For hetero orientation pairs, opposite gender, can have added destressing effect, if people are skillful at creating a good mood. Effective way to relax and raise morale.
But because that connotes "sex", the Western moral hysteria / panic mode sets in, and people automatically make it mean "bad"/"abusive"/"counter-progressive". Christian legacy programming? They think that makes them "free" but I think constraining narratives around sex to a limited set of negative connotations, just binds them to endless suffering and frustration.
This moral panic is probably partly a psyop. Sexual drive is such a powerful drive, any group who can manipulate / control / or redirect / re-narrate that en masse holds powerful sway over the population. If you can make people hate themselves for their own gender, skin color or sexuality, you have really succeeded in warping / manipulating them for something that should be so positive / neutral. That frustration for the individual that results can then be directed toward whatever would seem to provide the answer. In effect, this psyop can yoke people to a particular cause, such as "progressive liberal politics" that seem to provide the answer to the invented "axes of evil" of "sexuality / skin color / gender", and pretend to lead the way to a "promised land" of equality (? heh) even while dividing everyone into groups and getting them to fight each other. The ultimate aim of all this is probably just crowd control for the population, by "drawing off" excess frustration into such fruitless causes, you can ensure the activation energy of "revolution" / mass civil unrest is never tipped. Also the frustrated will seek other outlets for their stymied desires, so rise in entertainment / consumer culture offering short-term thrills like sucrose, endorphins, etc.
In light of all this -- the 1980s quest for status ( mirrored by current modern day Chinese quest for status ) is more healthy. But without a totalitarian state, and inundated by new technologies that empower individuals, how are you going to keep a society under control in a democracy? Democracy / politics has to end up being a very compelling reality-tv entertainment, and people must "spend" most of their excess energy on fruitless pursuits, to ensure they don't spend it on something such as "overthrowing the state".
And when you want to take the yoke off people, they fight to keep themselves bound up in it. Insisting they are free. Such is the depth of their manipulation.