What is it about sex that generates such profound emotion across all cultures and generates issues we literally have to deal with from cradle to grave?

Has something to do with evolution and propagating our species or something, I suppose.

I think the answer is in biology. Strictly speaking, humans are designed to eat and fuck. As society evolved, sex needed to stay a big part, or that society would die out.

What about the discrimination, the glass ceiling? I was thinking of things other than the biology.
Look at the emotion the ped question raised.

Au fond it is the only reason you are alive.

It’s what lead to my being here, so why do I have to deal with it’s issues for rest of my life, not just when I’m trying to get a little?

It has to do with moraility. if humans had no morales, there would be no sexual problems. its almost to that point today.

In the beginning, if humans were like cardinals(red bird), and humans were 100% dedicated to one partner and no more, you may not be asking this question.

One side of your shoulder is God and the devil occupies the other. temptation is what drives people to wander from one partner.

Biology, preservation of the species. Interestingly, when you’re on a medication that destroys the sex drive the whole process looks rather ridiculous. I think Samuel Johnson had something similar to say along those lines, I forget the exact quote.

@john65pennington You’re probably not one I should ask: What gives someone the right to pass laws banning gay marriage?

Because it is all about sex.

We live to keep the species moving forward.

My anthropology professor taught me that both sex and food are important to people because it links us to the animal world and this idea is both compelling and upsetting to us.

It’s why we’re here.The Meaning Of Life best sums it up, according to Python of course.

I like to call it the Fᵌ Principle. Food, F***ing and Fighting. All three of those are tantamount to human survival, that is why they are so enormously important to us.

@MrsDufresne – They are what make the world go around.

Didn’t Freud believe that almost everything we do is somehow related to sex and sex drive?

Not that I agree with Freud, but it is very significant. It’s significant because those drives are, for many people, present in many ways at many times and those “needs” and “drives” need to be satisfied. That’s just biologically how it happens because it’s the way to continue the species and the species wouldn’t continue if they weren’t there.

As for things like homophobia and taboos and all that, that for the most part just comes from them being passed on from generation to generation and continuing without much to stop it. The original source of course stems most likely from a negative view of anything that was outside the “normal” man + woman = baby paradigm. Anything that goes outside of that: homosexuality, paraphilias, sex for non-procreative reasons, etc. has all kinds of negative associations and has had those associations throughout history.