For The Soft-Hearted Girls That Think Sex Is Overrated

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I love the adrenaline flirting creates and the flutter of nerves I get before a first kiss. I love watching another person’s eyes widen as I get undressed in front of them for the first time. I love the touches and the thrusts and the bliss that they bring.

But I still think that sex is overrated.

Friends with benefits, fuck buddies, one-night stands… They all revolve around the idea that sex is superior to a relationship. They all place value on physical closeness and pull us away from the idea of emotional closeness. Developing feelings for someone you casually slept with is the worst crime imaginable–but why? Why are those feelings unwelcome? Why do we consider them desperate and dangerous and weak?

The next time you fall for someone you swore you’d keep it casual with, don’t blame yourself. Blame society for expecting you to be an emotionless machine capable of engaging in an intimate act without wanting a relationship to go along with it. Blame the way you were conditioned to feel about sex, but not the way you feel about that other person.

I don’t need sex in the same way I need love. I don’t need an orgasm in the same way that I need affection. I can go months without sleeping with someone, and I have, but I can’t go months without having a deep conversation or a comforting hug. I need love, from a friend or a relative, I don’t care. Without it, I’d die. But without sex, I could survive.

When I’m horny, I can consult my vibrator. My hand. Pictures of David Beckham from off the Internet. But when I’m lonely, there’s no superficial way to fulfill my needs. There’s no substitute for a person’s love, except maybe a puppy or kitten. So I won’t apologize for thinking that sex is overrated. Or that love, true life-altering love, is underrated.

And I won’t apologize for wanting sex to consist of tender kisses and eye contact, measures of genuine love. Because, to me, that’s the best kind of sex. The kind that won’t end in awkward goodbyes and unanswered texts. The kind that will end in cuddles and breakfast brought to you in bed. The kind you can have every single day of your life instead of once before it’s gone.

If you can handle one-night stands and FWBs, if you can keep emotions completely out of the equation, then sleep with as many people as you’d like and never apologize for it. But if you can’t have sex without your feelings getting in the way, don’t blame yourself. It’s okay to feel. It’s okay to want something real.

It’s okay to want more than just sex.