Here is my take- Sex is a thing that people do that is (potentially) pleasurable. As such, it is something that people do for quite different reasons - kind of like speaking in words. It can be used for good things (like communicating on this forum to try to help each other) and it can be used for evil (trying to defraud someone or abuse them). It can be used for fun; "twas brillig and the slithy toves" and just enjoyment. So people have sex for the same huge variety of reasons people do... well just about anything else.
Why do people think sex is important for healthy intimate relationships? That seems more like Angel's specific concern (yes?) The basic answer is that we are not only mental and emotional and spiritual creatures, but we are physical too. We like to feel that visceral attraction to someone, and have that someone feel the same way about us. And it is better to be able to express our love for each other in more ways rather than less. Why limit yourself to dinner, when you could get dessert too? That bit is pretty simple. Doing it is another story entirely. The ideal is to have sex be an activity that, more than any other, allows us to break down the boundaries between ourselves and for a short time "merge" into the "one person" that the law and various religious traditions describe as the "married" state. Not to get too metaphysical about it, when we manage this we leave a bit of our soul with the other person, and carry away a bit of theirs with us. This can have unexpected and in principle unpredictable practical consequences for conduct of intimate relationships. (I say this so that no one will ask me what they are:sneaky:) The difficulty of this for most everyone is demonstrated by the fact that it is realistically achievable with only one other person at a time.
One source of the difficulty people have is that the capacity for such merging is one that is ... delicate and needs nurturing. And if one spends one's youth getting sex imprinted as something frightening, and about power and control, or even just about physical pleasure - it is a challenge to re-integrate the emotional and spiritual aspects of it. Not impossible, mind you, just something that requires some patience and practice and tolerance for setbacks and frustration. Not unlike learning to cook, which no one expects to come "naturally!":D
Angel, are you a horse person? (I forget who is and isn't here...) with horses, if they have been abused or seriously traumatized, we often "start them over" from scratch, as if they'd never had any training at all. And with a good trainer it often works....
Meant to write more, but am being called away... maybe later.
