Intimacy and Sex

It may come as no surprise to most women that the great majority of men are interested in sex. You too might share some of this interest and, on a given occasion, you might even like sex. But as an aside to your own interest, consider the plight of the poor man. His interest in sex includes an even larger interest in great sex. But, in one of those cosmic jokes that are really not funny (thanks a lot, God), most people never learn what great sex is or how they might begin to describe it.

Using an intuitive "I don't know what great sex is, but I'm willing to try anything" approach, most couples go for it in every known position everywhere they can think of. But after "takin' her out for a spin," in every room of the house and sometimes even outdoors or the occasional neighborhood barbecue, most couples find the blush comes off of the rose of great sex.

Source: Photo by Edward Eyer from Pexels

Really, even if we have the flexibility of Gumby, we find that by the end of a few months, we've "done it all." If you two can slow it down a bit, this process could take a year or more. The development of sexual fatigue and eventual sexual burnout result from reliance on titillation.

Yes, titillation sounds like it would be a sexual word (and a dirty one at that), but in this case, titillation is simply arousal to physical stimuli. Period. So even if we bust out the sex toys, the risqué lingerie, and even the more, shall we say exotic stuff involving leather and our furry outfits—at the end, all we have left is vestigial desire withering on the vine of ennui, which is high school French for "boredom." Been there, done that, sent out the RSVPs and got all the shots later, and boy are we bored, I mean, bored.

This is how we get people saying stuff like, "Well, sex isn't everything, you know." And we all hope that the boring sex of marriage isn't everything. We hope for more. They expressed this boredom in the 1920s by referring to one's wife as "a ball and chain," as if our sexual freedom was curtailed by marriage and doomed by it.

But our boredom is neither the fault nor the result of marital sex. The fault lies not in what we see (sex with the same person, rinse, repeat over a lifetime, sigh) but in what we don't. What we don't see is a mysterious something called intimacy.

Even some of my best and smartest friends throw up their hands at this comment because they know what intimacy is, and they find this answer underwhelming. Sorry, my friends, you do not know what intimacy is. I know this because I've asked them, and here's what I get:

• "Intimacy is when we feel especially close."
• "Intimacy is when she (or he) is nice and tender."
• "Intimacy is when we're really feeling the love."
• "Intimacy is when he doesn't hurry."

Well, as it turns out, none of these answers have a thing to do with intimacy. You do remember, the context of this discussion is our response to the query, "Commitment? What's in it for him?" Now, before I share my thoughts on intimacy, please remember that as we're talking about this question, at least part of my answer is...great sex. I would argue that great sex is impossible outside of commitment. And yes, for the record, I've had some darn good sex outside commitment—just not great by comparison. Certainly not sustainable-over-a-lifetime great sex.

Intimacy is the ability to safely share my life with another. For this insight, I'm forever indebted to the work of Dennis Bagarozzi in his 2001 book Enhancing Intimacy in Marriage. The keyword is "safely." That means free of any fear of censure, judgment, or even punishment. I get to be me, and she gets to be who she is in the same way I do. So...if she tells me about an erotic dream she had with a man other than me, I can listen and laugh because I don't feel threatened, and she can feel safe because she knows, as they say, "it's all good."

Similarly, I can share that surge of attraction I felt for a movie star on the silver screen or for a woman who came by work, and she can smile with a twinkle in her eye and say, "Tell me all about it." We can each talk to one another about our sexual histories ("You did that? With all of them?"), our sexual fantasies ("Sweet baby Jesus on a grand piano, you really thought this through, didn't you?") or our sexual desires ("Well, I'm glad we can talk about it, but I don't think I can reach that high up there in that position.")

If you're thinking to yourself, "I know for a fact my mother and father never talked like that to each other," you're probably right. Most marriages do have more of the ball-and-chain air about them than one of successful intimacy. Getting a marriage license doesn't mean you know how to do intimacy (or your partner does either). The one has nothing to do with the other.

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It could mean that the two of you could take on intimacy as your highest marital goal to which you aspire. Why? Because what's in it for him is what's in it for you: freedom. The whole "ball and chain" trope is for those who don't understand that intimacy is a means to an end. And that the end of all ends in a committed relationship is a life full of the freedom to be who you are. Best sex of his life? Darn straight!