16 Charis,

Only female humans had the “consequence” of “your desire will be for your husband”. Female animals only mate when fertile.

Animals (even monogamous ones) fulfill “be fruitful and multiply” WITHOUT “your desire will be for your husband”. They have a periodic appetite they feed which takes care of being fruitful and multiplying. You have noted that conception and birth would need to have been infrequent with immortals.

Humans also are one of the only ones who appear to mate even when there is no possibility of conception. Only in humans is the “one flesh union” a huge part of our inner souls. Animals are just not in the same category.

I don’t think there will be sex in heaven, yet people will be more satisfied. What if the intimacy in the Garden was intensely satisfying without lots of sex? What if sexual intimacy was infrequent before the Fall, just a periodic appetite as it is for animals?

These are good questions. I see nothing that would suggest that sexual intimacy was less in intensity or frequency than any other normal newly married couple. The satisfaction would not have been either/or but both intimate physical bonding and intimate emotional bonding. As far as the future goes, the Bible gives us the picture of a bride and her husband joining together in union. I have no idea what that means in our relationship with Jesus as we are the bride of Christ, but I do know that we are joined together into one body as the bride and then with Jesus and whatever that entails will be fulfilling in our relationship with our God and Savior Jesus Christ far more than any mere human relationship here on earth could be. I guess we will find out when we get to Heaven. One thing I do know is that marriage and human sexuality is not needed in Heaven and what we will experience is far better like the shadow is nothing compared to the real thing.