This may seem like a rhetorical question but it is not.

And you may wonder why I would even ask because sex is good—or is it?

So to dig into the matter I have to disclose some personal things about my life so bear with me.

As a disclaimer I will say I do like sex. But I would rather learn more about making love. In fact, in college I wrote a poem that began:

Is it fashion, copulation without the passion?

Of course you can imagine with a line like that what my sex life was like growing up. And what you may not know as a young woman who was extremely attractive and did not know it, I had to learn sex was a shared pleasure. I was under the impression I was merely there to please.

And then there was learning to relax in the process of sharing so I could actually experience what feeling was, or is.

Today I am better at feeling. Today I know I am not just a tool to please a man. But I cannot tell you the times I had sex when I did not want it. I cannot tell you the times I woke up and snuck out of bed. I cannot tell you the times, like any good alcoholic, I woke up feeling dirty and empty and introducing myself to someone I just slept with when I even bothered with formalities like names.

So what good is sex?

Sex is meant to be sacred but I grew up not knowing that. Sex is meant to invite honesty, vulnerability and be an expression of love.

But what I have learned in my 54 odd years is love can be expressed in so many ways and most of us, including myself here of course, confuse love with need and we muddy it by not being honest with how we are and who we are.

Love is what we all want.

We confuse sex with love because in theory sex is an expression of love but who of us truly know how to be that open and accepting when that vulnerable and literally and figuratively, naked?

As we all know, we cannot love another when we don’t love self. We cannot accept and embrace another when we cannot accept and embrace self.

Making love and having sex are not the same.  Sex without love can be fun. Sex without love can bring people closer together. Sex without love does not have to lack meaning.

But for me sex without love is simply sex and lacks depth and meaning –I know sex without love.  And I know the experience of loving the person I am having sex with.

But honestly, I don’t think I have learned how to make love. I don’t think I have the courage yet.

I don’t think I know what it is like not to simply trust another but to trust myself so completely I can be present and open and vulnerable all at the same time with another.

I think I do it best here, writing. I am not afraid of telling the truth and finding my lies. But having my Muse as a partner is not the same as having another and my Muse is the veil that I can see through as she covers me.

Oh and I see my Muse as a She, not a He.

And I happen to prefer boys at the moment.

So you tell me, honestly:  what good is sex to you?

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Editor: Bryonie Wise

Photo: Flickr Creative Commons