From Chemistry to Communion: Rethinking Sexual Intimacy

There is a distinction between being sexually wanted and being intimately desired, and I think many women understand it instinctively even when they struggle to put it into words. What we long for is intimacy: the experience of being deeply seen, known, cherished, and sought after as a whole being.

Yet “I want to have sex with you” is often offered as evidence of that desire, as though sexual interest and intimate connection are interchangeable. But they are not. Sex may be an expression of intimacy, but it cannot create intimacy simply by occurring. When the emotional and energetic connection has thinned, the physical act can gradually begin to feel less like communion and more like participation. Or a task. Or something given to maintain the relationship rather than something arising naturally from the depth of it.

The problem isn't men versus women. It is that we have often been given an impoverished vocabulary for intimacy.

We call many different hungers by the same word – sex - when beneath them may be longing for reassurance, touch, acceptance, validation, play, surrender, belonging, being chosen, being seen, or simply being close.

Conscious or sacred sexuality isn't necessarily about learning some exotic new sexual practice. It can begin with learning to recognize what we are truly asking another human being for when we ask them to come close.

What is it like to meet someone in a relationship in which physical intimacy becomes an extension of the connection already alive between two people? Not simply through attraction and chemistry, but through presence, trust, reverence, curiosity, and genuine cherishment of one another. To slow down enough to really feel one another; to recognize that touch, conversation, laughter, vulnerability, affection, and sexuality are not separate compartments of a relationship, but are expressions of the same intimacy. In that kind of connection, sexuality becomes less about satisfying an urge. It is now about entering a shared space where lovers can soften into, breathe open, and enhance, exchange, & amplify the powerful energies that are already alive and moving within them. This creative energy is powerful enough to make a new life, right? The possibilities of what else can come through the coupling of such vital life force is immeasurable and limitless.

Perhaps that is what feels so compelling to me about the higher teaching of sacred or conscious sexuality. Among my trusted friends (all of whom have decades of marriage under their belts) we seem to be in general agreement: it is not that we are seeking something “less passionate”. No, not at all. In fact, it is quite the opposite. We are more interested in discovering what passion can evolve into when it is no longer fueled primarily by novelty, lust, or a need for a release.

Just how deep can we experience passion in profound connection?

When we are wholly in our bodies while aligned in our highest essence, it is the pinnacle of being alive! We can easily harness the power we carry within and then bring those energies together - not to consume one another, but to expand one another. A sexuality rooted in

I see you.

I honor you.

I desire you.

I feel safe enough to reveal all of myself to you.

And together, we can enter somewhere neither of us could reach quite the same way alone.

Beyond Desire: The Sacred Space Between Two People

Sadly, the way that society depicts sexuality is primarily through objectification, power struggle, or via power-over.

True sexuality is a tantric (a sacred approach to intimacy that uses presence, breath, touch, and awareness to deepen connection and expand consciousness) act of love between individuals. It gently and lovingly moves energy through the body. It is actually similar to an amplified, intimate version of what you might call a hands-on healing session like Reiki.

The act of lovemaking between individuals, when it is coming from a place of love and honoring and connecting, is very literally accessing the energies of the chakras of the other being in connection with your own and moving this energy between you.

In truth, similarly, our energies are merging and meshing when we speak to each other, when we connect with each other, when we laugh with each other, when we have a nice time with someone and we feel a connection with them… to the degree we intend to be open and share ourselves with them.

So when those who are coming from a place of reverent love for the body/mind/spirit of another, the soul of another, the energy of another, well then, you arrive at a doorway in which, once unlocked, is nothing less than magical.

There is no need for a grand performance and there is no benefit in a rushed intensity. Lovers, enraptured, their bodies pressed against each other doing very little, engulfed in the euphoric energy moving through them, around them, amplifying and ascending beyond what had been before… that is the power of tantra.

Back in the day…

A generation or three back, the teaching around sexual relations was that it is solely for procreation. Well, if that were true, it would only happen in order to conceive a child. But that’s definitely not the case, is it?

Outside of the guise of what is “normal”, sexuality has been used to dominate and to bring shame & control upon people. If sexuality had been explained or expressed to us in the way it is truly meant to be enacted, we would see it as a very powerful healing gateway created among individuals as a sacred act.

And once you access that level of sexuality, the old version of sexuality becomes unappealing to you.

It is a little like graduating from television shows that once entertained you but now feel childish or immature. More recently, I’ve noticed this in my own response to shows filled with violence, chasing, loud music, flashing images, and constant intensity. At one time, all of that stimulation used to be exciting because it captured my attention and hit some dopamine receptors. But once you experience something that can evoke a depth of feeling, engagement, or opening without relying on such intense stimulation, the old style loses its appeal. What once felt exciting and euphoric becomes familiar, normal, shallow, or less enjoyable. And when these feelings become pervasive you’ve discovered that intensity and depth are not necessarily the same thing.

So that is what I mean by conscious sexuality. It is an act of healing. And it is an act of love.

I believe the more people reach those levels of that experience, the drive for the old style of sexuality that we were sold will go away. And I hope, too, that the need of some to objectify themselves to be seen as valuable under the sexual gaze will disappear. That our children become better informed so they grow into conscious adults with full respect for their own sovereign bodies as well as those of others.

The way that the patriarchal system was set up for the longest time was to portray women, certainly in Western culture, as sexually objectified beings. As a result, (most) women believed that their highest value – mislabeled as virtue - was their beauty and desirability. Daughters have been groomed with words along the lines of “you have to look a certain way in order to be worthy of attention/love/respect”. And I suppose the same might be true for our sons, too, in certain cultures and families.

Today, while we know that's an outdated illusion, society has allowed this to perpetuate. Demeaning women, inviting women to demean themselves, and demeaning the men who are never quite getting beyond the first level of attraction has all been woven into society.

Why?

Perhaps to coerce us into being focused on surviving and procreating - acts that are basic in nature to all living beings. We were told that good living meant attaining accolades, partners, acquiring possessions, or status. A population that is largely educated the same, projected to follow socio-economic patterns, religions, traditions, etc. is manageable in ways than can be discussed here.

However, we are vessels of much, much more, and accessing the deeper inner wisdom within our DNA, will enable us to reach soaring heights of an authentic existence.

Every partner, friend, family member, and meaningful connection we encounter becomes a vital player in the unfolding of who we are. Some show us what resonates deeply with our hearts and values; others reveal, often through contrast, what does not.

Even the relationships we might later describe as “wrong” were not without purpose because they helped us discover our boundaries, recognize our wounds, clarify our desires, and understand what we are no longer willing to abandon within ourselves. Perhaps knowing who we are is inseparable from discovering who we are not. With each encounter, we become more discerning about what feels aligned, what feels authentic, and who we choose to invite into the next chapter of our becoming.

I also want to be careful here not to turn this into another rendition in which women are portrayed as the seekers of intimacy and men are solely seeking the sex act. That is far too simple, and I don't believe it honors men, either. There are men who ache to be deeply known, cherished, touched with tenderness, emotionally safe with another person, and desired for more than what they can provide or perform. There, too, are women who use sexuality without intimacy, just as there are men who long for emotional connection and cannot find the language (or perhaps even the permission) to ask for it.

Ponder this: perhaps some of what we experience as a divide between men and women is not necessarily a difference in what we ultimately need, but in how we have learned to seek it. One person may reach for conversation, affection, presence, and emotional vulnerability in order to feel close enough for sexual intimacy. Another may reach for physical intimacy as the doorway into closeness, reassurance, vulnerability, and love.

Both may actually be saying, “Please come closer to me,” while speaking entirely different languages. The tragedy is that each can experience the other's way of reaching as rejection: You only want me for sex on one side, and You don't desire me anymore on the other.

Conscious intimacy invites us beyond that stalemate. Instead of asking whose need should come first, perhaps we begin asking, What is my partner actually reaching for beneath the behavior? What am I reaching for? And can we become curious enough about one another to meet somewhere neither of us has been taught to go?

There, sexuality doesn't belong to one partner and emotional intimacy to the other. Both become shared territory in an unfolding conversation between two people learning how to see, receive, trust, desire, and cherish one another more completely.

And who doesn’t want more of that?

Contact

janice@revealalchemizeheal.com
903.821.6683