Why would a sexual connection be so important to some people and not so much to others?

Maybe some have a low, or non existent sex drive.

I think it does depend on the person’s sex drive. We all know it wanes as we get older and as we stay with the same person forever. Some are ok with that, and some still want to be a rabbit, but thier partner can’t keep up.

I would need my sexual chemistry to last for as long as possible, but I’m not going to give up if it wanes. I feel this way because I think sex is a part of any relationship, new or old.

In some cases it’s a consensus reached by the partners in a relationship, don’t you think? Sex is just one of many ways of relating. The partners will, I think, find ways of relating that are mutually satisfying. If sex is a strong way of relating for one partner but not the other, then it turns out not to be a very deep way of relating for that particular couple. This could doom that relationship if they aren’t able to deeply connect via some other channel, but I think that many couples, including mine, are able to.

The physical attraction and emotional involvement go hand in hand with sex. I cannot have sex with someone I don’t like or find attractive enough to get intimacy. If someone I don’t find physical attractive or emotional connected, I will tell them straight to just be platonic friends.. those I have sex with then I will definitely want more than just friends..

The hard thing is “the right person”. I love sex, but I’m not giving it up just to get it with “just anybody”.

To answer the way I think the question is framed, I think high and low importance of sex can exist in the same person.
Personally, I am single and not actively interested in having an SO and when I have little else going on in my life, the libido runs high. Physical/sexual connections take a front position. Back in school (thank God), I connect intellectually with people who are learning the same things and that stimulates me. Sexuality plummets and other aspects soar.

Not in a relationship either but I do have my needs, so do some very close friends…. Lets just say we’re always there for eachother, respectfully.
If the subject comes up.

It is very important to me. @wundayatta I feel the exact same way, honestly. If I ever get married, I’d definetly make a lot of efforts to satisfy my husband sexually. I’d consider it my duty to do so. I regard it as a strong base to a very healthy relationship. I’m not so much into the ‘talking’ as much as I am into the ‘doing’ part.
I’d happily do so, day and night.

I don’t know how old you are, @wundayatta , but when I was about 18 – 40 I could barely contain myself, if you know what I mean. Now it’s as though the fire is still there, but banked to a lower intensity. : )

There’s got to be a fairly strong connection or I’m probably going elsewhere, but it isn’t enough to sustain a relationship. I was with a girl that was an absolute animal in bed. I don’t think there was anything she wouldn’t do. But when the sex was done and I tried to talk with her, I felt like sticking a fork in each ear. We lasted for a little while and then I broke it off.

@CaptainHarley I’m 55 now, and nothing has diminished since I was 16. In fact, I think it’s stronger now. Actually, I lied. There is one difference—my physical stamina. Sex is aerobically challenging, and while my libido and my cock are always willing, I have to be a little slower and take more breaks to recover these days.

It’s not what I thought would be happening when I was this age. I’ve had a challenging libido all my life—and it has always been dissatisfied. I thought things would get easier when I started to slow down, but the slowing down isn’t happening. I’m glad now, but for a while it was really frustrating. Fortunately things are getting a bit better.

I’m not sure I know how to address the issue of the relationship between sex and everything else for me. I never seem to make myself understood.

For me, sex is meaningless without love. Love is made up of all kinds of things, but one aspect, of course, is conversation—or as a friend of mine once put it: you have to want to fuck her brain, and she has to want to fuck yours.

Just as sex is kind of meaningless without love, for me anyway, love is meaningless without sex. I can not separate them. It has to be the whole package, or I do not feel like I love or am loved. Yes there is friendship love and companionate love and filial love, but those are different things. They are strong and maybe deep, but they do not have a dimension that complete love has.

Love for a mate, for me, goes places that you can get no where else. You can’t get there without sex or conversation, or a spiritual connection or any of the other stuff we associate with that kind of love.

Even so, I think there are a lot of different levels of sex associated with this kind of love in other people. I think some people don’t need any sex at all in order to feel that kind of multi-dimensional connection with a mate. Some people need it only a few times a year. Others once a month or once a week or once a day or two or three or five times a day.

If I had my druthers, I’d be a once or twice a day (on average) kind of guy. But the reality is that I’m in a once or twice a month marriage. Neither here nor there. What I want to know is why we are the way we are—whether we need it “all” the time or hardly ever need it. Does sex mean something different to people? Do some people think sex isn’t even part of a spiritual relationship? Where do these notions come from? What experiences lead to our varying levels of sexual desire or of meaning we attach to the sexual component of a relationship.

For me, there could be nothing more important. It takes me a great deal of energy to cope without it, although that’s what I do. I cope. If I lost the ability to perform, I would find some way around it. Maybe I don’t need penetration, but I do need to be wrapped around someone in an embrace as tight as that of a boa constrictor. I need to be together in a way we cannot tell ourselves apart. It makes me whole.

Some people think this isn’t healthy. We should be complete all on our own. And in a way, I do feel complete as long as I know she is out there. But if I feel disconnected, I quickly get lonely, and if it lasts too long, I get depressed and if that lasts to long, I get suicidal. I do not do well all by myself. I think that humans are tribal creatures and we are not evolved to be alone. It is built into us to need to be a part of a community. I don’t think we make sense outside of a community. Or outside of an intense dyadic relationship.

That is my experience, of course. I know other people don’t need very close relationships. There are others who don’t need sex. Others who would be happy living for years with no contact with anyone else. Why? What’s the difference? How can we explain my intense need to connect versus someone else’s intense need for solitude?

Most of it is due to hormonal levels. Then too, if one has come to associate being loved with sex, that’s another major motivator.

Yeh, sex is very important. I think most people want a good connection with their partner.

I’ve come to a point in my life where sex is great, but I enjoy every other part of the connection to a greater degree.

There have been times in my life when I really felt that sex was not all that important. I wasn’t having it much and somehow, I didn’t miss it. It kind of surprised me that I didn’t miss it because i had previously had a really strong sex drive. I needed to be in a relationship in order to enjoy the sex. I was never into casual sex but the relationship did not have to be long term and serious, just mutually respectful. I think for me, the feeling of being physically close to someone even without sex was like something I had always yearned for without knowing I wanted it. I clearly remember the first time I slept naked with a man. It was my 18th birthday. I was a virgin and I stayed a virgin but I will never forget how good it felt to just sleep naked with him. I think that once I was not a child anymore I still wanted and missed physical closeness and touching. I had had a boyfriend before but somehow this feeling of skin to skin and nakedness was new and incredible to me.

After the lull in my sex life I was surprised to find that with the right person it could leap back into high gear! The right person at the right time and the emotional connection creates this synergy that fuels the fire. It seems inexhaustible but I think if the relationship and the connection and the love are not there it will die out.

To me good sex is not just a physical connection but the most intense form of wordless communication that you can have with another person. It is elemental. It is spiritual. It is totally life affirming.

The best sex I have ever had was when I was with someone I had been with numerous times before. Where we knew each other’s likes and dislikes. Where we knew each other’s arousal and response times. When we could almost sense what we needed to do next in order to make the experience more intense. Done right, sex should leave you happily laughing, and I have had that many times, almost passing out with sheer extacsy at times! Ahh! Great memories! : D

I believe it all comes to the person involved in the situation. Others care more while others don’t really care that much. For others sex is everything while for others priorities are others before sex.

The worst sex I ever had was just bloody fantastic.

Right on, dude! LOL! [ high fives ] : )

I always think to myself that I don’t like or enjoy sex very much, but that is because I’ve never had the ideal partner. To me, I find physical beauty and form awe-inspiring and would love to gaze upon the naked figure. I really do appreciate the female form more than I appreciate many other things in life and I crave its image and to caress it. However when it comes to sex… I have little desire to pursue it, though I will engage if the opportunity is there without much effort on my part. This is of course, as my name suggests, my paradox.

Perhaps my past experiences have been lacking for my own satisfaction because I have not had a deep enough emotional bond, or they just were not attractive enough? I don’t know. It usually goes like this… they are well-pleased, wet, ready for more and I am left wondering if thats all there really was? I have faked orgasms, and yes I am a guy. That is of course unsual as I am aware.

I’ve been with a girl who wanted it virtually all the time without being too needy or too descriptive, and as a guy it was too much for me, even though she was very physically attractive and incredibly smart, way smarter than me.

My ideal situation would involve intensity of passion and love on a highly emotional and deep plane, rather than constantly in bed. Once every day or every other day would be nice and maybe a few times a day on a special occasion day would be plenty. But again I think the intensity of the whole affair is vastly more important to the quantity.

What everyone should remember is that the spectrum of human sexual preferences and tendencies is very broad and very wide. In one dimension, there are those at one end who desire sex several times a day, to those at the other end who would just as soon not bother with it at all. Individuals vary from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual, and all points in between. There are those who prefer their partners dominant and rough, and those who prefer their partners to be gentle.

My point is that you don’t have to worry about your sexuality or your sexual preferences. Chances are they are well within the very broad range of human sexuality.

@CaptainHarley is right, of course. However I am also interested in how you think you arrived at the preference you have.

@Paradox1 I seem to have a higher sex drive than my boyfriend, too. I’m getting very moody and disdainful because we haven’t done it in almost 2 weeks.

Sometimes when we have good dates together and connect emotionally, it feels almost better than an orgasm.

This is also my own experience, @thesparrow

Lol I don’t think it’s the same for him, though

I don’t know.. sometimes it feels like these things are a lot more important to me than they are to him.. =[

Sometimes I just shut down and get really cold and distant because I don’t want to be emotionally needy and have to feel that connection all the time. Everything seems better for me than for him: the sex, the conversation, the connection. I just seem to experience the gravity of the relationship a lot more. I don’t know if that makes me lucky or unlucky.

Both, actually.

My emotions are still very much intact, and this is exciting and new to me because it is my first relationship.

@thesparrow I would communicate to him that you want it mOre and that you’d be happy whenever he wants to get a bit feisty with you, if you already havent. Sometimes this might turn him on in and of itself and sometimes guys dont realize what they are and are not doing right (often I think). 2 weeks does seem like a long time, and in the experience I previously described, I was wanted to perform multiple times per day.

Yeh, I wanted that too before.

At least I don’t have what my friend has : 5 minute sex.

hahahaha

My bf wanted to do multiple times last time we met up, and I was so surprised because he never wants to that I had spent all of my energy on the first time.