“Sex is not the same as making love.”

I love the intimate act of sex as much as the next person.

In recent years, I can also admit to loosening my grip on taking the act so seriously. I’ve learned that just like a man, I can have sex just for the simple pleasure of having it and not because I’m in some deep committed relationship that is going somewhere.

I have engaged in it as a source of comfort after splitting up from my husband.

I’ve used it as a way to say “Fuck you” to the man who didn’t value me as much as I valued him.

I’ve reveled in it as a way to celebrate my vibrant sexuality which I denied for so long having grown up in a conservative, Catholic home.

But I’ve realized now that sex simply isn’t enough for me. I may need it, but I don’t want it.

What I want, if I am so bravely honest with myself…is unbridled passion. I want to be made love to in the most sensual, passionate, connected way with a man.

I often lay in bed at night thinking about the last time I felt so vulnerable with a man…so broken open. I long for that feeling of a man being so crazy about me, that he will spend hours not just thinking of ways to pleasure me, but ways to connect with my soul.

I want to feel the emotional connection. The feel of a man’s heart beating rapidly against mine because he is so taken with me…not by my outer beauty but by the woman underneath all that he sees on the outside.

I am not just curves, smooth skin, long hair and playful flirtatious sexuality. I am a woman who longs to be cherished. Longs to be loved for all that she is. Longs for a connection deeper than a brief sexual encounter.

I realize this will require me to open myself up to someone in a way I have been unwilling and unable to since my divorce. When my heart was shattered, I built a fortress around it so tall that even if a man were trying to connect with me, I would not allow it.

I have deprived myself, this I know, although I didn’t feel the deprivation so strongly as I do now. It’s as if I’ve deprived myself of food and water for two years, convincing myself I didn’t need it.

Except I’m finally realizing how profoundly hungry and thirsty I am. I won’t settle for just any meal now. Even if the hunger pangs get unbearable. It must be a sensually delicious, filling encounter that leaves me satiated.

But I know that without my willingness to expose my raw, vulnerable self again, I cannot have what I so desperately dream about in those quiet moments before I fall into a deep sleep each night.

A man who can and wants to make love…not just have sex.

So now I wait to see when he will appear.

Relephant: 

Can We Be Lovers & Not Have Sex?

Author: Dina Strada

Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo: Hanna Alice/Flickr