Is sex a "want" or a "need"?

curious

The only point is that procreation is theoretically possible completely without sex.

That's why I used "some version" to describe procreative sex.

Even if it is artificial or in vitro, still takes two to tango.

Unless a woman donates an egg, transfers a somatic cell nucleus, and implants it in her own uterus. How narcissistic would you have to be for all that? A bottle of Wild Turkey is way cheaper.

Again, I would not count reproduction as a physiological need of the individual. It is a need of the species that is to blame for a physiological drive towards sexual stimulation, though. Maslow's works also appear to treat the physiological need for sex as one for sexual stimulation and not reproduction, though he also makes clear that satisfying that need usually involves satisfying higher needs for love and intimacy as well.

He has some interesting points that kinda relate to chastity though:

Certainly, if we may speak of the needs for rest and sleep, we may therefore also speak of their frustration and its effects (sleepiness, fatigue, lack of energy, loginess, perhaps even laziness, lethargy, etc.), and gratification (alertness, vigor, zest, etc.). Here are immediate consequences of simple need gratification which, if they be not accepted character traits, are at least of definite interest to the student of personality. And while we are not accustomed yet to thinking so, the same can be said for the sex need, e.g., the category sex-obsessed and the contrasting one of sex-gratification for which we have as yet no respectable vocabulary.

An ever-recurring question is: Does sexual deprivation inevitably give rise to all or any of the many effects of frustration, e.g., aggression, sublimation, etc.? It is now well known that many cases are found in which celibacy has no psychopathological effects. In many other cases, however, it has inaiìy bad effects. What factor determines which shall be the result? Clinical work with nonneurotic people gives the clear answer that sexual deprivation becomes pathogenic in a severe sense only when it is felt by the individual to represent rejection by the opposite sex, inferiority, lack of worth, lack of respect, isolation, or other thwarting of basic needs. Sexual deprivation can be borne with relative ease by individuals for whom it has no such implications (of course, there will probably be what Rosenzweig (408) calls need-persistive reactions, but these, though irritating, are not necessarily pathological).

The unavoidable deprivations in childhood are also ordinarily thoughtof as frustrating. Weaning, elimination control, learning to walk, in fact every new level of adjustment, is conceived to be achieved by forcible pushing of the child. Here, too, the differentiation between mere deprivation and threat to the personality enjoins caution upon us. Observations of children, who are completely assured of the love and respect of their parents have shown that deprivations, disciplines, and punishments can sometimes be borne with astonishing ease. There are few frustration effects if these deprivations are not conceived by the child to be threatening to his fundamental personality, to his main life goals, or needs.

From this point of view, it follows that the phenomenon of threatening frustration is much more closely allied to other threat situations than it is to mere deprivation. The classic effects of frustration are also found frequently to be a consequence of other types of threat-traumatization, conflict, cortical damage, severe illness, actual physical threat, imminence of death, humiliation, or great pain.

This leads us to our final hypothesis that perhaps frustration as a single concept is less useful than the two concepts that crosscut it: (I) deprivation of nonbasic needs and (2) threat to the personality, i.e., to the basic needs or to the various coping systems associated with them. Deprivation implies much less than is ordinarily implied by the concept of frustration; threat implies much more. Deprivation is not psychopathogenic; threat is.

And yet there are several meanings of self-control, or of inhibition, and some of them are quite desirable and healthy, even apart from what is necessary for dealing with the outside world. Control need not mean frustration or renunciation of basic need gratifications. What I would call the "Apollonizing controls" do not call the gratification of needs into question at all; they make them more rather than less enjoyable by, e.g., suitable delay (as in sex), by gracefulness (as in dancing or swimming) by estheticizing (as with food and drink), by stylizing (as in sonnets), by ceremonializing, sacralizing, dignifying, by doing something well rather than just doing it.

For one thing it can be reported that sex and love can be and most often are more perfectly fused with each other in healthy people. Although it is perfectly true that these are separable concepts, and although no purpose would be served in confusing them with each other unnecessarily, still it must be reported that in the life of healthy people, they tend to become joined and merged with each other. As a matter of fact we may also say that they become less separable and less separate from each other in the lives of the people we have studied. We cannot go so far as some who say that any person who is capable of having sexual pleasure where there is no love must be a sick man. But we can certainly go in this direction. It is certainly fair to say that self-actualizing men and women tend on the whole not to seek sex for its own sake, or to be satisfied with it alone when it comes. I am not sure that my data permit me to say that they would rather not have sex at all if it came without affection, but I am quite sure that I have a fair number of instances in which for the time being at least sex was given up or rejected because it came without love or affection.

Sex is customarily discussed as if it were a problem of avoiding the plague. The preoccupation with the dangers of sex has obscured the obvious that it can be or should be a very enjoyable pastime and possibly also a very profoundly therapeutic and educational one.

youdontknowme

I would not count reproduction as a physiological need of the individual.

But it is a physiological need of the genes responsible for influencing our sexual behavior.

"We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes."

(The best proof I can offer of closet atheism is busting out the Richard Dawkins quotes.)

WriterAlexis Is that not exactly what I said in the sentence immediately after the one I quoted?

As for Dawkins, I quite like a lot of what he says on things like offense, gene-centric evolution and the role of religion in society, but I lost a little respect for him when he started drifting more and more into transphobia in the recent years. Sadly an all-too-common problem in Britain.

youdontknowme

Sadly an all-too-common problem in Britain.

I made an all-trans Harry Potter fan fic just for giggles.

I looked at a few Maslow pyramids again and actually found one that puts sex as a basic need on the lowest level. I remember that there was a discussion about this during my studies and I can agree with the result. The level at which sex is placed depends on the individual situation.

I wouldn't describe sex as a basic need, it's eating, drinking, breathing (in my case, coffee). If sex was really a basic need in my case then I would be dead (which I obviously am not lol)

However, if having children ensures existence, then you can put it on the first or second level. But depending on the personality of the person, it can even serve to achieve the highest level of self-realization

Angelina Maslow classified sex as a physiological need not so much because you need it to survive, but because it derives from a bodily urge (as opposed to an intellectual pursuit).

youdontknowme

Also, sex, not procreation (even if in 1947 the only way to procreate is sex)

Sex definitely is a want, not a need. You can lice happily without it, if that's your wish. You only need to want to do so, if you don't there's no reason to not have it, unless you're unmarried.

Milord Yes, but due to the bodily urge, which, to me, is not a need. It is a want. You also have an urgue to make a lot of cash, thus it's not a need to be millionaire (not considering inflation in europe rising such rapidly you probably need to be a millionaire to actually be able to afford a litre of petrol or a kilogram of meat)

Max9

Ok, but here we are talking about the ideas of Abraham Maslow and his tehory on hierarchy of needs.

Then sex is a physiological urge, and goes on the basic needs, while money ranks among psychological needs

Milord Well, I doubt this guy is almighty and, even thought he might be a know-it-all, I doubt he actually does so.

Max9 Again, the idea that "physiological need" is somehow equivalent to "necessary for survival" is not a correct interpretation of its classification. Needs, in Maslow's theory, are classified as something that, when frustrated, can become overpowering. The fact that individuals can manage their sexual urges without satisfying them through orgasm and/or sexual intercourse is not called into dispute by that classification. He also considers clothing a physiological need and some remote tribes go through their entire lives with hardly any of that.

Max9
Of course not, but he is a very important psychologist
Here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow
and here is his theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

Kaja Please can we stop polemise with real scientist and doctors? They have statistics, studies, and proofs. We have only ours conjectures.

As a real scientist, I'm not sure I'm fond of the idea of allowing social sciences to use that label. It's important to remember that nearly all non-trivial psychology and sociology research simply isn't reproducible.