No Need?

Prohibitionists are fond of claiming that nobody “needs” sex; in order to sell their evil belief that the State should have the power to inflict violence on individuals for peaceful, consensual acts of which the State nonetheless disapproves, prohibitionists try to represent sex as a mere “extra”, like playing video games or going on vacations.  Those of us whose profession includes tending to the sexually wounded and touch-starved know better; we understand that while people don’t die for lack of sex, they also don’t immediately die for lack of other things that the prudes would still refer to as “needs”.  Life is not merely a synonym for “biological existence”, and there are many things which have nothing to do with maintaining biochemical processes, yet are necessary for a life that isn’t low-level torture.    The psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed a “hierarchy of needs”, with the basic biological requirements such as food and oxygen at the bottom and pursuit of one’s own personal potential at the top; the needs at the bottom are most paramount, and it’s very difficult to consistently pursue the needs at the higher levels when there are holes lower in the pyramid.  Note that intimacy (including sexual intimacy) is in the middle, yet prohibitionists claim it’s unnecessary and even say people have no right to it; one wonders what kind of dreary, prison-like existence they believe humans “should” be leading?  Nor are sex prohibitionists the only ones whose minds are poisoned by this evil belief; drug prohibitionists have for many years now waged a campaign against people getting relief from chronic pain on the grounds that some of them might enjoy the drugs.  These are not the thought patterns of normal, morally-developed human beings, but rather the sick beliefs of busybodies whose own sexuality is only satisfied by denying happiness to others.

English is a language with a very large and nuanced vocabulary; for most concepts there is a broad selection of words to convey subtle differences in meaning.  But in this case the language is lacking; there are no adequate words to cover the gap between “want” and “need”.  The former implies mere preference or desire, while the latter indicates something that’s required for a healthy life, and the few words we have to bridge the gap, words like “yearning”, “longing” and “pining” come across as more poetic than specific.   I am not exaggerating in the least when I tell you that cannabis has kept me going the past two years; I don’t “need” it like I need food or water, and I often go a couple of days without it when my schedule doesn’t permit a long-enough downtime.  But neither is it a mere “want”; it enables me to relax, to control my anxiety, and to relieve the deep sorrow under which I otherwise labor for most of my waking hours, and it allows me a quality of sleep I had been denied for a decade.  Certainly, there are other drugs that might do the job…but not as well, and at the cost of deleterious side-effects, a level of medical surveillance with which I’m not comfortable, and more money than I can afford.  Similarly, my clients don’t “need” my services like they “need” oxygen, and yet it often isn’t a mere amusement either; recently the wife of one of my gentlemen publicly thanked me for relieving her husband’s stress and told me I was great for their marriage.

If most people were morally-developed enough to respect each others’ differences and preferences, it would hardly matter; whether another person’s desire for human contact is merely a fancy born of boredom or an aching emotional wound makes no difference if everyone respects his right to seek it for himself.  But sadly, that is not the case; we live in a world where evil lunatics claim the right to assess why others want what they want, and to use violence to deny it to them if they can’t “prove” that they “need” it badly enough…and often, not even then.