Sex and the Art of Relationship Maintenance
The other day when all the girls were on the bayou at night playing dominoes – one was talking about “faking it” with men and another said, “you need to come over to our team and you won’t have to do that.” We spoke jokingly and not about the fluidity of women’s sexuality and the goal oriented direction of men’s. All of us thought we had a conclusion but then one woman said, wait, I’m goal oriented too and blew the theory out of the water.
I was in deep conversation with a friend who is lacking intimacy and affection in her long-term relationship. I listened attentively because I’m in my new relationship and I want to hear as a cautionary tale how things might not always be so rosy and how to guard against it. “It’s not sex, it’s affection.”
We were speaking about acquaintances of ours the other day where the subject with them is always sex. Someone said that about me once, that I talk about sex a lot. But I don’t seem to now I told a friend and she said, “that’s cause you’re having it.” No, I said, I was having it when someone made that comment.
Sex is so fundamental to a relationship – a plant can grow with sun and water, but it’s fertilizer that makes it bloom and the more powerful the mix, the more bountiful the flower. To be stingy with affection, to withhold sex is a power move in a relationship, passive, and frankly, selfish. Giving someone pleasure, receiving pleasure, is so primary to our nature, to go without that simple pleasure in life is joyless.
Stop using sex as a weapon. Relationships need fertilization – people crave touch and affection – humans should relish the ability to give each other pleasure or step aside and let someone else in who will.