why do you have sex?

Perhaps your answer to this question is a simple one: pleasure!

But is that the whole story?

When we have sex, pleasure may be part of it, but when you think about all the kinds of sex we have as humans, there might well be other reasons why we step across the threshold of intimacy. Reasons as diverse as we are, and just as frequently changing.

Think of the difference between sex with a stranger and the familiarity of a long-term beloved who knows you inside and out, every quirk and curve.

Or what about the difference between teenage sex and sex in our 70s? Or the hell, yes! of consensual sex versus the passion squashed under the weight of obligation? Think about those times when we feel we should perform or live up to the expectations placed on our gender, sex, orientation, age, culture, race, religion, physical ability, or the Yes we gave a few hours earlier…

And for those who want a baby like nothing they’ve ever wanted more, sex can be a mission, scheduled into the diary and woven with purpose.

We have make-up and break-up sex; sex because we can, because we want to, or because we have no choice. There’s sex that’s new, uncertain, lights-off and tentative – or passionate sex that’s confident, bold, creative and unapologetically bright.

There’s sex to please your partner or reclaim yourself; guilty sex, kinky sex and ecstatic sex; awkward sex, messy sex, half-finished sex, and sex that leaves your curled in pain or radiating bliss.

It can give you a sense of liberation or a space to lose yourself. It can make you feel powerful or small, seen and understood, or left in a wasteland of disappointment and disconnection.

There’s playful sex, average sex, revenge sex, illegal sex, and drunken sex when the room keeps spinning. Or the sex that seemed like a good idea at the time...

It might be sweet and slow sex or rough and hot. It could be scratching-an-itch sex or the deepest expression of love: I see you, all of you, and I’m here.

There’s connected sex, embarrassing sex, surrendered sex, and solo sex when it’s all about you and your body, or sex with two, three or more. There’s also the kind of dissociated sex that comes stripped of feeling; a motion without meaning.

Sex can alleviate chronic pain, banish tension and give us deep physical release. It comes after the funeral or on sultry summer days when we’re part sunshine, part sweat.

And then there’s the sex we don’t have...

Because it hurts, it’s scary, or it feels unsafe. Because our bodies don’t move or respond the way we want them to. Because we’re ill or we’re ashamed. Or we simply don’t want it and prefer to express ourselves in other ways.

Sometimes we’re just too tired, stressed, angry, confused, distracted, or unsure about what to do. Sometimes we don’t know someone well enough – or we know them too well. And children are exhausting!

There’s the sex we can’t have because it would mean hurting someone else and the sex we avoid because it makes us feel too vulnerable, exposed, visible or lost.  

So, is sex all about pleasure?

Yes, and no.

Sex is as multifaceted as we are: raw, joyful, terrifying and healing. It can leave us connected or adrift. Feeling alive or dead inside. But above all, it’s human and an ever-shifting expression of who we are in any given moment of any given day.

That’s what makes it worth exploring – but also why, just sometimes, it can be so very complicated and confusing.