Some things cannot be boiled down to the simplest, most black-and-white answers. I can say sex is important, as I do believe it is. However, I would not also call it a "top priority" and I do not believe it's "equally" important to the emotional/spiritual qualities that make up the relationship such as love, respect, honesty, trust, etc. If those things aren't present in such a way that both spouses feel inclined to express their love to each other in this way, that being by making love, then I think it is self-gratifying to expect sex just because there's a ring on the finger. It's too black and white and too legalistic for my taste. I really don't get why people see that as so negative and discouraging. What is so bad about expecting a relationship to be healthy before jumping in the sheets? I'm not demanding perfection; but I am requiring emotional intimacy to be present before I can be physically intimate. I also do not equate sex with love. I see sex as one way, merely one way, to express love. It can also be had, within a marriage or without a marriage, without emotion or love behind it which imo is unhealthy for both parties involved. Just because it's happening, and the two partners are married to each other, doesn't mean it's healthy or helpful to their relationship as a whole. It can in fact be quite the opposite, and was in my relationship for quite some time. Legalistically, I figured it should be happening, so we made darn sure it did. And I'm not saying it wasn't enjoyable. We took pride in our great sex life no matter what other difficulties we may have been facing in our relationship. But in the big picture, looking back, we were using sex, even with each other, in a negative and unhealthy, dishonest, Band-Aid solution, codependent way. I regret it. No one's saying that married people should avoid sex or be afraid of it or think it's "bad" or any of the other wierd things being inferred in this thread...a few of us are just expressing a different view of sex's role in marriage than that it should be happening whether the rest of the relationship is good or not, and that it is always positive when occurring within marriage as long as there aren't crazy extremes like infidelity or abuse (although it's even been argued that it's still important during/right after infidelity, which makes me gag a little). I love sex; but I don't see it as "important", a "need" or a "priority" because I don't want to fixate on and force the issue if the other, more-important-to-us-issues are on shaky ground. Why would I want to express intimacy and love if I'm not feeling it or experiencing it outside of the sheets? To me that rings false. It can be a lie to ourselves to cover up the scary truth. If that possibility doesn't bother you or you don't think it's valid, ignore the feedback and go at it, by all means...but it's not for me. I'd rather go without while working to get the relationship or whatever else (there can be other issues preventing sex) back to where it needs to be in order for that to happen naturally and healthfully again.
