How important is good sex? It’s a topic that can feel paradoxical. We either dismiss it as it is too obvious to mention or recoil at such a blunt and rather inappropriate conversation; a discomfort that is particularly acute among intellectuals.

To the intellectual true love at its core is about connection, compatibility, and alignment. And even though we have urges – a consequence of having a physical body – we must never let them dominate our choices.

Except of course we should.

We sleep, we eat, we fart, and to put it very gently, we need to fuck. For we are far duller when we deny our low urges the priority they need.

To succeed at relationships, we need good sex – not at the performance level but rather at the ideas level - very often. In order to feel acceptable to ourselves and our partners, to reconnect with our bodies, and to feel close.

But often “intellectuals” in pursuit of other priorities neglect or ignore this need. When we meet someone there are many things we consider: Will my friends like them? Will they get along with my family? Do they get excited by art? Are they better than this other person I used to date? How do they feel about the political and economic state of the world right now?

What we do not ask is, “How good is the sex?”

And here we have to admit there are nuances.

Sex is not one thing.

There’s the type of sex that happens when the same fantasies arouse us, when past emotional experiences are shaped into compatible kinks. When we are drawn to the same erotic acts, scenarios, or mental images.

The best sex occurs when our desires are psychologically aligned, and ultimately this deep compatibility either exists or it doesn’t.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

More often than we can admit, when a couple breaks up, we don’t need to look for explanations elsewhere. We need to look at how good sex the was. Did it happen enough? Were they each other’s types?

The tragedy is, most of the time it is here that we find the problem. Neither side thought they could overcome the shame and own up to what really turned them on in private, their so-called perverted sides. They believed that sex wasn’t as important as being aligned elsewhere. And in hiding, they ended up destroying a significant part of their lives.

True intelligence is learning what teens already know: sex is weird, very important and sometimes we have to let are primal urges have their way.