What do we mean by "Sex"?

Here's a working definition: sex is all the feelings and activities that arise out of our reproductive heritage.  That's pretty broad — some people might like to restrict the word to mean one particular kind of activity or event, such as a penis ejaculating in a vagina — but the broader definition has the advantage of showing how a lot of different things all fit together in our lives. 

Sexual Emotions

On the emotional side, sex includes physical attraction, crushes, infatuation, deep love, desire (lust!), obsession, pleasure, arousal, orgasmic ecstasy, and then all the nurturing, protective, loving feelings we have for our children.  It also includes fear, embarrassment, shame, jealousy, and other negative reactions we regularly experience around sexual activity. 

Sexual Activities

Anything we do to contribute to sexual arousal is definitely a sexual activity (including all our incredible mental gymnastics).  In a broader sense, all the things we do for the sake of pair-bonding (sharing rent?), and all our child-bearing and child-rearing activities (college tuition?)  can be considered sexual as well as. 

Wait a minute, how did paying rent and college tuition become sexual activities?  The point is that sex is at the very center of our lives, biologically, emotionally and practically.  From an evolutionary perspective, it's the most important thing we ever do. 

All You Need is Love

The word almost everyone uses to talk about the central importance of sex is love. Some people like to consider that glorious emotion entirely separate from messy reproductive matters, but the evidence is against them.  At times it's useful to distinguish different flavors of love, such as ardent sexual love versus nurturing parental love. No matter how you slice it, though, 4 out of 5 poets, anthropologists, mystics, psychologists, theologians and biologists will all tell you: Love is what makes the world go round.

We think it's pretty obvious that down-and-dirty orgasmic sexual activity is the best (and most traditional) way to create and express the wonderful, transcendent complex of sexual emotions that is love. That's one of the reasons we feel it's sacred.