How we (mis)use sex for more connection
I know you know,… as humans, we are social creatures by nature and crave connection with others. And one of the ways we seek to connect with others is through sexual intimacy or lovemaking. And as you can probably also imagine, sex is a powerful form of communication — both for the pleasure it gives and for the way it makes it possible to express our core feelings. But sex isn’t always about love or even lust. Sometimes we (mis)use sex to get what we want: like money, attention or affection. And we even use sex to avoid dealing with other issues in our lives…
Sex for Connection
When everything goes well, sex can be an amazing way to feel connected to our partner. It’s a way of showing how much you love them, or even how much you enjoy spending time with them. Living more and more of a conscious life, I keep being surprised about the many ways we can use sex as a way of connecting. In my relationship we can playfully flirt with each other and just have fun, we can be sad or angry and looking for comfort or release, we can be caught up in work and use sex as a way to move the focus from work to each other. And sometimes if I can not sleep, I might use it as a way to get out of my head and into my body. And these are just a few examples.
Within your own life, this way of connecting with your (casual) partner may be something that comes naturally, but I also know that for a lot of us, it’s hard to relax into using lovemaking as a conscious connection tool. And sex can easily end up as something on our to-do list or something we misuse to hide ourselves from our real feelings.
This way sex can be something to avoid deeper emotional intimacy. In some cases, people may engage in sexual activity without fully connecting with their (or a) partner on an emotional level. This can actually lead to feelings of disconnection and even resentment in the long term.
“This is what I’ve done for a large part of my life…”
I’ve definitely experienced both. I’ve had sexual connections just to see how close I could get to someone. As a ‘game’ of how much I could draw someone close to me even though I wasn’t genuinely interested (or only shallowly) in the person. I even had sex to keep up the appearance of having a relationship together. For the both us… As long as we had sex, every now and then, we would not have to face the real problems that were there.
But in the more recent years I’m having quite the opposite; and that is sex to deepen my connection with the person I really want to be with in the first place. And I recognize this as a way to keep the intimacy and flow with my partner going and going on an ongoing basis. Which is an enrichment to the relationship we’re having.
We use sex for many things that have nothing to do with our underlying yearning for connection.
Sex is powerful and can do a lot of good in our lives. It can heal us in deeper layers, because when done in a conscious way it makes us open up more and more and get us to the source of our pain and fear. And instead of moving away from it, move closer and experience a new world of connection and intimacy. A world where we get to understand our patterns and triggers.
The other way around is that we use sex as a tool for coping with fear and pain instead of going through them to heal: if we feel like our life is too much, or we don’t think we deserve better, or if we just want to feel less lonely temporarily, then we might try to distract ourselves from those feelings by seeking out pleasure in the form of sex. This is especially true when there are areas of life where you’re lacking connection—if you recognize this way of action towards sex then maybe you also haven’t been able to find deep connection in your life or have not been able to connect genuinely within a love relationship.
Ofcourse sex is only one of the ways to experience deep connections within your relationship. If sex is something that is physically challenging for you there are many other ways to feel deeply connected to your partner and experience intimacy. Whatever form of relationship you are in, you can try out the following ways to connect deeper and experience greater intimacy.
Conscious Sex
The more conscious you’ll be about the emotions that drive you, the better you’ll be able to commit to having amazing sex every time you have it. And this does involve becoming conscious about:
- what you want,
- what you feel physically
- and what you feel emotionally
And acting on all three of the above;
This means opening yourself up for how you feel, what you want and what you physically feel:
- How it feels to be touched by your partner,
- and how it feels to touch your partner.
- Changing positions even slightly if it doesn’t feel just right,
- ask for more when your partner does something that makes you feel really good
- and focus on all the pleasurable sensations that are going through your body:
Every time you notice that your mind goes to grocery shopping, your to-do list or anything else that has nothing to do with the sex that you’re having, gently move back to focus on one of your senses. Try not to focus on the things that aren’t ‘right’, but just gently notice that there is something you’d like to change and focus on moving towards pleasure. The more you practice this, the more subtle the changes will be towards more and more pleasure.
If knowing what you want and asking for what you want feels like something new or even scary in any part of your life, let alone the sexual part of it. First, start with really small things like feeling what cup you’d like your coffee or tea in and pick the one that is most appealing to you in that moment (it can change any time), and being conscious about picking your clothes in the morning, and/or adding at least one thing to your day that is something you really want to do, have or eat. Think small and achievable, it is all about being more and more able to feel what it is that you want and to make conscious decisions. The more you’re able to act on what you want, especially the subtle and small things the more sensual connected you’ll be with a partner too.
“Good love making is making love even more smooth and delicious than it already is”
We’re all flawed, we are all perfect
We’re all flawed in one way or the other, yet we are all perfect. And we all have ways of using sex for different types of connection. But that doesn’t mean we should give up on deep, genuine connections. In fact, it means we need to learn to be more conscious about how our emotions define our choices so that we can make sexual choices for the right reasons—and get the most out of them in terms of feeling connected, seen and cared for.
Enjoy!
If you have any questions about this subject or like to go deeper into it, please don’t hesitate to schedule a free discovery sesion with me here.
Love,
Willemijn