I’m willing to speculate that while physical evolution can take a mighty long time, social evolution can happen in a comparative eyeblink. It therefore seems to me that, were desire to have sex for sex’s sake to vanish overnight, within a generation or so the most successful behaviour patterns would be those that caused people to form social relationships that provided for the begetting and upbringing of children and the instilling of the importance of the children’s continuation of the same. Pair-bonding is, so far as that goes, highly reasonable since the people with the most vested interest in the upbringing of children are the ones who end up doing so.
There’s this insistence that if sex isn’t pleasurable as it is now then it must be highly repellent. That doesn’t follow. It needn’t necessarily be any more unpleasant than half an hour in the gym for those who get no pleasure from exercise, or any of a hundred different kinds of physical labour that we perform on a regular basis to stay alive. Gutting chickens or changing babies’ diapers is no fun, but if it needs doing then you learn to cope, and even become inured to an extent; you can even laugh and joke with your partner and say “Dear God, what have you been feeding this child!”. There’s no reason why baby-making need be any worse than that.
True, The Joy Of Sex would be gone in a frozen heartbeat, to be replaced with How To Get Knocked Up With Minimal Fuss, but hey.
That’s just you, dude. You’re forgetting that men are equally necessary for reproduction and, in this scenario, equally indifferent to sex. You’d therefore see just as big a push for men to be coerced or outright forced into the role of “impregnators”; it’s arguable that women would still want babies in far greater numbers than men would want to beget and support them, and it’s men’s rights that would be taking the hit. Or else that both skewed positions are equally a crock.
It’s a central reason for having romantic relationships, yes. And the purpose of most sex acts is social bonding/pleasure, not reproduction; in essence this change takes away the glue that makes such relationships hold together.
It takes away sexual desire, which is an important emotion.
Short term, we’d have a serious problem of population reduction.
Long term, it’s hard to say. Evolutionary forces would be at greater play than usual, and any genetic or social mechanisms that favored reproduction would quickly dominate the population.
I disagree. We’re obviously wired differently. I’d want a life partner regardless of sex.
Admittedly, sex serves as an important bonding factor, and without it, a lot more marriages would fail. We’d definitely see more MM and FF couples living together, and I bet, more plural and flexible arrangements as well.
BTW, we don’t need life partners for sex (news flash!) I won’t deny that it’s a factor, but most of us choose life partners (and choose to HAVE life partners) for a lot more reasons than merely to have sex.
As has been said, getting married for sex is like buying a 747 for the in-flight peanuts. There are still plenty of reasons why people would pair off; mutual comfort, support, economy of scale, child-rearing, and actually valuing each other’s personality. Sex is one element of the glue, but by no means the only part or even the most important.
I mean, I’m not Captain Feminism over here, but even I never said “What’s the point of having a woman about the place if she’s not going to fuck?”.
It’s the central reason to have short term hook ups. Unless you are desperate and think you’ll never find anyone else to fuck you, sex is low on the list to get married or have a long term monogamous relationship. Because you don’t need either to have sex. In fact it’s often a barrier to have more sex since your partner will generally frown upon random hook ups.
The most important reason to get married is to have someone to scratch your back. Second most important reason is to have someone to look at something that’s hurting, and ask if it’s a zit or blackhead or do I need to see the doctor?
My daughter lives alone (well, she has two cats, but they aren’t much help) and I do worry about her when she does something like break a couple of ankle bones. It’s just a hell of a lot easier to go through life if you have someone who is willing to pick up your slack every now and then, and of course you return the favor.
As reproduction is sorta important evolutionaryily-wise, there are multiple biological/chemical pathways reinforcing pair bonding and even mating. Put another way, you could eliminate the pleasure received during the sex act and animals would do it anyway. That wouldn’t destroy the sex drive, never mind other aspects of pair-attraction.
Evidence. While I presume that female cats derive some pleasure from sex, they also seem to experience some pain. They do it anyway. This one is more graphic: female humans often tell the male to slow the heck down during The Act. Oddly, it’s not like slower speeds are not pleasurable. It’s just that it’s not the first inclination of some guys.
Anyway, whether you interpret the OP narrowly or broadly will affect the outcome. Der interprets it broadly, for example. But narrowly speaking you could even retain a sex drive while eliminating the pleasure from the act itself. So the OP needs to think about the different sorts of inclinations to pair-bond (there are several) and decide which ones he would eliminate. (Get to work! )
Sex is 2 distinct things to me:
1- the desire to connect to another person at a very deep level.
2- a form of mutual self gratification.
Without #2 along with masturbation, I don’t see much great loss, and hope those people can find pleasure elsewhere. In that I also see less unwanted children.
Without #1 I see the end of humanity in the eyes of God, a flood reset, so to speak. No reason to continue, humanity has failed in evolution - invest in dolphin stock and hope for happy sex there instead.
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