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Spiritual significance
of coitus.
Erotic Buddha figure,
China, Qing Dynasty
(1644-1911 A.D.).
Courtesy China Sex Museum, Tongli
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Genital intercourse is here defined as involving sexual contact between the sex organs of two persons.
The sex organs are the most sensitive erogenous zones of the human body, and for the great majority of men and women genital contact is therefore the favorite form of sexual intercourse. Furthermore, anatomically penis and vagina are easily joined together. Indeed, throughout most of human history it was only this joining (lat. copulatio) of the male and female bodies that made the conception of new human life possible. (Today, a woman may also conceive by means of artificial insemination.)
In the Western Judeo-Christian culture, sex has traditionally been tied to the purpose of procreation. Thus, for a very long time the union of penis and vagina was declared to be the only natural form of sexual intercourse. Manual and oral stimulation was sometimes permitted, as long as the partners intended it to lead up to coitus. Without this intention, however, such sexual contact was considered sinful. Moreover, in most Western countries the sin was also punished as a crime, and, the 19th century, psychiatrists turned it into a mental illness.
Still, in the course of time, a growing number of psychiatrists began to examine the unquestioned general assumptions about the purpose of sexual behavior, and, as a result, now accept masturbation and oral intercourse as healthy and therapeutic. According to this view of human sexuality, noncoital sex as such need never cause anybody's concern as long as it satisfies the partners involved. There is, of course, every reason to believe that genital intercourse wil! never become unpopular. In the past, it has always been the preferred form of lovemaking for most people, and it will certainly remain so in the future.
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