Maddie Berky, a brilliant life coach and friend, and I are collaborating on some pieces about love and sex. We want to start to unpack these delicious, complicated interactions, but also give voice to the male and the female perspective.
The fun part is that I’ve chosen to share the different perspectives in my blog without overtly identifying these perspectives.
Today: sex, intimacy & sacredness.
I have a barometer that lets me know when I really need to get laid. There’s one gentleman in my circle who I find stupid attractive. On non, oh holy shit I need to get laid, days I can flirt and smile and it’s perfect. On the holy shit days, I black out as soon as he takes off his shirt pre-work out, and come-to 15 seconds later hoping no one noticed. If we ever slept together it would be a hot mess. And so, once I’ve regained my faculties, the next logical step is get laid by someone who wouldn’t make it weird.
But is that what I want? To get laid. Or to “just” get laid. To hopefully have an orgasm. Maybe even a few brief moments of cuddles before that too gets weird. Do I crave sex or do I crave intimacy? And do they come as a packaged deal?
I was in line getting coffee the other day and had a mini-blackout moment with the barista. His long blonde hair was bound up in a bun and he had tattoos so different than mine. More linear, less colorful. Luckily this particular coffee shop is all about the performance of pulling a shot of espresso so I had a moment with my fantasies. I wanted to have sex with him, for sure. But more than that I wanted all the things around sex. The butterflies. The vulnerability. The little pieces of truth that fall out of you in the sacredness of sharing something intentional and private and human.
That is what I’m missing so deeply right now. I feel like I will fold in on myself without someone to hold me and f*ck me and make me feel solid. But how do I get that out of the context of a relationship? What about how I, how we, view sex needs to shift in order to make room for that kind of connection?
What do we do when we need to get “intimacy-ed?”
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At this point in my life I’m pretty clear that I’m hardwired to connect. I need it. I’ve grown to realize that I have various connections at different levels and they all serve me in different ways. My clarity around this has provided me with direction in how I care for, nurture, or terminate relationships.
I’ve been with my partner for five years now. She is my “significant” other, the most important and special person on the planet to me. With that lofty title comes some responsibilities as well as plenty of expectations. One of them being that we create intimacy and that we share “special and sacred” parts of ourselves.
Throughout my few trips around the sun I’ve investigated what those “special and sacred” parts are and for me the things that are the most intimate are subjects like sex, grief, shame, dreams. Yes! Sex! Like my secret fantasies that are so intimate that sometimes I shame myself for thinking them but not only sex but physical intimacy too like cuddling and spooning. I love cuddling and it’s so fulfilling for me.
And having the solid foundation in both myself and in my partner allowed me to drop so deeply into my sadness when my brother died that could let go of myself and just be held while I sobbed, to allow myself to be loved while feeling so empty.
Five years isn’t thirty but throughout that time we’ve naturally had times where we’re deeply connected and times when we’re not. And when we drift I feel it. I start to feel a deep yearning for the intimacy that I value so greatly.
Are you consciously creating sacred moments in your lives?