I think sex, intimacy, and romantic relationships are needs. No, I am not advocating for women’s sexual enslavement—I am a woman and that would be very bad. Please do not straw man my position by claiming I want to be stuck in someone’s sex dungeon or that I want other women to be stuck in a sex dungeon with men they are not attracted to. Please do not call me a loser LVW incel/femcel or whatever else in the comments.

What is a need?

need (n.)

1. circumstances in which something is necessary, or that require some course of action; necessity.

2. a thing that is wanted or required.

From this definition we understand that a need is something necessary to satisfy a circumstance; or simply put, the conditions required to meet a goal. This means that every need is dependent on the goal in question, and it's not inherently tied to a specific circumstance like physical survival or obligatory human rights. In fact nowhere in any dictionary does it say a "need" is solely referring to survival to human rights.

Something being a need does not mean it must be tied to our physical survival.

Emotional or psychological comforts are commonly though of as needs that allow us to grow into a mentally healthy and well-adjusted individual. No one "needs" loving parents, a support system, or friendship to literally live and not die, but the overwhelming majority of people consider these necessities to the human condition. No one "needs" to feel accepted or valued to physically survive, but we understand these to be a necessity for our emotional health and sense of self-worth.

A need does not mean it's an obligation that must be acted upon.

You can believe something is a need but also believe no one is entitled to have this thing, or that society is not obligated to provide it for you. Needs can and do exist outside of the context of it being a human right.

Something can be a necessity to live a "standard" life, such as phones commonly being considered a necessity to apply for jobs and contact recruiters and potential employers. We can acknowledge that not having a phone would make living life exceedingly difficult, and to not have a phone impacts one's employment prospects (and people would say employment is a necessity to live life), even though having a job is not literally required to stay alive. We also understand that this doesn't mean phones should be given to every adult for free, or that adults are somehow owed a phone just because it's a need.

We can also understand that something being a need does not mean other factors or considerations don't supersede that need. Most people think having friends or a support system is a need, but we don't force other people into acting as our friends because their autonomy outweighs that socioemotional need.

Sex is an emotional need.

Even beyond socioemotional development, we understand that emotional needs exist and are often contextual (as again, a need is only ever a requirement to the defined goal at hand) in reference to relationships. When men stop taking their wife out on dates, she says her emotional needs are not being met.

When women dead bedroom their husbands, he says his sexual and emotional needs are not being met, because sex is an act of intimacy, affection, and sometimes love between two people. I don't think I'm wrong when I say everyone understands that sex means something between two people, even two people who are not in a committed relationship. There are feelings attached to sex, feelings of being desired and wanted by another person that is distinctly different from being liked by family or friends.

Perhaps there is a misunderstanding around PPD about what it means when people say they view sex is a need, and any of the others who share this view should correct me in the comments below if I am wrong, but we are not really talking about "just" sex. Because we understand sex as an expression of desire and intimacy, it's fair to say this expression of desire and human connection is also part of this emotional need.

With respect to the goal of experiencing the entire human condition, relationships, sex, and intimacy are needs to fulfill this. And I am not the first one to identify this; ask yourself why it's called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and not Maslow's Hierarchy of Wants. We inherently see sex and relationships as either teenage or adult milestones, and we understand that there is "something wrong" with people who do not achieve this. They are integral to the human experience.

The dehumanization of people who believe sex is a need.

It's very common around here that when someone (a man) says they feel sex is a need, out come to the straw men arguments about how these men are advocating for sexual enslavement of women and that they just want to stick their dick in a hole.

As stated before, the actual identified need is the social context surrounding sex, the desire and intimacy that come with it. There is a reason these men do not use prostitutes and do not want to use prostitutes, and it's because the need is for authentic human desire as it relates to sex.

By painting these men as sex-crazed fiends who are assumed to want to enslave women and rut endlessly in girl-hole, it's very easy to take the position that these men must be bad. And because they're bad, it makes it easy to dehumanize them and not acknowledge them as real people with real feelings. That they're just silly incels who hate women, instead of people who experience normal human emotions and have normal human needs.

Why is this important?

Every so often we get a post saying they wished people would have an easier time coming together to understand each other, instead of constantly yelling at each other on gender war bullshit. And these posts get tons of upvotes, begging people to take the time to understand and empathize. So, here I am asking you to understand and empathize with those of us who feel sex (and relationships and intimacy) is a need, without insinuating that we must be sexual predators waiting in the wings to enslave women.

And yes, I completely understand the implications of why framing sex, or even romantic relationships and love, as a need can be problematic. Historically and otherwise, such as it breeding resentment when one feels like they can't get it. Despite this, I don't think there is anything wrong with framing sex as a need as long as we are clear on the context, and we all understand that this does not justify subjugating women and forcing them to partner with men.