As the responses to the Love Bytes posts of the last two weeks [Why Marriages Fail (Part 1) and Cheating: Symptom Of A Bad Marriage?] attest, the issues of sexual monogamy, sexual satisfaction in marriage, and sexual infidelity strike a chord with a lot of people.
As a result, it might be good for us to take another look at these issues --- issues about which so many of us have opinions, questions, doubts, hopes, convictions, disappointments, dreams. And often our sentiments surrounding these issues are felt quite strongly, and with good reason --- these are areas from which lots of Scar Tissue On The Heart have been formed.
Have you ever thought about why people have sex? I know, isn’t it obvious? Actually, it’s probably not as obvious as it at first appears.
When we look at animals, there’s not a whole lot more going on in sex than sex. For animals, sex is about copulation.
But for humans, sex is not just a biological reality. [Don’t get me wrong --- obviously, there’s lots of biology going on.] But there is a whole lot more going on besides just the physical act of sex. Think about it. If we were watching two people having sex, would we be able to tell what is actually happening for each of them in the process of having sex?
Each semester (in the Psychology of Marriage and Family course that I teach), I ask students to come up with all the different reasons why people have sex. And each semester, the ensuing discussion (which is delightful, by the way) generates about 18 different reasons why people have sex. Here they are (in no particular order).
- Pleasure [personally, I have never understood a phrase like: “We are working at getting pregnant” --- that is not work!]
- Reproduction [while most of us are busy making sure that pregnancy does not happen, there are some people who are trying to conceive --- as one student exclaimed one day in class: “I know that’s why my parents had sex – they wanted me --- other than that, I just can’t picture them having sex.”]
- Sexual Release [if you know horny, then you understand this one]
- Love, Affection, Closeness
You can begin to see why sex (by humans) can be so difficult. If one partner just wants to “get it on” (and can’t wait to get it off) and the other partner is having sex in an effort to develop greater love, affection, and closeness, the potential for a sexual train wreck is obvious.
[With animals, sex is about sex. But with humans, there is a lot more going on.]
- Make-Up Sex [some argue that this is the best sex out there --- no wonder people who love make-up sex end up fighting so often]
- It’s Expected [I am sometimes surprised by how frequently this one is mentioned in class with the postscript that they (read women here) wish sex was not an expected part of an exchange]
- Self-Expression and Self-Exploration [sex can be an experience of personal growth]
- Money [most will probably think of prostitution here, but I suspect many of us have known people who have married for money, to which I have to add the old Yiddish saying that ”the person who marries for money ultimately ends up earning it”]
- Gift of Self [can you picture the gift wrapping?]
We are half way through the list. We will take a look at the remaining 9 reasons people have sex in next week’s Love Bytes entry.
In the meantime, you might see what you come up with.
