You make an excellent point about sex being a means rather than an end. Looking at the question from that perspective is really helpful. Thanks for your thoughts.

“How important is sex?”

I think that all depends on who you ask. There are people with zero sex drive, and yet some of them still have a desire to couple with a man or a woman. As I often say, to me, sex is the penny in the currency of a relationship: the shiny copper catches the eye, but each instance of it is tiny compared to other aspects of pair bonding and orientation. It’s nothing compared to, say, wedding vows or the joint work of building a home together.

“Would bad sex be a relationship deal-breaker?”

Bad sex? Hey, a penny saved is a penny earned ;-).

Again, I’m sure this is so very subjective, but to me, like currency, sex is a tool, a means to an end, and I think trouble happens on both sides of the gay debate when it’s seen as an end.

It’s one of the tools used to strengthen human pair bonding, and research is putting together even the way it chemically works to that end in our minds. As long as you can get from point A to point… um… O with your partner, and you feel that rush of signals through the brain, then that benefit of sex should follow.

As a means to an end, there is no bad sex, just more or less effective sex as a tool of building a union.

I think a lot of people experience that rush as an aim, though, gay and straight, and the pleasure of it makes that understandable. In the past particularly, many gays would just take what they could get, even if it were only pennies. Many couldn’t afford the more valuable aspects of their orientation because it would be too conspicuous in a culture that might even arrest them.

“If you removed sexual intercourse from the equation would sexual orientation still matter to you?”

Personally, yes. I came out at 15 and didn’t have sex until after I met Rob, at 18 or 19, but was gay the whole time :-). Again, it’s something used to build the relationship, but the aim of who you best pair bond with is decided by orientation. Orientation, for me, is a way to direct a person to that kind of love. Orientation decides that sense of rightness and purpose when you imagine all the aspects of pair bonding with someone for the rest of your life.

The same goes for the various aversion aspects to orientation. Dating girls, for me, felt wrong to the core, even before I knew what people did when they had sex, but it doesn’t for some men, even those who do prefer and end up with a same-sex partner.

Eh, I think I may have explained my view of it better here.

“What aspects of a relationship are more important to you than sex? Which are less important?”

Good Father > Good Husband > Good Lover > Good Cook > Good Speller

I figure, with age, we’ll all lose the ability to have sex some day, but that day we’ll want our spouse by our side more than ever.

An HH number does have the advantage that it shows a continuum and includes bisexuality as suggested by the “shades of gay” in your recommended article. Also, having been used for well over 50 years it shows up in a lot of the research and gives us a kind of standard metric.

I think the sexual orientation dimension does need to be given some consideration along with at least the two other important factors I listed above. But how to measure it precisely is probably going to be a challenge for let’s say a 15-20 year old who is trying to figure out where he/she belongs on the scale. Until you have some sexual experience it might be hard to figure it out and, if bisexual, you may need both kinds of experience before you know what you really like most.

There is an internet location that gives a modern translation and helps define position (http://www.ehow.com/how_2167808_tell-stand-kinsey-scale.html) if anyone wants to check. Or one can find it defined by the original language and even get the appropriate t-shirt at the Kinsey Institute site!! The Klein Grid includes a similar approach but adds more complexity. You can also get a link for that at the Kinsey site. The Grid uses numbers 1-7 instead of 0-6, but after the rating you have 21 Klein numbers instead of 1 with the KInsey Scale It can be a little baffling trying to figure out how to use all 21 numbers.

BTW, I meant to say “sublimation” in my previous comment, not “sublimination.”

Overall, Ron and Marybeth make convincing arguments for the difficulty of “mixed orientation” marriages. I whole heartedly agree.

and I have to say that I still feel that way. The only objection I had to your response, Ron, was on the issue of bisexuality and the HH scale. I’ve since gotten over my aversion to the label “bisexual,” but I’m still not entirely comfortable with the HH scale as a way of measuring sexual attraction. It just feels oversimplified to me. I do appreciate, though, that you incorporate other factors into your approach, and that the HH scale is just one way of attempting to make sense of a very complicated set of emotions and experiences.

I liked this article also. As you well know, I tried once to explain my take on this issue in the Dialogue article where you first told your story. I believe my position is close to what you and MOHO seem to agree on above. Anyone contemplating an MOM would do well to proceed cautiously, but in the end it is a personal decision, hopefully made with everyone informed and choosing what they feel is best.

I devised a little strategy which involves 3 considerations when people are thinking about an MOM. First, there is the issue of sexual orientation which Saletan mentions. The shades go from bi to gay: HH= 1 to 6 and that dimension, when fully realized (which may take some years and some experience), is important. Second, there is the level of libido and the ability to sublimate libido. Some are asexual and in such a case item one is perhaps irrelevant. Those with high libido and little sublimination ability will be greatly challenged if they also are 6s and are in an MOM. Third, there is the level of maturity and compatibility with the partner. When a couple in an MOM share many interests and get along well and they have the maturity to ignore some feelings to accomplish desired goals, then things are possible that otherwise are not.

So, at this vantage point, Ben, I’m wondering how you feel about what Marybeth and I said to you back then, as compared to now.