NSFW: How important is physical intimacy in a relationship?

First off, This question comes from a friend, so please don’t take any of my previous posts into account when reading this question.

My boyfriend and I have been together 6 months, I’m his first girlfriend and he is a virgin, I’m not… I’m also older than him. I have no problem at all not having sex with him, because I love him and our relationship is wonderful without it. I don’t hold sex very high up, I enjoy it, but as long as I have some kind of intimacy I don’t find it that important. A lot of my friends think its weird and say that if it was them they would be frustrated with him, how important is it?

Another thing that does kind of bother me, or at least make me confused is that he seems just not into it. I would like to have sex, its no big deal, but I have asked him about it and he says, “its not like a religious reason or anything and its not that I’m not ready or something like that, I just don’t really want to, I like the way things are.” I’d feel a lot better about it if he had a real reason, it seems weird to me that he just doesn’t want to, I mean, he’s a teenage boy! Any thoughts on that?