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TheOtherDave comments on Insufficiently Awesome - Less Wrong
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I'm curious: on what basis do you conclude that they were part of attracting a lover, as opposed to (for example) expressions of a drive that was better expressed through sex, or (for example) separate desires that were for some reason inhibited by sex, or some other possibility?
I suppose there might be other explanations. The original observation was that I lost all practically-expressed interest in martial arts training when my sex life started working, and I also lost any desire to be good at dancing, making music, or making art, although I hadn't been acting on those desires anyway.
Anecdotally, it's certainly possible to retain an active interest in martial arts, making music, and self-improvement in general when going from unintentional celibacy to a happy relationship; but it does blunt the edge of the "hunger" for those things.
I'm not sure if a rationalist approach to sex has anything better to offer than "do scholarship, and just try stuff, recording the results in whatever way interferes least," but even that is a step up from most people--who seem to have started their sexual education with stashes of skin mags found in the woods instead of in the library at Dewey Decimal 613.96.
For a rationalist approach to sex, I agree that "do scholarship, and just try stuff, recording the results in whatever way interferes least" will get you a long way. I've known of two instances where the following tidbits would have been useful in addition:
Sometimes, but not always, make an honest attempt to figure out what your partner wants and do it. You'll probably want to limit that to activities that fit your own risk-taking preferences about pregnancy, disease, injury, legal problems, and so forth, but be sure to distinguish pragmatic limits from your habitual comfort zone and try to go outside the latter.
Set up your living arrangements so sex is convenient. If you have roommates and feel inhibited around them, that's a problem.