What does intimacy mean?
And how can it be reached?
I've been thinking a lot lately about sexual intimacy. I've been thinking about what sexual intimacy is, and how it's different from sex. And I've been thinking about why it's often so elusive... and what we can do to create it.
I think there's a paradox in creating sexual intimacy. Or maybe just a balance. On the one hand, intimacy can't be forced. You can't make someone open up to you; I'm not sure you can even make yourself open up. Moments of connection -- moments of feeling present with someone else, and feeling them present with you; moments of feeling the world fall away leaving only the two of you (or the three of you, or six, or whatever); moments where the chattering in your brain quiets down and your anxieties about the future and regrets about the past fade into the mist and all you're aware of is the time and place you're experiencing together right now; moments of looking up from whatever pleasures you're engaged in and making eye contact and feeling yourself shining out through your eyes, and feeling your partner shining out through theirs; moments of knowing with an almost telepathic certainty exactly where and how your partner wants to be stroked/ licked/ hit/ whatever -- these don't happen because you will them to. In fact, in an important (albeit irritating) paradox, trying to force these moments usually has the exact opposite effect. Trying to force them will chase them away. One of the whole points of intimacy is that it means letting things be what they are: letting your partner be who they are, letting yourself be who you are, being present with each other as you are. Trying to force intimacy is the exact opposite of that.
But at the same time, intimacy doesn't happen without work. It takes work to listen carefully to what your partner wants... whether they're saying it in words, or without words. It takes work to let go of expectations, and to let experiences and people be what they are. It takes work to let go of anxieties and regrets, and let the present moment be what it is. It takes work to let go of self-consciousness and overthinking; to put a gag and a blindfold on the detached observer in your head who's constantly sitting back offering running commentary on your life, and to just let yourself fucking well experience your life already. (She said bitterly, knowing way the hell too much about this one.)
And while a huge part of intimacy is letting things be, that isn't the same as being passive. Part of letting things be is letting yourself be -- and part of letting yourself be is being willing to put yourself out into the world. Asking for what you want; being honest about what your partner wants and how you feel about that; letting yourself not only feel what you feel but express those feelings... all of that's a huge part of intimacy. It isn't just about being open to your partner. It's about being someone your partner can be open to. If you don't put your sexual self into the world, there won't be anyone there for your partner to connect with. There's nobody to be inside; nobody to go inside the other. Intimacy requires both selfishness and selflessness. It requires the willingness to be one's self... and the willingness to let the other person's self be.
So where is that balance between control and laziness? Where is the balance between trying to force sexual intimacy, and passively lying back waiting for it to happen?
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. And the concept that keeps coming to mind is readiness. I don't think we can make intimate sexual moments happen. As my Facebook friend Elin said when we were talking about last week's masochism piece: "That's one of the really exciting (and maddening) things about sex, isn't it... getting completely in the moment and then one second later realizing you're completely in the moment... at which point, of course, you're not anymore. " That's what I was getting at a few paragraphs ago when I said that intimacy can't be forced, or captured and preserved. Trying to force it chases it away; trying to capture it makes it slip through our fingers.
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