Ice Cream Sundaes

We often take things for granted that always give us satisfaction. Here are some examples - it always smells good after it rains, ice cream sundaes always taste good, and sex always feels good. What? Huh? I got your attention, didn’t I? Sex always feels good. Okay, maybe there are exceptions but it almost always feels good. Have you ever thought about why that is? You say you don’t want to analyze it. You just want to do it. Okay fine, but why do you want to do it? Because it feels good. And now we are back to where we started. So, why is it that sex feels good? What reason could there be?

Well, it ain’t rocket science. One of the primary objectives in nature is the continuation of the species. Having sex ensures that the species will continue. So now you might say that people can have sex for pleasure and not just to reproduce. Okay, that’s true but here we are again talking about why it feels good in the first place. If sex didn’t feel good, we might not bother with it and then we would be in danger of the human race going extinct. So, nature developed the orgasm as an incentive for people to engage in sexual behavior. That’s what a biologist would say anyway.

Human sexuality is more complex than just a way to fulfill the need to reproduce. People are social animals. We get positive reinforcement from other people for things like status, prestige, and money. We pursue these things to some extent because they can potentially give us access to more attractive sexual partners which, in turn, bolsters our self-esteem. So, even though nature has primed us to enjoy sex, it’s the social reinforcement and how it makes us feel about ourselves that keeps us doing it for reasons besides reproduction. Now, why am I suddenly craving an ice cream sundae? Hmm…