Key points: Sex = good for you. Humans = not monogamous. When not in a relationship, I just hire fashion models to have sex with in order to save time on dating and focus on other priorities. Great sex = biochemistry.
I think of sex as something similar to exercise, meditation, or food. Another physiological need to be addressed in a time-efficient way; another tool to enhance health (talking about safe sex obviously) and intelligence. There are many reasons why sex is useful for intelligence:
If we do not get it, we spend a lot of time thinking about it. Pursuing it, watching porn etc. Useless distractions.
Society is sexualized and ties the male ego to having sex. Doing so makes the ego content and easier to control.
Sex leads to favorable hormone profile changes that enhance mood, and reduce stress [1] and even help sleep [1]. Funnily enough I even noticed a very clear correlation between sex and my own deep sleep levels, and anything that improves deep sleep is very valuable.
There is evidence that sex boosts our neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. [1]
Getting great sex takes too much time and energy:
Dating takes a lot of time. Much of that time is wasted. On people who are not a good fit. On idiotic things like swiping on Tinder or going to clubs (screws with sleep). Casual dating = trading our time and energy for sex and reassuring our ego that we are desirable.
Monogamous long-term relationships can be great if we are together with someone who is a true friend and shares our values — I was in a MLTR that truly made my life better and it might happen again. But MLTRs are a challenging solution for sexual desires. Human biology is not monogamous. I quote: “Overall, of the 1,231 cultures in the Ethnographic Atlas Codebook, 84.6 percent are classified as polygynous [one man many women], 15.1 percent as monogamous, and 0.3 percent as polyandrous [one woman many men].” [1].
Just straight up paying for sex in one-time cash meetings off the Internet is frankly emotionally-unpleasant.
Masturbation doesn’t deliver the same benefits for some reason. It seems we do trick our brains, but not fully.
Further reading: