We, on the other hand, think sexual pleasure can certainly contribute to love, commitment, and long-term stability, if that’s what you want. But those are hardly the only good reasons for having sex. We believe in valuing relationships for what we value in them, a seeming tautology that is wiser than it sounds. A relationship may be valuable simply because it affords pleasure to those involved; there is nothing wrong with sex for sex’s sake. Or it might involve sex as a pathway to other lovely things—intimacy, connection, companionship, even love—which in no way changes the basic goodness of
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