Can you have a great relationship, a great marriage or a great life without sex? I think there is a whole lot of pressure to have sex from the time one is a teen and all through adulthood. But, not everyone likes sex that much. There are many reasons:
- Traumatic experiences.
- Old age.
- Handicaps.
- Just not a sexy person.
- Better things to do.
So, why is it so common for couple to brag about how much they get it on? Why do men brag about their sex drive "I could never LIVE without sex! I'd rather DIE!" (Really? I'd rather live.) Women are doing it too more often now. Female friends give me TMI way too often-- and then I feel the pressure to do it too-- I want to say "Oh yeah... I'm like the sexiest person evah! Yeah!" Even though I'm probably more like average or even a little below. Some of the time we'd rather read each other articles from the transportation planning blog than get nasty. Or maybe just play a quiet game of chess. But, if I listened to women's magazine's or some marriage advice blogs I'd start to think that my marriage must be in "deep trouble" because it's not steamy enough. It causes me to worry about nothing.
But, why am I letting other people set standards for us? If we're happy who cares?
For people who aren't married the pressure to be sexy is more disturbing. I'm not someone who thinks sex before marriage is the worst thing in the world, but I don't think it's right and wouldn't it be easier for young people to wait if sex were not so emphasized as the central element of a relationship? I think a lot of young people think they are not "going together" until they "hook up" -- that mentality doesn't really foster good relationship building skills.
My grandmother has a theory: she says that the pressure young people get to have sex is mostly coming from a very small group of really horny young men. They want young women to THINK that sex is important to having a relationship since they know a lot of young women want to be in a relationship, so they are the cheerleaders for the idea that sex=relationships since it gives them more chances to have sex.
Grandma's theory is very dated, and not very feminist, but I think it has some truth in it-- only maybe it is a group of women AND men doing the cheerleading. Making it "uncool" not to be sex fiend.
I'm still figuring this stuff out at 30. What do you know about it?
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By the way, I started thinking about this after posing the following to a guy who is against gay marriage for religious reasons:
If two men fall in love with each other court each other, have a marriage ceremony (but without the kiss) wear wedding rings move in together and adopt and raise a child as a family together-- but, they never sleep together or have sex. Yet they still love each other as deeply as any straight married couple ever has... Is that sinful? Is that outlawed in the Bible? Where?
The answer, of course, is nowhere. But, this guy decided it was "impossible for such a relationship to exist" so I started thinking about how we have let sex become the defining aspect of love. If the religious right has anything it is a few passages condemning gay sex, along with cutting your hair and doing your animal sacrifices the wrong way. The Bible says nothing about gay love. Why would we assume it is condemned? Possibly because we've forgotten the difference between love and sex.