The idea would be to live half a life very well.

'I don't like being alone at all,; she said. 'To live a life without physical intimacy is half a life.'
I thought this was true, but if that was the case the idea would be to live half a life very well.

D. Levy, Real Estate (2021), 189

When Army Supply ordered X millions of rubber contraceptive and disease-preventing items, it had to be explained that they were used to keep moisture out of machine-gun barrels

A third sternly held rule was that five million perfectly normal, young, energetic, and concupiscent men and boys had for the period of the War Effort put aside their habitual preoccupation with girls. The fact that they carried pictures of nude girls called pin-ups, did not occur to anyone as a paradox. The convention was the law. When Army Supply ordered X millions of rubber contraceptive and disease-preventing items, it had to be explained that they were used to keep moisture out of machine-gun barrels - and perhaps they did.   

J. Steinbeck, Once there was a war (1959), 10

Few flashes of lust at parties; perhaps we could not afford to drink enough

There was no infidelity in The Huts, or none that I knew of. We lived so close together, we were poor and too busy. Few flashes of lust at parties; perhaps we could not afford to drink enough.

A. Munro, 'Tell me yes or no', Something I've been meaning to tell you (1974), 108

You seduced a young woman in order to be able to finish your talks with her

The beastly Huns! They stood between him and Valentine Wannop. If they would go home he could be sitting talking to her for whole afternoons. That was what a young woman was for. You seduced a young woman in order to be able to finish your talks with her. You could not do that without living with her. You could not live with her without seducing her; but that was the by-product. The point is that you can't otherwise talk. You can't finish talks at street corners; in museums; even in drawing-rooms. You mayn't be in the mood when she is in the mood--for the intimate conversation that means the final communion of your souls. You have to wait together--for a week, for a year, for a lifetime, before the final intimate conversation may be attained...and exhausted. 

F.M. Ford, A man could stand up (1926) [Parade's End], 680