Why Do You Have Sex? [Sexy Time]

By Jasmine R.

One of my new favorite ways to inspire myself to do something (or, more typically, *not* to do something) is to ask myself “why?” It’s such a basic inquiry, but sometimes I have a tendency to mindlessly go through the motions without stopping to examine whether or not what I’m doing is beneficial to my life. I know asking yourself why you have sex seems dumb since there are so many obvious reasons – it feels good, the intimacy is awesome, it’s the easiest way to get knocked up, etc. But I think it’s an important question because it serves to remind yourself of what you hope to get out of every sexual encounter. It can be really easy to fall into the trap of accepting less than what you want or feel you deserve, and while there may be a lot of times you have to settle, but I fail to see any reason you should have consistently unsatisfying sex.

I have a friend who has been casually hooking up with this guy for the last few months. They started off as acquaintances before it turned sexual. Recently, she told me that he had never gotten her off.  She would give him oral and he would claim to be too tired after the fact to reciprocate, and since she doesn’t orgasm from intercourse she was out of luck. He gave her oral once in the time that they were hooking up, and not only was it not great, but he didn’t make any attempts to improve, even after she communicated to him many times that she needs oral/clitoral stimulation for maximum pleasure. He refused to change his selfish ways. Even though she wasn’t okay with the way things were, she continued to sleep with him. A huge part of this is because she genuinely liked him and enjoyed spending time with him, so she settled for not ever having orgasms with him and he was reaping the benefits off hooking up with a selfless woman who gave him BJs on the regular. This arrangement is currently in the process of dissolving because she finally did some serious contemplating and realized this selfishness extended way beyond the bedroom; as long as she continued sleeping with him and maintaining the status quo, he was never going to change, and there wasn’t enough intimacy/respect in the rest of the relationship to make up for the sub-par sex. A lot of us have definitely been in a situation where we let ourselves be strung along and/or mistreated by people without ever stepping back and asking ourselves why we’re spending so much of our time/energy/life we’ve wasted trying to please someone who will never return the favor.

Regardless of your motives for having sex – the orgasms, the validation, the desire to please someone else, whatever it is – sex should never consistently be a chore or something boring or just plain bad. If it is, there’s something going on with either you or the people you’re choosing to have sex with. Never fall into thinking you have to settle for less than what you deserve. You deserve partners who make your pleasure a priority, and you deserve to not feel uneasy about your sex life.

[Lead image via carol_anne/Shutterstock]