that it is most rewarding when it is with the person you love. Those that treat it lightly also seem to have problems with intimacy, but I'll leave that up to the Freudians

 

In order to find your perfect mate, shouldn't you be as compatible with them in all areas as possible? Including sex?

That's what most people are doing. They are continuing the search and sleeping with the people that they meet in an attempt to find that one special person. Is it the right way to do things? That's up to the individual. If you can sleep with a new person every week and still respect yourself in the morning then who is it hurting in the end? Your partner of the previous week? Possibly. If they aren't the one though, how far are you supposed to take it out of a misguided attempt to be sensitive to their feelings?

Using Sex and the City as an example:

Samantha, based on her past and the things that happened with Richard this past season, is the character that had never really been in love. She had gone on so long without it that she didn't feel it was needed for her to be a better person or to better her life in any way. After meeting Richard and falling in love, she began to want more. She found herself demanding monogamy. In the end, she was given a taste of what she had possibly done to others and it was a bitter pill to swallow.

Carrie has had an emotional connection with most of the guys we've seen her with. She's the moral center, always questioning whether she's doing the right thing and whether she's hurting anyone in the process. Her entire relationship with Aiden was one ordeal after another and provided her with more growth than anything that ever happened with Big. It has also provided her with the ability to look back on what she's done and mend her ways for the future. She strays every once in a while but most of us do in time.

Charlotte is the antithesis of Samantha. She's the virginal, pure, righteous woman. She's the one who has been looking for marriage from the very beginning and, once she got it, she found that it wasn't entirely all that she needed. She has come out of her shell since the beginning of the show and is beginning to experiment more and more with men she might not normally have allowed into her life. She's still searching but she's broadened her field of vision.

Miranda is the one that screamed problem to me. Samantha slept with more guys and didn't have feelings for any of them but at least she was honest to herself and the guys about it. Miranda doesn't know what the heck she wants. Never has and is only slowly coming around to the fact that Steve might just be the perfect guy for her. Besides the baby thing, she's the one that has shown the least growth in my opinion.


Back on topic though, there is nothing wrong with sex before marriage or many, many partners in my opinion. Sex is just another part of a relationship and relationships can be built or destroyed by it. Usually the weakest ones though. The more well rounded your relationship, the better it will be overall.

 

I think sex is a personal matter between two people, and no-one else's business.

Personally, if two people want to have it, I don't think the bond of marriage is an exclusive state in which couples 'should' only have sex.

I guess that is a non-traditional viewpoint, but I would also have to agree with everyone here that sex is certainly much better when it isn't mindless. It enhances a deep and meaningful relationship, and can be just plain old fun if people aren't in one. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't have any problem with casual sex, I just prefer the relationship variety...make sense?

Of course, if I ever have any daughters, I'm locking them away until they're thirty ...

Peace,

V-03

 

Sex is life (literally). I know for a fact that I can have can sex and not be ashamed, however I have found that it is most rewarding when it is with the person you love.

OMG... I actually agree with tenorjedi for once!

I don't know what sex with someone you don't love is like... which is not to say that I wasn't curious about that sort of thing. My circumstances are... well, circumstantial.

I can't say for certain if it would have been helpful to have the experience... but I can say that I cherish the fact that the person I married had as much inexperience/experience as I... and we learned many things together.

However, who am I to tell anyone else what works for them? It's none of my business.

Those that treat it lightly also seem to have problems with intimacy, but I'll leave that up to the Freudians

Again, I agree to the extent that it's none of my business to analyze other people's motives or interests... or dictate morals to them. I also find it peculiar that we should be wrapped up at all with the emotional question of sex. Many animals have monogamous relationships, and many do not. Timber wolves mate for life. Bonobo chimps, on the other hand, resolve all their conflicts by means of casual sex instead of violence. Is there an absolute as to what's right for humans? I don't think so.

Sometimes I scratch because it feels good, sometimes I scratch because I have a clod of dirt stuck to my arm, and sometimes I think I scratch because a mosquito bit me but in reality the scratching is actually a physiological response which acts as a catalyst for the natural, histamine response to dermal abrasion or penetration...).

Sex feeling good and being an act of procreation is a functional adaptation that may originally have been a coincidence of genetic mutation... but this mutation obviously came to serve a purpose as it was rather conducive to reproduction. Those species whose sexual organs had the most nerve endings concentrated probably, because of the feeling, tended to procreate more often, and thus increased their chances of survival... and those who lacked the mutation may not have survived in such great numbers.

As a result, a rather trivial mutation, like many others, eventually facilitated our survival and only now appears to be deliberately linked to the act of procreation... The initation of this link between sex and pleasure was not deliberate, but it didn't survive by mere chance, either.

There are no simple, black or white, answers in real life, folks. You have to figure out if and when casual sex is for you, and if and when it is not.

 

I guess that is a non-traditional viewpoint, but I would also have to agree with everyone here that sex is certainly much better when it isn't mindless. It enhances a deep and meaningful relationship, and can be just plain old fun if people aren't in one. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't have any problem with casual sex, I just prefer the relationship variety...make sense?

Well holy mother of jehosephat. [face_shocked] I agree with Vaderize.

JMA

 

"becoming??? we've been the minority for at least 3-4 decades"--Kessel Runner

Sigh...if only it weren't so true. I was born a minority.


Anyway, okay, here's the thing. I believe in several logical and emotional reasons not to have sex with someone you're not spending the rest of your life with. Now some people don't need a piece of paper that says "married" to know that they're never going to leave each other. Frankly, I'm not one of those people. Plus, I wanna wear the dress! Anyway, many of my friends aren't interested in conventional marriage and that's okay. I respect them, they respect me. I also understand some people literally can't get married. Personally I believe any two consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want but unfortunately the law doesn't always seem to.

All that said my personal reasons are as follows.

Logical

1.) Babies. Babies are cute. But I'm seventeen and my little brothers wear me out after ten minutes. Plus carring a backpack to school is hard enough without having one in front. Conclusion, I'm not ready for babies. When will I be ready? Well, the age I'm not certain about but I am certain of one thing. My mother was a single parent and while I love her I never want that to happen to me. Some people can do it. They might even thrive on it. Me, I'm going to need the full support of someone I love a trust. And, if I'm going to love and trust that person forever it seems logical to marry formally and at least get tax breaks.(I know taxes on marrieds aren't good now and that's the reason some people don't but I read they're going to change by the time I'll even be thinking about it.)

2.)Diseases. I'd rather have a baby.

3.)The lack of perfect protection. Except, of course, not doing it at all. Hey, some people are fine with that percentage on the condom box not being 100%. I'll even agree that it's too much trouble to worry about everything in life. But the truth is I am a worrier. And it seems like a lot less of a headache, rather than dealing with condoms and pills etc...to just not deal with any of it until I want babies anyway and I trust the person's going to help me raise them. And anyone I trust that much I'd also know wouldn't be giving me diseases(still getting blood tests, though, because it could be something they don't know about!)

Emotional

Some of you say that love can be for someone you're not married to. But short of love for family, house plants, puppies, and kittens I think that love is a truly an uncertain thing. Romantic love is hard to define and I have prolems seeing why, if someone loved me, they wouldn't want to be with me forever. And if they're going to be with me forever why not be married? Seems silly to wait for common law to kick in. You may not want a ceromony but there's a drive through marrige place even! It's not that hard. (For the record, though, I do want the ceremony). Now, if they were to say they loved me but didn't want to spend their life with me then I wouldn't believe them. I think love is a permanent thing. Lust is the passing thing.

But that's just me. If another's person's actions don't hurt me they can have as much sex as they want. I might tell them my opinion. I would never condemn them. If I thought they were making decisions that were hurting them I might advise them but I recognize that in the end they must decide things on their own.

If you read all that I shall reward you with a cookie and a shocked face.

 

All kinds of newfound agreements here .

I read all of that, Teniel . Very thoughtful and resounding.

Thank you for writing it.

 

I read the whole thing, Teniel Djo, and agree with you 100%. Do I get a cookie now?

 

sex only means something if there is love between the two people...so...yeah...

~*Sith*~