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giving your body to your lover is a gift…

embrace-lighter
“Sometimes I get real lonely sleeping with you.”
~ Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase

 

We want intimacy and avoid sex. Or we fear intimacy and crave sex.

There is a pervasive confusion about sex and intimacy. We use the words interchangeably, but purely physical intimacy stops way short of a meaningful experience or a sustainable connection. The more we focus on the physicality of sex—how we look, what we wear, toys and techniques—the further we get from true intimacy.

Here are my six suggestions for having radically intimate sex.

1. Shhhhh: No Talking

Often when we think of intimacy, we think about the sharing of secrets. There is something intimate about verbalizing our innermost thoughts and desires—especially when it comes to sex. However, as alluring as fantasy can be, by its very definition, it’s a way of escaping reality. And we tend to hide behind our words, using conversation as a means of avoiding vulnerability. We tell people who we are instead of showing them.

True intimacy with a lover happens in the silent moments of presence and connectedness between words.

Practice #1: Set a specific time to meet in the bedroom without speaking a single word. Spend an hour together, not talking, before any physical intimacy begins. Show up clean—physically and emotionally. This is an opportunity to let our stories fall away—as individuals and as a couple—making room for a deep, non-verbal, energetic connection.

2. Make It Anti-Climactic: No Orgasm

When Emerson said, “Life is a journey, not a destination” he meant that when we focus on getting to a particular goal, we miss value in the moments along the way. And so it is with sex. There are reports that women can have 11 different kinds of orgasms. From the time men are boys, they are fascinated with ejaculating (it’s a built-in, biological preoccupation on which the survival of the species depends!). We have misunderstood the destination of sex to be orgasm, and by doing so, robbed ourselves of some potentially powerful opportunities for both pleasure and intimacy.

Practice #2: Agree upfront to forgo reaching orgasm. Take the possibility completely off the table, for both of you. By doing so, you provide space to be present and find appreciation of each moment for the pleasure and connection it brings, without distraction. Take turns bringing each other close and backing off. Notice the powerful bond created as you hold each other on the brink of ecstasy.

3. Like a Lava Lamp: Slow It Way Down

We live in a fast-paced, over-stimulating, 140-character-status-update kind of world. As a culture, we are usually focused on “doing” rather than “being.” Because we juggle so many responsibilities, sex tends to become just another thing on the “To Do List.”

Rushing through the “doing of sex” does not encourage the “being” of intimacy.

Practice #3: Create a bubble of time and space to climb into together. Do whatever it takes to enable getting lost in your own world together. Make a conscious decision not to rush. Let energy flow between  you like a lava lamp. Moving verrrrry slowly, savor each moment of sensation and allow intimacy to rise.

4. Sealed with a Kiss: Undress Each Other

Whether it’s your first time together, or you’ve been having sex for 30 years, giving your body to your lover is a gift. To receive your partner’s body is a privilege. Don’t let modesty or habit stop you from honoring this generous exchange.

Practice #4: This practice is most comfortable done with the lights dimmed or by candlelight. Undress each other by taking turns removing one article of clothing at a time. As each piece comes off, gently kiss the part of the body revealed in gratitude.

5. In and Out: Breathe Life Into It

It is a technique in meditation to turn the focus from thoughts to the breath. In Tantra, partners will “match breath” as a way of forming an energetic connection that is not based on the giving and receiving of physical pleasure.

Practice #5: Begin in a simple embrace. Spend a few minutes slowing and synchronizing your breath. Silently negotiate a rhythm that is comfortable for both of you. Pause at the top of each inhale and at the bottom of each exhale, creating a moment of mutual stillness. Breathing together is facilitated by cooperation and consideration for each other. Try to maintain this collaboration as sex unfolds.

6. Windows to the Soul: Eye Gazing

Eye contact is a distinct point of connection. Yet, it is common to keep one’s eyes closed during sex. Extended eye contact reveals vulnerability, and so it can be a powerful facilitator of intimacy.

Practice #6: Sit on the floor facing each other and gaze into each other’s eyes without looking away for 20 minutes. Shifting from eye to eye helps sustain the gaze. Maintain eye contact as much as possible as sex unfolds. Play with looking into each other’s eyes all the way through orgasm. It is nearly impossible to climax with open eyes (like sneezing).

Gazing into your lover’s eyes at the moment of release just might be the very definition of intimacy.

 

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the problem with having sex…

You fall. You don’t want to. Maybe you don’t even like this person, but you can’t help yourself. You fall for something. You fall for the way they feel on top of you, the way the moon comes in through the drapes, the way it feels to be held after so long of not being touched at all. There is something there that takes you in, that blurs your senses, that heightens your expectations, that makes you want something you were certain you didn’t come for. The feelings come, and you’re not even sure what kind of feelings they are, but you know you can’t get rid of them. A few days later, you’re checking your phone. Maybe not for them, but for someone. You’ve got the itch, and you know what did it.

It’s waking up next to someone and only seeing the outline of them under the sheet, imagining what the rest of them must look like in the broad daylight. It’s being pleasantly surprised or completely disappointed, but spending the rest of the day lingering in a memory of what happened last night. Maybe you didn’t fall for this one, but you fell back into something. And what’s worse, now you want to find the one who really will make you fall. You want to trip headfirst into something and fight to escape it like a pool of sticky molasses.

There’s nothing dirty about it, no, but there is something complicated. There is something which demands more of you, which implicates you, which makes extricating yourself a more involved ordeal than slipping on your tennis shoes and catching the train. Maybe you’ll leave, but part of you will still be there, hiding under the blankets, taking in the smell of the pillow. You’re not sure what you left there, exactly, but you don’t even think you want it back. We leave our fingerprints all over things like a child who denies having stolen the chocolate but whose face is covered in it.

We say “It’s just sex,” but we know that’s bullshit. When it is just sex, it’s a placeholder for something better. It’s an imitation of something, a spoonful of aspartame when we want sugar. When we want it to be something more, it’s a guilty pleasure. It’s something that we take in greedy handfulls because we’re not sure when we’ll get it again.

You fall. There is something that takes you over, something that inhabits you from within. There is the you that exists as an independent entity, and the you who is heavily under the influence of sex. And maybe you are one of the chosen ones who can elude the emotional attachment entirely, who can leave things in a neat, folded pile where you found them when you are done. Maybe slipping out the window is as natural to you as slipping your underwear back on. But there is something there that has given in, something that remembers.

Something that realizes the immense honor it is every time someone presents us with their naked, insecure bodies and says, “Take this.” There is a part of you that knows this was special, and a gift, and should not be taken for granted. There is a part of you that is still observing the crack in the ceiling and wondering if they’re ever going to spackle it.

“No,” you think, “They probably won’t fix it. But I shouldn’t bring it up — I don’t really know them, after all.”

– Charlotte Green –