Tag: Sex

Intimacy is More than Physical

April 25, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Intimacy

When culture speaks to the topic of intimacy, it is assumed the discussion will be about the physical, sexual act. Unfortunately, when we try to boil down something as intricate and deep as intimacy, we miss a lot of important stuff. And because that important stuff, is the stuff of healthy relationships, we settle for shallow connections. In fact, when you look up the definition of intimacy, of the 7 definitions, sex does not appear until number 6. This is because intimacy is so much more than sex.

When we try to boil down something as intricate and deep as intimacy, we miss a lot of important stuff.
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Does intimacy include the physical aspect? Yes. Before we consider the physical act, there are at least 3 other forms of intimacy that are necessary. Following are areas of intimacy we should first concentrate on, if we desire to cultivate a healthy relationship.

Intellectual Intimacy

This is the sharing of ideas and opinions. The goal is to discover similarities and differences in how you relate to the world. Intellectual intimacy may take some time to develop, because it requires getting past the infatuation stage. This stage is the place where you are willing to be agreeable to nearly anything, as long as you can just be next to that person. Infatuation initially builds intimacy out wide, but not deep. Intellectual intimacy is greater than infatuation. Once you are able to move past infatuation, to the place where you can share your genuine views, then intellectual intimacy will flourish.

Emotional Intimacy

Emotional intimacy has to do with the ability to share personal experiences and the internal feelings associated with them. This is often a difficult area of intimacy for many people because it requires vulnerability and trust. Trust is key for success in this area. And because real trust takes time to build; emotional intimacy is an exercise in patience and practice. Moreover, true emotional intimacy is not an area of intimacy that can or will be rushed.

Spiritual Intimacy

This can be a complex type of intimacy. If you are a Christian, this is about closeness to God as shared with your partner. It has to do with building your own deep intimacy with God, and sharing with each other, so you are united. Initially, your responsibility for spiritual intimacy is fairly restricted. You should concentrate on being concerned with growing your relationship with God, and encouraging your partner to grow their relationship with God. As you grow closer, you will bring your together relationship to God. If you are not a Christian, this area has to do with growing deeply in those areas that you hold sacred. This is far more profound than emotional intimacy. Spiritual intimacy takes more time than other areas.

These 3 areas of intimacy are especially important if you are just beginning a relationship. Your ability to cultivate intimacy, in these areas of your relationship, is crucial to its future and health. It can also be a good “measuring stick” concerning the potential of a future with this person. If together, you cannot develop intimacy in these first 3 areas, before the physical aspect of your relationship, I would suggest that you take a serious look at what you are actually building together.

As long as you are both growing, there will always be a need for deeper knowing.
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If you are already in a relationship, dating/engaged/married, then these are the areas of intimacy that you must continually work at maintaining. When it comes to intimacy, you never fully “arrive.” As long as you are both growing, there will always be a need for deeper knowing.

Sex is the physical expression of a deeply, cultivated love...
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If you are a Christian that grew up with the “True Love Waits” teaching in youth group; I am not pitching a “sex before marriage will ruin it” theology. I do believe that sex is the physical expression of a deeply, cultivated love and meant to happen within the boundaries of marriage. I am not so naïve as to believe that everyone takes this same stance. What I am saying is that physical intimacy is meant to be experienced after the culmination of deeply mining out these other areas of intimacy. That takes time. If you take this time to more profoundly know your partner, your relationship will naturally move toward physical intimacy based on a continued desire to know, rather than a feeling of lust. When you realize that this is happening, marriage is a logical conversation.

Ultimately our desire for intimacy is a product of how God created us and is echoed in Jesus’s prayer in John 17.

20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

How to Measure Manhood

September 28, 2015 / / 3 Comments

Arm wrestling competition

Being physically strong, making money, having power, and not taking guff from anyone have all been etched into the measuring stick of manhood. History has provided very specific male stereotypes, a favorite being John Wayne.

For several generations, this measure of a man remained both popular and unchallenged. Today, defining a man inside of our culture has become increasingly difficult as the definition is challenged and examined. Our cultural definition now includes that a man can be metrosexual or effeminate and still be a man. It could be said that today, manhood is simply a result of one’s maleness. However, this is not true because our culture now says a woman can be a man and vice versa.

The list for what constitutes a man continues to be more confusing. When I was growing up, I was told that what makes a man is to not hit or disrespect a woman. Of course that’s a really important aspect of manhood; but I wasn’t told how a man was supposed to treat a woman. Except I was. By Hollywood.

One of Hollywood’s greatest measures of a man was that the man always got the girl. This usually included that the man had sex with her. There are so many movies where the dad gave his son an “atta-boy” shoulder slug, or an approving nod and wink, at the news of the son’s first kiss or sexual encounter. The dad was always proud of the son. This has not changed.

The band Maroon 5 recently released a song called Sugar. The music is upbeat and fun. A song that you might dance to at, say a wedding. Until you actually listen to the lyrics and realize it isn’t a song that you should have your 7-year-old son listen to. Truthfully, I’d prefer my 16 and 18 year old sons didn’t listen to it either. Before I continue, let me clarify that I’m not that “all secular music is from the devil” guy. I love music. All kinds; except Kanya, he’s his biggest fan and doesn’t need me. For a song to make my, “Do Not Play” list it really needs to send the wrong message. Sugar does just this.

Sugar really wasn’t a song I was listening to; it was my wife who pointed out the lyrics to me. Specifically the words:

“Yeah, I want that red velvet. I want that sugar sweet. Don’t let nobody touch it, unless that somebody is me. I gotta be a man, there ain’t no other way.”

If you weren’t able to put that together, “sugar” is sex. Mr. Levine is singing that in order to be a man he needs to have sex with her because there’s “no other way.”

The ability to have sex does not signal your manhood...
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Maybe you’re thinking I’m over reacting and that it’s just a song. Maybe I am. However, that is the message of the song. Sugar’s message is no different from what so many others in entertainment portray as the measure of a man. Sex seems to be the one thing that many guys agree is the measure of a man.

Your ability to have sex with a woman doesn’t make you a man. I’ve known so many boys that have had sex and never acted like a man. I was one of them and to be clear, getting married at 19 didn’t change that. In fact, having sex will often reveal areas you are lacking in before it will reveal how much of a man you are – or are not. The ability to have sex does not signal your manhood; it simply means that your body functions as it was created to.

If we take sex out of the picture, then how should we define a man?

For Christians, the place to look for the definition of a man is the Bible and to the person of Jesus. In Jesus we see the perfect joining of some of the traits that we separate or remove when defining masculinity including; strength, justice, gentleness, grace, wrath, love, confidence, humility, etc. One of the main writers of the New Testament, Paul, knew this. In 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 he says, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.” Then in his letter to Timothy, a leader in the church, he writes, “But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.”

True manhood has little to do with what we desire or achieve.
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In both instances we see Paul framing manhood and masculinity with words that have nothing to do with pursuing profession, possessions, persons, power – or sex. Instead he tell us to pursue the things of God, that ultimately glorify Him and benefit others. True manhood has little to do with what we desire or achieve.

One of the best ways to display masculinity is to move our focus off ourselves and our desires and onto serving and standing for others, especially those that aren’t able to do it for themselves.

If we desire to be real men and to raise real men; our focus must be the pursuit of Jesus and the traits that reveal Him to others.

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