Do people really think sex is needed to live?

[Shandris]

125. Define 'live'.

It isn't required to continue to draw breath, no. Neither is human contact of any kind, yet we were up in arms when they keep a prisoner in solitary for a 'cruel and unusual' amount of time and rightly so.

So...define live.

I contend that to have a life worth living, then yes...it is a requirement except in instances of people who, for whatever reason, don't have the desire for it (asexuals). Just as there are people who can go without human contact for huge periods of time however, they don't disprove the rule. Rather, they are the exceptions that prove the rule.

However, I should point out that this intimacy can be faked rather easily, and will be able to be done more easily so in the future with robotics and VR programming. IOW...it's an interesting question, but one that won't be germane too much longer.

Edit: On the off-chance someone is silly enough to somehow read a defense in my post, don't. There is a far cry difference between sex and 'sex with this person or tiny subset of people who I explicitly choose', and there are various ways of accomplishing it other than 'girlfriend/boyfriend'. This should be obvious.