Does sex equal love in a romantic relationship?
Okay — most people would roll their eyes if you asked them that. OF COURSE sex does not equal love. Sex is sex and love is love. Yet… when one partner does not want to have sex with the other partner, there can often get translated into a lack of love or lack of passion.
The bottom line is no matter how often someone tells their significant other “It’s not you. Really. I just don’t want to have sex at all,” the partner still hears, “He doesn’t really want me. He’s not that into me. He obviously isn’t attracted enough to me. If I was really attractive, if he really thought I was sexy, if he really loved me, he’d want me.”
Here’s the deal. We want to be wanted. We need to be wanted. And most of us yearn to be wanted in the most fundamental, elemental, intimate ways possible. And that, like it or not, translates into sex. Many, many people cannot live in a relationship without having the kind of affirmative, intimate connection that sex affords.
So I guess if pressed I’d say: Yea, sometimes sex does equal love.
