Sex and Intimacy Project — Part 8

Image by Ellen von Unwerth

This set of answers comes from 34-year old bisex­ual female, slf, who is cur­rently engaged.

What does inti­macy mean to you? How do you define intimacy?

Inti­macy is the close­ness between two peo­ple. It’s the way they inter­act with each other that serves to keep them con­nected emo­tion­ally and it reaf­firms the bond they have with one another.

Do you think that all acts of sex are nec­es­sar­ily intimate?

No. Some acts of sex are purely for phys­i­cal plea­sure or men­tal plea­sure unre­lated to intimacy.

What about sex makes it intimate?

The phys­i­cal prox­im­ity cou­pled with nudity in var­i­ous stages is part of what makes sex inti­mate. We’re vul­ner­a­ble when we’re expos­ing our­selves to some­one. Also, allow­ing some­one to touch us in ways that only a select few are allowed to helps to make sex an inti­mate act.

Makes it not intimate?

When the act is purely for phys­i­cal or men­tal needs — but not for emotional/love/acceptance needs.

When is sex intimate?

For me, it’s when there is caress­ing, gaz­ing in each oth­ers eyes, gen­tle smiles, a great desire to please and be pleas­ing. Also, let­ting one­self ‘go’ so to speak… allow­ing that per­son into your inner sanc­tum of sorts.

Are some sex­ual acts more inti­mate than others?

Yes — face to face sex­ual posi­tions, male to female oral sex. (some­times female to male — depend­ing on the dynamic that par­tic­u­lar time) and gen­er­ally any posi­tion in which there is a lot of body to body con­tact. It’s almost like, the more skin that’s touch­ing, or the more pri­vate the area being touched, the more inti­mate the act is.

Is the act of sex an inti­mate act for you? Why or why not? Does it change depend­ing on who your part­ners are?

The act of sex is not always inti­mate for me. There are times where we just want to be con­nected to each other and the sex is some­thing like what peo­ple call “love mak­ing”. These times take longer, are more detailed in what hap­pens, and are very sat­is­fy­ing emo­tion­ally. Some­times, how­ever, sex is sim­ply an act for the pur­pose of sat­is­fy­ing a hunger/desire/need. These expe­ri­ences lack most of the things i deem as inti­mate. Also — it depends on the part­ner. When there is a great con­nec­tion (more than phys­i­cal) between the peo­ple involved, then sex is far more inti­mate com­pared to sex with part­ners with whom i’m not heav­ily com­mit­ted or attracted to.

How do you per­ceive the dif­fer­ing lev­els of inti­macy when mul­ti­ple part­ners are involved?

Mul­ti­ple part­ners at once? If my pri­mary part­ner is involved in the fun, then there is def­i­nitely a com­pass of sorts that always points toward him in terms of inti­macy. Mean­ing, if there are 4 peo­ple on the bed, i know i can reach out to him with my hands, or my eyes, and get the con­nec­tion that i need at that time (which i can­not do with the other’s present) mul­ti­ple part­ners seper­ately? The one who shares most about my life will be the one with whom i feel the most inti­macy. They are aware of ME.. of who i am.. of what i am about and there­fore we have a vested inter­est in keep­ing things at a cer­tain level — hence greater inti­macy. The oth­ers might have SOME level of inti­macy with me, but not nearly as much as the one with whom i share myself most with. Hav­ing said that, i’m sure that there could be a cir­cum­stance where that feel­ing was shared with more than one per­son at a time.

What about sex with­out inti­macy, like sex between strangers? Can there still be a level of inti­macy that builds between two peo­ple because of the act of sex itself?

Yes. I believe that a level of inti­macy CAN be built because of the act of sex itself. It auto­mat­i­cally seper­ates and dis­tin­guishes your ‘rela­tion­ship’ with that per­son com­pared to oth­ers who you are not sex­u­ally active with. When you see each other in pub­lic after the sex act, for exam­ple, you might share a know­ing look, or touch each other in ways that are more inti­mate than how you touch oth­ers, but per­haps less inti­mate than how you touch your pri­mary inti­mate partner.

What about inti­macy in vir­tual rela­tion­ships, like online where the sex itself may be virtual?

This is where the close­ness comes in. It doesn’t have to be phys­i­cal. The men­tal aspect is a major part of it in many ways. In vir­tual rela­tion­ships one can divuldge inti­mate details about them­selves and open them­selves emo­tion­ally to another, just as they can in per­son. Of course they can’t act on that sex­u­ally WITH that per­son, but it doesn’t change the fact that they FEEL that con­nec­tion, that inti­macy. I think vir­tual rela­tion­ships get a bad wrap because of the pred­i­tors and users that are out there. But, for the ones who are sin­cere in their thoughts and words — it can be a very inti­mate and reward­ing expe­ri­ence for both par­ties involved.

Please tell me a lit­tle bit about sex and inti­macy in your own life.

Hmmm… In my past rela­tion­ships i always felt like sex HAD to be inti­mate. It had to be ten­der (for the most part). It had to be emo­tion­ally sat­is­fy­ing and reaf­firm­ing. But, i had an extreme event in my life that allowed me to look at the world in a dif­fer­ent way — and since then, i can com­pletely sep­a­rate the two, or com­bine them in any com­bi­na­tion that is suit­ing for that moment. I can’t believe that i missed out on such great sex! LOL That may sound like a funny state­ment, but — in the con­text of where i came from, it makes per­fect sense. See… by think­ing that sex WAS inti­macy, i thought that any rough­ness, any ‘vul­gar­ity’, and any slut­ti­ness on either person’s part — was tak­ing away from the inti­macy. I thought that being like a ‘porn’ start in bed couldn’t hap­pen with the per­son you love!

I can’t imag­ine my life that way any more. My part­ner and i are the MOST inti­mate we’ve ever been with any part­ner before! We share lov­ing looks sev­eral times a day. We hug long, true, and deeply. We kiss like we mean it. We touch each other and keep our bod­ies in con­tact nearly every time we’re near each other. we say ‘I love you’ sev­eral times a day. I touch his face with my hands while look­ing into his eyes. He caresses my head and hair while kiss­ing my fore­head. And when we lay down together at the end of a long day, we sim­ply sink into one another… let out a long breath, and realax.…

A peace washes over us…

We’ve often joked about how we can fuck like beasts one minute, harsh move­ments, names, vul­gar dirty words and actions; then five min­utes after we’re done, we do all the things men­tioned in the para­graph above! LOL The con­trast is deca­dent! And i wish it on every­one! LOL

You can learn more about the Sex and Inti­macy Project here.