Get Over it
Sex is a game

July 21, 2002

The major problem with how sex is viewed today is that it is considered the most important and central motivation among human beings and for the whole of life. From Freud, to evolutionary theorists, to today's advertisers, nearly everyone thinks of sex, with its resultant procreative consequences, as more important than any other goal. Sex, however, can be shown to be only one symptom of a larger need, the need to play games. This section will examine that idea.

When certain theorists claim that life forms behave in this or that sexual way because they want to pass on their genes, it is their typical attempt to put the cart before the horse. They have yet to demonstrate any being has ever acted to pass on its genes. It is like claiming that a man who tripped down the stairs was trying to get hurt merely because he fell.

While there can be little doubt that people and animals frequently have the goal of sex in mind when engaging in sex and even on occasion they have the goal of procreation (which is not the desire to pass on genes), nevertheless the act does not always include those goals and more frequently does not. If there are any exceptions to a rule, then the rule does not exist – and what we are looking for are consistent rules in nature.

Sex is a trick, obviously, which can result in the survival of life itself, just as all games are tricks which incidentally result, at various times, in survival. And while the emotional rewards of sex have slightly added powers to direct the actions of individuals, still sex manifests itself in ways that are generally irrelevant to reproduction or to the survival of life.

It is true some people have children with the stated goal of carrying on the family gene pool. But so can people have the stated goal of having sex to fix a roof. A stated goal of using sex can be anything within the realm of verbal possibility. For sex to be about genetic reproduction it must be so while the action is being motivated. An off-hand comment is quite irrelevant.

Sex is pursued for reasons derived from emotional rewards and punishments. Family gene pools can only become relevant if an individual has thought of his family as "his" side in some contest of "last-man-standing" or other some-such game - otherwise, the goal can never occur. Many genes from countless families are being passed on in reproduction so any claim to them is tenuous at best, a fantasy at least. And this goal of maintaining the family gene pool is in fact a name-game which can be taken on, or disposed of, in the same fashion as any other game.

If sex is not about game playing, it must be able to avoid being a game 100 percent of the time, it must have no game-goal possible and must not offer any game stimulated value to the participants. It can't be done. Sex is rarely, if ever, about reproduction. Sex is often the goal of a game in itself and it gives values that have nothing to do with reproduction. It is safe to dismiss any notion of sex itself being consciously for reproduction.

People and animals demonstrate the power of sex continually to be one of the greatest behavioral influences there is. However, sex has demonstrable failings when it comes to the performance of the act itself. Yes, the mere physical stimulation of genitals can cause a sexual reaction. But even there and at all times certain mental rituals of sex must be carried out for sex to reward the participant. Rituals are, of course, games and conform to the requirements of all games.

The act of sex without a goal, without rules, without challenge or novelty, without play, without emotional reactions, without the discovery of value, without all the aspects of any game, will not succeed.

Think of the number of couples who have sex the same way for months or years and eventually stop doing it. One of those above game aspects has failed them, so the game has stopped. Sex is still a powerful factor within them, but with the failure of the game of sex, there is no sex.

GRH