Healing Love Through Sexuality

Sex can be a wonderful way to make up; unfortunately, as couples share more and more of their lives together, conflicts naturally arise—conflicts that can be difficult to put behind them even with passionate sexual encounters.

When physical affection doesn’t go beyond a quick hug in the morning or a goodnight kiss—without the usual cuddling together—this often happens in couples where frequent, passionate sex is sporadic.

Unfortunately, we tend to think that great sex is the exclusive domain of young, attractive people, when in fact it’s sometimes just a matter of finding more intimate moments as a couple—setting aside the kids, family, and work every now and then—so we can rediscover ourselves as a couple who wants to share the pleasure of love.

Humans view sex not only as a means of procreation, which is why intimacy and sexual desire are incredibly complex—and why humans have the longest post-pubertal sexual development.

In other words, desire has three key components:

– Touch

– Thoughts

– Feelings

Sex is possible with just one of these qualities, but all three ingredients must come together to create passionate and committed sexual relationships.

Men’s anxiety tends to focus on whether they can “satisfy” their partner, while women’s anxiety is usually related to their bodies.

Unfortunately, instead of talking about those fears and releasing the tension, each of them finds different strategies to cope with the relationship (for example, turning off the lights or focusing more on the technique than on the person).

– Imagination:

Imagination is the raw material of confidence. Keeping it from withering away is vital to understanding, improving, and surprising others when situations overwhelm us.

– Be mindful of your senses:

Modern life is so hectic that we rarely stop to notice the things we take for granted. Living life with our senses either “off” or “on” can help us become aware of the small wonders we experience every day—wonders we often take for granted because they’re so commonplace, yet which, when we don’t have them, make us feel angry or disappointed.

Being aware of the sensations provided by our senses—sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste—makes us more aware of sensuality and how it differs from sexuality.

Two phases of sexual intercourse that must intertwine without either losing its essence. This awareness sets the stage for sexuality, preventing the couple from going from zero to a hundred the moment they make their first move.

Passion and Its Four Stages:

– Desire: the anticipation of feelings that lead to and bring about sexual pleasure.

– Arousal: receiving and giving stimulation and caresses.

– Orgasm: Arousal naturally culminates in pleasure.

– Satisfaction: feeling emotionally and physically connected after a sexual experience.

– Trust:

In some surveys, 50% of women and 30% of men believed that their love lives would improve if they had a better physique—and this doesn’t always mean better muscle tone, but rather body shape, height, etc…

If you rely on others as your main source of self-confidence in your attractiveness, sex can cease to be an expression of love and become a personal test of your desirability; as a result, people who need others to validate themselves become a black hole that absorbs sexual energy.

On the contrary, people who feel comfortable with themselves and like who they are have sexual energy to spare.

– Stop trying to live up to other people’s expectations:

Showing the physical traits we don’t like about ourselves may lead others to accept us, since we don’t appear threatening to their safety, and we end up joining the ranks of those who spend their lives wishing to be or appear to be what nature has not given them, constantly fueling the fear of not living up to the standards of perfection.

– Let’s stop thinking that a good physique is the same as having self-confidence:

Well, people who are undeniably beautiful suffer from the same weaknesses as the rest of us.

-Being self-confident:

It means being independent in your opinions when faced with opposing views, grounding them in your own experiences and the understanding that not everything valued by others has to hold the same importance or aesthetic value for us.

At the same time, this confidence will help us see things objectively; we all want to be an “Adonis” or a “Venus” at some point, but this doesn’t mean we don’t like ourselves, and that the “mind-body” balance is the wonderful “sex appeal” that sets trends and changes stereotypes.

Understanding that if there are any pathetic images, they are those of people obsessed with being physically perfect when, psychologically, they are a jumble of insecurities.

– Knowing how to listen is just as important as knowing how to speak:

In our culture, we believe that talking is the way to gain insight into our partner’s private thoughts, and we consider it essential to understand their feelings.

But sometimes we don’t realize the power of listening to and observing one another.

The gestures that accompany any explanation, along with the meaning—or lack thereof—of the words, can help you better understand the severity, suffering, or confusion involved in the situation, as well as let him or her know that you are there for him or her.

– Day-to-Day Life in the Master’s Program:

Communicating through touch, debunking common misconceptions, and discovering new rhythms in sexuality isn’t too difficult these days—there’s a wealth of information available on experimenting with games, fantasies, positions, and so on…that can spice up our sex lives, but we mustn’t fall into the trap of believing that simply following a certain technique will make us sexual geniuses.

Men, above all, focus on whether or not they have an erection.

The fear of losing their potency causes them to rush through sex and focus on reaching orgasm rather than on their feelings. Focus on your arousal and how it ebbs and flows. Enjoy the moment. Intimacy doesn’t have to end just because the penis isn’t constantly erect.

Women also worry about themselves; when they lose their desire, it’s gone for the rest of the night, and sometimes they give up when they’re unable to reach climax within a certain self-imposed time limit.

We would say that these days it’s more a matter of ongoing, daily communication with your partner to learn about each other’s specific preferences, since we often hide too many things about ourselves.

This shared curiosity will help us build, slowly but surely, a fulfilling intimacy that further strengthens—if that’s even possible—the commitment to living together and the love in our relationships.