Prefer web to sex, says survey vs Why you should choose sex, not the internet

Many women would rather surf the net than have sex, according to an Intel-sponsored survey.
The Internet Reliance in Today's Economy survey of 2119 people aged 18-plus, said that 65 per cent of adults admitted they can't live without the internet.
According to the survey, conducted by Harris Interactive, nearly half of women (46 per cent) and 30 per cent of men would rather go without sex for a fortnight than give up internet access.
For women aged 18-34 it was 49 per cent and for women aged 35-44 it was 52 per cent. Only 39 per cent of guys aged 18-34 would swap the bedroom for the broadband.
Television also copped a beating in the survey with well over half the respondents preferring to give up two weeks of telly than a single week of web access.
Internet availability of many movies and TV shows likely skewed the result, which showed 61 per cent of adult women would happily switch off the box.
And nine out of 10 US adults (91 per cent) report that their lives are better because of the internet, taking into account better contact with friends and family, shopping and financial management like online banking

Why you should choose sex, not the internet,

I have been almost permanently disturbed since reading Dawn Kawamoto's revelations about a survey that suggested women would rather forgo sex for two weeks than give up internet access.
When I read that nearly half the women surveyed felt this way, I had a number of purely instinctive reactions.
First came the notion that the Harris Interactive surveyors, at the behest of Intel, had merely been screening women who work in IT. Which would have made the results entirely understandable. For so many reasons.
However, then I shook off this conception in favor of a simple explanation: perhaps it's the men these women are choosing (not) to have sex with. The slightly more than 50% who could not give up on, as Richard Nixon would put it, fornication, were possibly either fortunate to be in a rare, healthy relationship with a man or preferred the intimacy of women.
So many men can be, as they put it across distant shores, toerags. And the sexual quality that was (not) enjoyed by this worrying percentage of females might reflect male insensitivity and incompetence rather than some lasting lust for the web.

Does she look really happy to you?(Credit: CC Jared)
While I am obviously unable to help with the immediate need for finding better sexual partners, I can, in an attempt to influence Dawn's Readers Poll, offer Six Deadly Reasons why sex will always outscore the internet.
1. When a man crashes, he generally does so after sex. A laptop will often choose to crash right in the middle of the video you've been just dying to see.
2. Sex takes up so much less time than the internet. With sex, twenty minutes can give you a considerable spike of adrenalin and even a little tingling of the fingers in the company of a living and, usually, breathing human being.
With the internet you can lose untold days socially networking till your fingers believe they've just played Rachmaninoff's 3rd at the Lincoln Center. And what do you get for it? A bunch more imaginary friends.
3. When it comes to sex, you've normally had dinner first. Which means that it is far less messy than most people's evenings on the laptop.
They perch it on their knees, fingering the keyboard with their left hand while reaching for Domino's finest cheese, pepperoni and green pepper with their right.
If they're not crisp with their bite, the cheese stretches out like a ghost in a cartoon movie, until it makes contact with the keyboard, sticking to it and sliding into the cracks between the keys. Before they know it, their Apple is cheddared.
4. Sex exposes you for exactly who you are. There you lie, entirely denuded of pretense, being as much yourself as you could ever be outside of, perhaps, when you play golf. On the internet, by contrast, everyone lies. The interactions you have are as false as a flamenco dancer's eyelashes. How can anyone take pleasure in that?
5. Sex gives you something to talk about. It gives the tabloids something to write about. Which gives people something to read about. Which gives them something to talk about. Can you ever imagine a publication solely devoted to what Britney Spears and her fellow cohort of stars do on the internet? How crashingly dull that would be.
6. The internet will always be there tomorrow. What about your lover?

Sex Tips For Geeks: On Being Good In Bed

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Lust Facts :Always aroused: A good thing gone awry

we should all be careful what we wish for when we are wishing for more feelings of desire. “Anything unrelenting is torture.”
Suze has begun conversations with doctors this way: "I want to talk to you about something, but you have to give me your word you will not laugh or give a flippant response because it is a serious situation."
In short, Suze has too much of a good thing. For days, sometimes weeks at a time, she feels constantly aroused, but can't get any satisfaction.
Despite the preamble, though, "one doctor looked at me and said, 'What a lucky man your husband is! I wish my wife had this,'" says Suze, 63, a retired nurse in Florida. Others have asked, "So, is this like being a nymphomaniac?"
Hardly. Suze, who asked that her last name not be published, has what is now called persistent genital arousal disorder, or PGAD. It was first named by sex therapist Sandra Leiblum in 2001 as persistent sexual arousal syndrome, but as Leiblum and others have begun studying patients, she decided that it was more a disorder than a syndrome, a syndrome being a constellation of symptoms that suggest the presence of true disease.
In a recent article in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, Leiblum and her co-authors identified a series of medical and psychological traits, including depression and panic attacks, that can accompany PGAD. Though some women are helped by psychiatric drugs, Leiblum strenuously resists the idea that the problem is necessarily psychological. “I do think there is always some organic contribution, but we just do not know what it is.”
Exactly what it is remains murky, but Suze’s symptoms, like that of other sufferers, involves a feeling of "fullness" — a constant engorgement — of the genitals that is unprompted by erotic thoughts or feelings.
"I could be in the middle of a tennis game [or] playing canasta," Suze says, "and then suddenly have this intense urge for intimacy. I could masturbate five times or 105 times and it would only make it worse."
Leiblum, who is now in private practice in Bridgewater, N.J., and treats a wide variety of sexual and relationship complaints, says her description of the disorder did not occur until 2001 because, like most sex therapists (and sex columnists), she heard many more complaints about lack of desire and arousal than she ever heard about too much of it.
Some women with PGAD tried approaching doctors, Leiblum says, but “I took it seriously and listened to what women were telling me. I said to myself, ‘This is bizarre and different from anything else I have heard of,’ but I believed what women told me rather than writing them off.”
Nobody knows how many women might suffer from PGAD. And the feeling of genital arousal is not always unwelcome. Some women like it. But if it is not causing distress, it is not considered a disorder, and so such women cannot be said to truly have PGAD. The ones who do describe a living hell.
Just repressed?
Heather Dearmon, a 33-year-old housewife and mother in South Carolina, became so desperate she voluntarily had herself committed — twice — to psychiatric institutions. “One psychiatrist said I must be sexually repressed and needed to experiment more," she says. "He suggested I try lesbianism.”
Her symptoms began during her pregnancy with her son. She asked her ob-gyn, who suggested that the pregnancy may have played havoc with Dearmon’s hormones and advised waiting it out, hoping the urges would subside after the birth. “But the day after I gave birth they came back,” she recalls.
The feelings were so intense and so persistent that she was unable to ignore them or even carry out daily functions. “It got to the point where morning, afternoon and night I had to take care of it. But the more you masturbate, the more you desensitize yourself so it would take a good hour to have three orgasms. This is at the point when I started to become suicidal. My whole life was being robbed from me.” She began pushing her husband away because she treasured any time she was not feeling aroused.
Finally, with her fears mounting over plans for a long family car trip, a doctor prescribed the anti-anxiety medication Paxil. Soon after beginning dosing herself, she found the urges became less frequent. Now, she can go up to 10 days without having to masturbate, though by day seven the arousal, focused on her clitoris, is often severe.
Why this happens remains a mystery. Research is still at an early stage, but some tantalizing hints have begun to emerge. One of Leiblum’s collaborators in England has found that some women complaining of PGAD can have concomitant conditions like a yeast infection or a dermatological outbreak around the genitals. But Leiblum stresses that the only thing for sure is that both can happen at the same time, not that one causes the other.
Sometimes biofeedback techniques can help, suggests sex researcher Beverly Whipple. “A couple of women were very successful,” she says.
Sex and the brain
Whipple, Leiblum and Rutgers University psychology professor Barry Komisaruk (Whipple’s co-author of their 2006 book, "The Science of Orgasm") are currently using MRIs to examine the brains of women suffering from PGAD in hopes of discovering how the central nervous system might play a role.
The PGAD mystery is just one of several linking the brain with too much arousal. One woman had spontaneous orgasms while brushing her teeth though she did not have orgasms while having intercourse or masturbating. The tooth brushing apparently triggered epileptic seizures that, in turn, caused the orgasms. (People with epilepsy sometimes do experience what is called “orgasmic aura.” In some cases, patients have been known to refuse treatment because they like the sensations.) Another woman had orgasms due to a vascular abnormality in her brain.
Men with obsessive-compulsive disorder have been known to have unwanted and unexpected erections. Parkinson’s patients can become hypersexual. So can people with brain injuries.

Men with a condition called priapism also can have too much of a good thing. Those constant reminders at the end of commercials for impotence drugs tell men that if they have an erection lasting four hours or longer they should seek medical advice. What they don’t say is that you might have priapism, an erection that simply won’t go away. Unlike PGAD, priapism does not usually result in a man craving release, it’s just very painful, a hydraulic malfunction that can be treated by — have a seat men — sticking a needle into the penis to draw blood out.
But even that gruesome scenario is nothing compared to what some of the women suffering from PGAD say they have experienced.

Lust for Loving feel

Lust for Loving feel:

Like friendship, love can die. And sometimes the cause is just boredom and benign neglect.

IF DIVORCES are on the rise, what does it say about society and that crazy little thing called love? That “I love you” doesn’t mean that much anymore?

That values like faithfulness, commitment, loyalty and patience are in short supply?

That the belief that the family is the building block of society – and marriage the foundation of the family – is being chipped away?

That love is no guarantee a marriage will last? That marriage is no guarantee love will last? And that even if love doesn’t last, marriage is no longer the glue that holds couples and families together?

That love between a couple can actually die?

A recent study of the United States, Russia and the Scandinavian countries suggested that the traditional “seven-year itch” has been replaced by the five-year itch.

In the 1950s, the rule of thumb was that amber lights would flash when a marriage hit the seven-year mark. Today, couples are at their greatest risk of divorcing just before their fifth wedding anniversary.

The thing about folks like me who’ve never been married and who are maybe harbouring a secret longing to be (if we find the right person, of course) is that we’re incurable romantics.

We believe in the power of love. We actually think people mean it when they utter that till-death-do-us-part bit in their vows.

We place the institution on a pedestal and cling to fairytale ideals and images even when all around us we see daily evidence of how married life can, in fact, be pretty dreary and dreadful, the grind of housework, finances to be managed, children’s homework to be supervised and just general petty marital annoyances.

Yet, when I hear that couples I know are divorcing, I always feel sad and even let down.

How can it be that if you’ve been lucky enough to find the love of your life (for you must have, to have married each other, right?), you can no longer bear to be in each other’s company? How can you let that love slip away?

Then again, whoever said that the feeling would last forever?

When it comes to love, we’re at the mercy of our biochemistry, say researchers.

One of the best-known experts in this subject is anthropologist Helen Fisher of Rutgers University, the United States.

Love, she says, comes in three flavours and each involves different hormones and chemicals in our bodies.

Stage one is lust, that intense longing driven by the sex hormones testosterone and oestrogen which “get you out looking for anything”.

Stage two is attraction, that wondrous love-struck phase when you feel exhilarated and think obsessively of that one person.

Neurotransmitters called monoamines come into play here. There’s dopamine, which gives you waves of exquisite pleasure even over the smallest thing about your beau.

There’s also norepinephrine, which makes you sweat and your heart beat faster, and serotonin, which has a similar chemical appearance to people suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder.

If a relationship lasts, attachment takes over as the third stage (some experts say the transition from attraction to attachment can take 30 months). It is the bond that keeps couples together, especially when they go on to have children.

Two hormones are released: oxytocin which is released by both sexes during orgasm and helps them bond; and vasopressin, which supports behaviour that leads to long-term commitment.

When disaster strikes

The big problem, though, is that one person can experience the three stages at the same time, with disastrous consequences.

Says Dr Fisher: “You can feel deep attachment for a long-term spouse, while you feel romantic love for someone else, while you feel the sex drive in situations unrelated to either partner.”

The result? Adultery, pain, anger, jealousy and ultimately even divorce.

The thing about love I’ve found is that familiarity does breed contempt or at least boredom, and you’ve really got to work to keep the feeling going.

Little things about your partner that were sweet in the beginning inevitably start to sour once you’ve past the lovesick stage.

Little annoyances can accumulate to make you explode.

But for some, love has a use-by date. Just as friendship between platonic friends can outlive itself, so, too, can long-term romantic love.

I’ve found that love can disappear for a variety of reasons. The cause can be sensational, such as when a partner does something that hurts and deceives you.

More often though, the reasons are prosaic, like over-familiarity, boredom and benign neglect. And with the first-stage lust long gone, the love is quickly spent and you just aren’t into each other anymore.

Still, to have loved and lost must surely be better than to have never loved at all. – The Straits Times Singapore / Asia News Network

Sex genes in addiction? :Study links faster habit formation in females with genes on sex chromosomes

"I think [the study is] very cool," said Ronald See at the Medical University of South Carolina, who was not involved in this research. The investigators have established a simple method for teasing out sex and hormonal differences that can now be applied to behavioral tests, he said.

Sex differences in addictive behavior, long linked to female hormones, may also be driven by genetic factors, according to a new study published online in Nature Neuroscience.

A now-classic study that compared male and female responses to cocaine showed that females were more sensitive to the drug's reward effects during the estrus phase of their menstrual cycle, establishing the theory that hormone levels influence addictive behavior. But the contribution of sex chromosomes was not previously examined because there was no technique for separating hormonal factors from genetic ones.

Jane Taylor of Yale University and colleagues identified a naturally occurring mutant mouse in which males lacked a gene on the Y chromosome called SRY that is responsible for the formation of testes. These mutants, while chromosomally male, did not develop testes. The researchers then inserted the SRY gene onto an autosomal chromosome of a mutant male -- which developed normal testes -- and crossed that animal with a normal female. The resulting strain consisted of four phenotypes: genetic males with testes; genetic males with ovaries; genetic females with ovaries; and genetic females with testes.

"Until this mouse model we didn't have a way of addressing this issue," first author Jennifer Quinn, also from Yale, told The Scientist.

The researchers examined the speed with which the gonad-crossed mice formed a habitual behavior in response to food. The mice were trained to poke their noses in one of three holes in order to receive food. But when they were taught that the food was no longer tasty, genetically female mice -- regardless of their gonadal status -- continued the nose-poking behavior out of habit, even though they stopped eating the food. (When trained long enough, all four phenotypes developed the habit.)

The study doesn't contradict the body of data that implicates hormones like estrogen and progesterone in addictive behaviors, said Quinn, but it is the first demonstration there may be a sex-linked genetic component as well.

Teasing out addictive behaviors that are more strongly associated with sex-related genes could allow scientists to look for specific X-linked or Y-linked genes that could be targets for addiction therapies, said Quinn.

But she added that the study only indirectly addressed addiction behavior, since the researchers used a food response rather than a drug of abuse. While she plans to test responses to drugs of abuse using this experimental model, she said the results suggest that depression and conditions such as Tourette's syndrome, which have components of compulsive behavior, might also be affected by sex chromosomes.

Wendy Lynch from the University of Virginia, who was not involved in the study, said the research addressed a component of addiction that hasn't been given much attention. Most studies on drug addiction have focused on the initial reward -- the euphoric feeling -- that comes with satisfying a craving, but this work instead looked at habitual or compulsive behavior that contributes to addiction but often sets in later.

The results give a "hint or suggestion that females could develop compulsive behavior faster," Lynch said.

"It could certainly have implications on how learning [in general] takes place," as well as other motivation behaviors, See said.

"It really makes you wonder what else might be going on here," said Lynch. "I think there's going to be a lot of work that follows on this. I think it's going to be exciting."

Technorati : sex chromosomes

Lust thinks

Lust is a primary ingredient of sex addiction. In our correspondence with sex addicts, we find that people are often confused about what lust is. Lust is harmful to the body, mind and spirit, and it can easily be mistaken for love. Lust has the opposite effect of love.

Definitions (Webster’s 9th New Collegiate Dictionary):
Lust: (n) Intense or unbridled sexual desire, lasciviousness...an intense longing: craving; (v) to have an intense desire or need, crave
Desire: (n) Conscious impulse toward something that promises enjoyment or satisfaction in its attainment... longing, craving...Sexual urge or appetite

How lust got started: One of the Greek words for lust is Epithumia (Strong’s #1939), meaning the "desire for what is forbidden." It is based on the lie that the forbidden pleasures are worth the cost (see sex addiction lies). Satan used this lie in the Garden and Eden. He suggested that eating the forbidden fruit would bring great god-like wisdom and the punishment wouldn't be that bad. This strongly appealed to Eve (Pride of Life), who also liked the fruit's appearance (lust of the eyes), and wanted to eat it (lust of the flesh). She discovered that the fruit did not deliver what she thought it would. The consequences included curses and separation from God.

What God says about lust: Lust is sin (Matthew 5:28) and sin is death (Romans 6:23). Jesus said, "But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28 NKJV). When we entertain fantasies through pornography, masturbation, voyeurism, adultery, fornication, phone sex, etc., we sin with our minds. According to Jesus, that's the same as committing the act.

Lust and pornography: Pornography uses the same lies that Satan used in the Garden of Eden. Porn images tempt our eyes and flesh to lust (see how porn works page). James described the temptation process in James 1:14-15 NKJV: "But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death." Sin by lust causes the death of innocence, sexual health, the ability to love and sensitivity to God.

What lust does to us: Lust has many destructive effects. The most serious effect is that lust corrupts our ability to love God. John explained that lust is a way of loving the world. He wrote, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world--the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life--is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever" (1 John 2:15-17 NKJV). Lust cripples our ability to give and receive love, and blocks God's love from working in us. See our page Lust vs. Love for more information.

Other effects of lust include slavery to sin, dissatisfaction, blocked blessings, separation from God, ruin, self-hatred and hardening of our heart. For an in-depth look at these, see our What Lust Does page.

Prayers: Removing lust from your life begins with confessing and repenting from our lust. We can pray this simple prayer to confess our sin to God:

"Lord, I confess that I have lusted in these specific ways: ……(name them all). I see my attitudes as sinful. I am sorry for grieving your heart in my pursuit of carnal pleasure with my eyes and mind. I ask Your forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ. Thank you, Lord, for this forgiveness I have in Jesus Christ."

Repenting from our sin is just as important as confessing it (Luke 13:3). Repentance means to turn from our sin and commit to living for God. We must sincerely turn from our sin and avoid it from this point forward:

"Lord Jesus, I turn from my lustful ways now, and I surrender every source I have used for lust: ....(name them all). I cast them off from my mind and body, committing my eyes, mind and body to serving you in holiness with your help. Lord, please teach me, strengthen me, guide me, and draw me close to You for the difficult road ahead. Thank You, Jesus, Amen."

"My Lust For Sex"

by an Anonymous Female, age 43


"I was so glad to find a story at this site about another Christian female that was addicted to sex. However, she was 19 and I am in my forties."
Sex became an addiction to me when I was only a teenager. I became promiscuous at a very early age. My father was always too busy for me and he and my mother were divorced when I was six.
While they were married, my bed was always in their bedroom with them due to the fact that we were poor and didn't have enough money for a 3 bedroom house and I had two older sisters. I don't remember ever seeing them have sex, but I must have at some point.

As a young teenager, I was approached by other girls older than I to have sex with them out of curiosity and I did. I really enjoyed it but I wouldn't admit it. Due to rejection of love from both parents I turned to boys to find love, and my sexual addiction only escalated from there. I always had sex with almost every boyfriend I had from the time I was 15 on. I have no idea how I didn't get pregnant - surely it must have been the grace of God. I always fell in love with each boy but they always dumped me after they got the sex that they wanted.

My first husband was a Christian who was brought up in a very strict Christian home, but was addicted to pornography. After we got married I caught him masturbating in the bathroom. He confessed that he did it daily over any female he had encountered that day. One time he put a porno magazine over my back while we had sex. I knew that was the last straw. Even though I had been promiscuous, I never knew that a woman could masturbate and I thought it violated my relationship with my husband.

I left him and dated a guy in my twenties who taught me about masturbation, toys, pornography, having sex with multiple partners, etc. I dated him for two years.

I was saved as a teenager but because of my addiction to sex, my relationship with God has always been hindered - sometimes to an almost non-existent point. During the time I dated this man (who was 8 years older than I), I encountered bisexual relationships and learned that I had a very strong appetite for sex, whether it be with a man or a woman.

During that time, I basically put God on the shelf because I felt that God would rather I be hot or cold and if I were lukewarm He would spew me out of his mouth.


"So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth."
--Rev. 3:16

After I caught this man with another woman, I left him and starting having an affair with a married man. I hoped he would leave her but he didn't. I tried living with a couple of different guys at different times, always falling in love, but the relationships always ended. I also had affairs with other married men, but they never left their wives. I also continued to have sex with women and go to gay bars so that I would be picked up. I never would get serious with them because I was only wanting sex - not a relationship. I knew I wasn't gay, but I had to satisfy that urge in me to be with a woman.
I married again in my late twenties and had children. I put all my sexual addictions on the shelf. However, that marriage broke up also because of his infidelity. He couldn't be true to me during our whole marriage. For five years after that I went back into my wild lifestyle and had sex with men and women.

I did quit for a while and I've been more close to God since that time. I am now married again. However, for some reason, lately, the sex drive that I have been keeping stuffed inside of me has come out again. I now feel as though I could very easily go out and bring another woman home for my husband and share her with him. My lust for sex has escalated to a higher point than when I was in my twenties. My husband can barely keep up with me. I've rented porn movies and been given one by a Christian friend of mine. She seems to think that anything that goes on inside of marriage is ok if it doesn't hurt your partner and it is agreed upon.

I now get on the Internet and go into chat rooms and have cybersex with anyone I can find - male or female. As usual I've put God on the shelf because there is no way I can pray to Him and ask for His forgiveness knowing fully well that when my hormones rage again, I will continue in my quest to fulfill my lust.

My spiritual life has never been this low and I don't know if I can recover. Hebrews 10 talks about tasting the Holy Spirit and then being given over to your lusts for the salvation of your soul
For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins..."
--Hebrews 10:26
I've written a Christian message board site and asked for prayer. I didn't get specific about my problems, just that I was failing and falling into a bottomless pit. My husband has participated sometimes and has been addicted to porn since he was also in his twenties. However, he gets convicted and goes back to church where I cannot. I cannot play games with God. I know I need deliverance, but I don't know if I can give up my lusts just yet. I need help!
Please pray for me and the other women who also suffer from this addiction. It's not just a man's addiction any longer...

source

LOVE WITHOUT SEX

In other words, love does not change just because circumstances change. Let's face it, so many people mix up, confuse love and sex, intertwining both, mistaking one for the other, that when they say, "I'm in love," all they really mean is, "I'm loving the sex that I'm having with you."

And so the question is asked, can we really love someone without having sex with them? I know that we can have sex without loving, but does the opposite apply? Well, that was the topic on FAME FM's Uncensored last Monday, and even though I only caught a few minutes of the tail end of the programme, what I heard was most intriguing and revealing.

The truth is, we are all born virgins, devoid and bereft of sex, and live for many years without any desire at all. But the fact of the matter is, it was sex that brought us here, so the genesis of our very existence lies in the carnal act. Also, if some of us only knew what circumstances brought us here, we wouldn't be so smug and judgemental of other people.

Some may have been conceived through love, yes, but I daresay that a lot were brought here through mere carnal pleasure, the byproduct of a lusty, loveless encounter, a fleeting moment of sin, perhaps even a one night stand. But what is true, in many cases, at that very moment, either the words "I love you" were uttered, or at least one party thought that love was involved. Sadly it's usually the woman who thinks this. Wake up and smell the musk, it was not love, just sex.

Still, you will never be able to convince some people that they weren't in love, while the reality is, they were merely in sex. But can we really love someone without having sex with them? Some people, men especially, will lie about it, saying that they can love a woman without having sex with her, but all they really mean is that they are masters of patience, and can play the waiting game for months on end, for he knows that in the end, if he waits her out, untold pleasures will come his way eventually.

So the words will say, "Honey, I love you, and sex really does not matter, it's not your body, but your mind that I want." But the thoughts really are, "I will hold out as long as it takes, and I will tolerate your stringing me along, but eventually you will give in, and I will have my way." And yet there are people, and men, yes men, who can genuinely love a woman without sex being a part of the equation.

One example is this movie star, Terrence Howard, one of the rising black stars, pretty-boy matinee idol types of Hollywood, a guy who you'd think was tearing down the town with his sexual exploits. And yet, he decided that he doesn't have to have sex with the women he dates even though he really cares for them. His theory is, that way, he can date several women at the same time without any feeling of guilt or cheating or emotional stress. Well, he's a strong man, and more power to him, but does he really genuinely love these women, or is he merely using them as stepping stones to the right one? When he reaches that right one, can he love her without the sex?

Closer home, on the Uncensored programme, one of the guests, emotionally said that there is a woman whom he loved for many years and it's pure and genuine, and even though she is involved with someone else, if she were to leave that relationship, and even lose the ability to have sex through some physical problem or whatever, he would still marry her in a heartbeat, knowing fully well that there would be no sex involved...forever. I must tell you, I was moved by the young man's statement, for so many of us are blinded by lust and sex, that we cannot and will never experience true love.

And yet, there are so many who proclaim that there can be no love without sex. Another guest on the programme said that was impossible, and he only gave a woman up to three weeks to let off, and after that, if she doesn't, is gone him gone, on to the next possibility.

And there are also women who share this view, for even though they profess undying love for their men, this love evaporates if the man is incapable of having sex with them, so they will leave and seek carnal pleasures elsewhere. "Is what kinda dead-stock man yu is, if you can't manage the work I will get smaddy else to help yu out." No wonder there are so many stressed-out, anxious young men around, many experimenting with male enhancers and boosters to improve their performance as they seek love.

For in their minds, no sex, no love. A lady recently told me that she read that around 40 per cent of young men in Jamaica between the ages of 25 and 40 years old, were having sexual problems, and in effect could not perform. "Imagine, when I was younger I had to run from guys that age or beat them off with a stick, and now, here it is, they are all dead stock," she said.

Whether these figures are true or not, I do not know, but even if they are close, it's cause for concern. Her argument is borne out by the fact that the sex toy, booster, enhancer, Viagra, Cyalis-laced industry has taken off to be a billion-dollar industry worldwide, and has even mushroomed here in Jamaica. People seek pleasure because they are looking for love. Men feign love looking for sex, and women fake sex looking for love. Why can't the two go hand in hand?

But we must be honest with ourselves, can we really love our partner if no sex is involved? If one day your man came home and said to you, "Honey, I have found the Lord, I have given up my life for Him, sex is a sin, so we must cease and desist," what would you do? Or if your woman said the same thing, or heaven forbid, something should happen like a physical illness or mental disorder that rendered either party incapable of having sex, would either one stay?

There are many medical reasons such as diabetes, high or low blood pressure, stress, that render men impotent. Should they worry that their women would stop loving them? There are also many reasons why women can't or will not have sex with their men, should the love fly out the window too? It's a tough call, for the truth is, sex does bring people closer together, and the more they have it, the closer the emotional bond becomes.

Take it away and there is a strong risk that the bond will be in jeopardy. Even women who are off sex like it when their man requests it of them, as it shows that he still cares. Now I'm not talking about old people who have no more desire for sex, but rather people who are still in their prime, that's when the true test of love without sex manifests itself.

We all know that sex brings problems, but it also brings great pleasure, but the pleasure far outweighs the crosses, hence the constant pursuit. What is true, is that if sex is the main focus of any relationship, then it is doomed to fail, for when the sex wanes, as it will, then there is no emotional substance, no foundation to hold the two together.

That's why so many young marriages barely last a few months, for as soon as the lust wears off, it's out the door and on to the next sexual playing field. Very few one-night stands end up in serious love. Take sex out of the equation for a bit and perhaps people may think more clearly. On that first date, the guy won't be thinking, "I wonder if she'll sleep with me later?"

And she won't be worrying, "Should I give in now, or hold out for a few weeks, but if I wait too long he might leave and if I give in now he might think me cheap and easy?!" Perhaps if they concentrated on getting to know each other, then true emotional love might grow. Now I'm starting to sound like an old man or even a parson, but it's just a thought that warrants exploring.
Love without sex, perhaps it's just a fantasy; for some, when the sex goes, so do they, but with true love, they'll stay through thick and thin, sex or no sex. As one married man told me, "Of course I can love without sex, after all I've been married for twenty years now, and I still love my wife." More time.

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