What exactly is "great sex"?

I often see in advice columns -- yes, I read those -- about women who are sick of their husbands and thinking of leaving them. Maybe the husbands were negligent, even abusive, but the women avow that they had "great sex" together, so they're reluctant to leave.

What, exactly, is "great sex"?

I'm assuming it means that your partner brought you to climax every time, maybe even sending you into bouts of ecstasy you'd never experienced before. [See the movie Thelma and Louise, in which a young Brad Pitt gives what's-her-name the kind of sex she'd been missing in her marriage to a redneck.] Maybe you, the female, had more than one climax. If so, I say bravo!
I think it's a woman's recompense for having to give birth to children.

But what then? I mean, sex only lasts a certain amount of time, and then you're left with whoever you had it with. Still in your bed. Who is that person? Someone you want to wake up next to? Someone you want to spend the rest of your life with?

The desired result of sexual activity is the climax, where you reach a level of intensity that sends you off into your own world of feeling. If you've reached it, you know what I mean. If not, you need to keep looking for the right partner or learn how to "pleasure" yourself.

But again, once you're there and done -- then what?

You're still left face to face -- literally -- with someone you either like or not, know or not, and you have to find something else to talk about. Breakfast? What to do the next day? If it's someone you already like a lot, maybe even love, then it's no problem. You can spend all day just being with that person. Time stands still.

But what if it's someone you just met, maybe picked up in a bar? You would likely want that person not to be there when you wake up. You had your climax, enjoyed sex the way it's supposed to be enjoyed, but now it's time to move on -- and time for him or her to leave. But what if he/she wants to f*ck you again, not just now but ongoing into the future? And what if you don't like him or her that much and don't want to? You have a decision to make.

Was the sex you just had really all that "great"? Worth some kind of emotional investment?

I once was in a hotel in Salt Lake City and heard, from the next room, female cries that led me to believe that some guy was giving some woman the night of her life. It went on and on. The next morning, I lingered outside the room, hoping to catch a glimpse not of the woman but of the guy: I wanted to ask him for advice. What did you do to that woman?

The sexual act is a series of stages, from initial eye contact to physical touching to intercourse, with lots of personal interaction in between. I think the most satisfying sexual experience is between two people who like each other so much that they can't imagine not having sex with each other.

Let's assume you're a grown-up male who has had sex with a number of women. You've had your share of disappointments -- climaxing too soon, not being able to get it up, etc. But now you're in love, can't get enough of this other person, and tonight's the night. You're nervous because you want it to be just right, and you know how to manipulate her private parts to get her ready for intercourse, so you go through the motions. But when she starts to move under you, maybe even making love-sounds uncommon to her, you find yourself in another world. And just when you don't think you can last much longer, you penetrate her and then thrust the way you know you're supposed to. And she, at some point, climaxes. And lets you know she did.

And then maybe kisses you in gratitude.

If that's not great sex, I don't know what is.