Sexual Attraction And Friendship

American culture has in recent years become more willing to admit than men and women can be intimate but platonic friends, and yet it is still rare to find someone who affirms that even men and women who are sexually attracted to each other can be close friends.  Many still at least live as if they believe that the latter is not true.  Though the implications are almost always ignored, this mistaken idea has horrendously unsound ramifications for marriage.  In fact, no one can simultaneously believe that 1) spouses who experience sexual attraction towards each other can also enjoy nonsexual forms of intimacy and that 2) unmarried men and women cannot be close friends if either harbors sexual feelings for the other.

Anyone who thinks that men and women cannot be friends if sexual attraction is present can only be consistent if they also think that spouses cannot truly be friends.  Both beliefs are utterly false, of course, but the emphasis here is on the fact that no one can consistently believe the former without completely accepting the latter.  If more people realized this, perhaps no one would ever deny that sexuality and the affection of friendship are not locked in a zero-sum game where the presence of one necessitates the absence of the other.

Regardless of whether hypothetical sexual attraction exists within a friendship or a marriage, it does not have to prevent two people from developing, maintaining, and enjoying a relationship of true affection.  Only a fallacious, reductionistic view of humankind would ever regard anything else as the case.  Sexual attraction and the personal affection of friendship are in no way exclusive.  Indeed, the ideal marriage for many people features both.

A marriage is a genuine, mutual friendship with a distinctly sexual component if the couple wishes (as a marriage where one or all spouses are asexuals who are disinterested in sex is no less valid).  In such a relationship, there is no clash between personal love and sexual feelings being experienced at once despite the fact that they are directed towards the same person.  Though it is almost never acknowledged as such, a strong marriage that encompasses sexual attraction is the most common example of how deep affection and sexual feelings can coexist.

It is entirely possible to feel sexual attraction towards a person and not allow it to interfere with a thriving relationship.  It is entirely possible to feel sexual attraction towards a person and not experience it in a way that detracts from the platonic behavioral side of the relationship.  It is entirely possible to feel sexual attraction for someone and still cherish the whole of their being.  Sexuality is nothing to fear or worship, and the church and the secular world as a whole have yet to admit both of these truths at once.