I would have posted this in Nikka's 'Sex in BDSM' thread because I doubt if there'll be enough interest to sustain a thread of its own, but I didn't want to get my ankle bitten for going off-topic.

In the lower half of page two of that thread, Nikka says, "Now, I am sure that no one out there lives a one-dimensional life." (rapid cut to Spitman) "I agree with Nikka that we all have spiritual, social, physical and emotional needs, and that people can have a different focus on their own needs."

Well, maybe not one-dimensional, but not neccessarily four-dimensional, either. To the best of my ability to judge, I have no spirit and no spiritual needs. I would've said that I have physical, mental and emotional needs and considered that social was a subset of emotional. To be blunt, I don't even understand what a spiritual need is.

Now, I'm not doing this to split hairs, but to see if there's anyone out there who can explain what a spiritual need is and why it should be having an impact on me.

Should we start by defining our terms? To me, a physical need is one that you can't survive without (breathing, drinking, sleeping, eating). A mental need is something that's a requirement to live a fulfilling life (speech, mathematics, reading, writing, a survival skill set). An emotional need is something you can live without, but not live without and still be happy (love, companionship, acceptance, sex -- some people would put a challenge to test yourself against in this category). If anyone has different definitions they would like to put forward, or wants to take a crack at defining spiritual, be my guest.

(I post this here to put it in proximity to the thread that inspired it, but I recognise that the moderators may wish to move it elsewhere.)