Sex, intimacy and romance


by Maxime Durocher, January 2, 2014

A lot of people confuse sex with intimacy and romance when it has nothing to do with either. It’s true that sex can be intimate, but not necessarily. Sex can be romantic, but romance can kill sex.

Sex requires physical intimacy, yes, but you don’t need emotional intimacy to have good sex. Some partners connect on an entirely physical level. It’s a mistake to think that because you’re having sex, you’re being intimate. Intimacy is about opening yourself up. It’s also missing the point to think that you need intimacy to be able to have sex. Casual sex can be great fun.

In recent history, sex has been romanticize and idealized a lot, to the point where it has become a sacred thing in society, shrouded in a veil of mystery. Sex is one of the most natural function of life, and evolution made it pleasurable so that we would engage in the practice as much as possible. Of course sex can be very special when strong emotions are shared, but you don’t need those to have fun sex.

Great sex comes from great chemistry. There needs to be a certain connection between the partners for sparks to fly. It can be established on any number of level: physical, psychological, emotional, intellectual… name it and you got it. That connection enables the establishment of a certain understanding that creates the space to learn about the other’s physical triggers and to build trust. It’s that trust that free each partner to explore the limit of their pleasure.

Now, that trust doesn’t need to be all encompassing, it just needs to cover the carnal exchange, but it needs to be there, and it’s often lacking. Trust needs to be integrated into the sexual exchanges and grown with time to create freedom.

The freer a person feel, the more she or he is likely to express her or himself and bring down her or his barriers. It’s those barriers that impede pleasure. Fear of being judged is the biggest one, but there are many others.

So, when you think that sex is all about romance, or that you need to be romanced to have sex, you’re probably killing sex, because romance, as bandied about by our society and enshrined in the movies, has its rules. There are things that are romantics, things that are not, things you can do and things you cannot. It’s pretty rigid, rigid enough to lose your freedom, to mold you into something different, inhibiting your passion, making sex a simple adjunct to romance with few real flames.

That being said, you don’t need to have casual sex to enjoy yourself. If it’s not your cup of tea, you shouldn’t drink it. However, freedom will bring you better sex for certain.