One school would allow man no flavor for his fare and the other would have us all on a straight pepper diet. We want to stay out of this controversy.
This is one of the Big Book's comments about sex. I've always thought this odd but had never realised why until very recently.
Pepper is not a food group. And pepper is not the only condiment.
In other words, sex is not an activity, an area of life, a thing to pursue in itself: it is the condiment in a relationship, and not the only way to express love. It's entirely optional (unless you want to produce offspring). It is not needed for wellbeing. It is not needed at all.
I've got into serious trouble in the past by doing precisely what modern society approves: seeing sex as a domain, an activity, a hobby, a key pillar of life, something to get the hang of and master, a yardstick for interest in others, the mainstay of certain interactions, and something to incorporate into one's life like meetings, work, interests, etc., something in parallel to these actual pursuits.
If one is building a meal, one does not start with the pepper. It's barely even an ingredient. To treat sex as a major component of life is to get the cart before the horse. It's not the cart. It's not the horse. It's one of the parcels on the back of the cart. A noisy one, but a mere parcel, nonetheless.