Love, Sex and Zen Wisdom
Sexual attraction and new love are so powerful and feel so visceral that they can make you think that having sex with a new partner will seal a meaningful connection and be the start of an enduring relationship.
And you may find yourself succumbing to such forces, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Many of us do. It’s part of who we are as humans, our sexuality derives from the very life force that we are made of. It is the most natural, primal expression of life and love.
This is especially true in the modern world, where many of us stay single for longer. We get lonely, we want companionship, to feel touch, and the momentary dissolving of the boundaries that we try so hard to maintain in all other areas of our lives. We feel a need to let go, to fall into another’s arms, and be naked in who we are, in the hopes that someone will see us and love us and we will feel more whole, acknowledged, and held.
However, sexual intimacy is best developed out of a foundation of emotional intimacy, where you get to know someone as a friend and in a spirit of romantic friendship.*
In romantic friendship, physical intimacy is built on a solid foundation of mutual trust, acceptance, and emotional intimacy, rather than the heady mix of lust and pure physical attraction, which though strong and intense initially, often wears out just as quickly, if there is no bond beyond that.
The powerful brain chemistry involved with sex makes it very hard to sustain a bond without a pre-existing trusted relationship and connection. In fact, they can ensure the end of the possibility of one by making things awkward because you have become physically intimate before there is any emotional bond or trust.
Waiting allows a man to appreciate and fall in love with you as a person. Once you have sex with a man, the powerful hormone oxytocin that is released when you have sex with a man will bond you to him, before you’ve had a chance to find out if he is a suitable partner.
His innate physiology will tell him that he has already fulfilled his opportunity to produce offspring and he needs to find a new partner, to expand on his opportunities for more offspring, unless he has already bonded to you emotionally.
Your mother was right. It really is that basic. You can read all about the science in Marnia Robinson’s book Cupid’s Poisoned Arrow. She argues a very convincing case for sexuality only working when it is in a committed relationship. She advocates that physical intimacy is for creating stronger emotional and spiritual links between you and your partner. She has a series of intimacy exercises she recommends, where the focus is on connecting and cuddling, rather than the physical act of sexual intercourse.
So, allow yourself to get to know someone before you have sex, make a sexual relationship part of an emotional, spiritual and mental connection, a way to deepen your bond with your partner, and then you will find that it becomes a fulfilling part of your relationship. As the mystic Osho said:
“You can be intense in sex and you may not be sincere, because sex is not necessarily love. You may be very, very intense in your sexuality — but once sexuality is fulfilled, it is finished, the intensity gone. Love may not look so intense, but it is sincere — and because it is sincere, the intensity continues. In fact, if you are really in love it becomes a timelessness. It is always intense. And make a clear distinction: if you are intense without sincerity, you cannot be forever intense. Only momentarily you can be intense; when the desire arises you are intense. It is not really your intensity. It is enforced by the desire.”
* See the previous article When It Is Not Your Time To Find Love… Yet. for the meaning of the term “romantic friendship”.
