It means so much more...
We are all complex people, men and women included.
Sometimes when life speeds by in a haze, after asking each other what the hell day it is as we settle down into bed and turn on our alarms, it's easy and understandable to feel disconnected.
In those moments, I ache for the bridge that will bring us together again. The flint and the spark.
But that doesn't necessarily mean I want to lay my request at the altar of penetration.
Say what?
Sex comprises a whole bounty of pleasures from which to choose. Oral, stroking, getting close, firing our connection, etc.
The broad term "sex" doesn't automatically imply intercourse.
I think a lot of women agree sex is only one example of the many kinds of glue that hold a relationship together. Women crave sex not only for the ecstatic physical release, but also because we LOVE the emotions that accompany the act.
Sex can reassure, increase intense emotions, surprise and delight.
When I say I want to have sex with you, I mean that I want to share an intimacy no one else is privileged to hold.
I want to keep the secret with you that, as politely as we may act now in public when putting groceries in the cart, we both know a mere 20 minutes ago we were sweaty, naked and screaming.
Sometimes, I might miss you both physically and emotionally if our paths have veered off course a bit.
I may also want to know you still find me sexy as I stumble around in my bathrobe alight with my neglected, gray, wiry hair peeking up from an unpolished corona of bedhead.
You get to see those truths about me, and while I know you are not shallow and you insist you don't care and you love the whole me, it's still another form of being naked.
When I want sex, I desire more than physicality. I want to be shown with gestures arising from your heart that you can handle me at my ugliest and most vulnerable.
I yearn for confirmation that you want to remain in this partnership, because, as we have all learned through the proliferation of articles on the interwebs ... love is a choice.
Are you making the decision to love me again today? Show me.
Feeling you skin-to-skin gives me comfort and security.
Opening up to each other is a sacred overture from our trembling and reaching hearts.
How you answer informs me of where we are going, and if we will be arriving there together.
The way you love me--rushed, tender, slow--informs me of our status in This. Very. Minute.
Are you dedicated to the moment and relishing it? Are you distracted?
Sex is a lie detector test--a toe dipped into water to gauge the temperature of our current heat and passion.
Because my words and emotions get mixed up in your sometimes overwhelming promise, I vow to work on refining what I will say to clearly explain this statement, "I want to have sex with you."
And I will ask it again and again.
Because you need to hear you are desired and valued as a person, as well as a man.
You will say it to me, too, and when you do, just know the ember pulsing so quietly in my core, the one I carry only for you, explodes into a fierce, enveloping combustion.
You allow me to learn again all is right in the kingdom of our coupledom, enabling us to continue on with our resurgence until the next time.
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Original article appeared at Your Tango. Reprinted with permission.