Humans are part of only 3-5 % of mammals that pair bond. The neural basis for monogamy comes from the neural network we develop as babies when we are being mothered, perhaps that is why we often call our lover, "baby." But here comes the interesting part, if you are physical with anyone you aren't sure you want to stay with for the rest of your life, then you damage your own ability for your pair bond to last a lifetime... you start to learn how to break that bond, or perhaps, even worse, that love isn't good. So, learn from the animals that pair bond for life, sex forms the pair bond.
So let the physical part of love come from a relationship with a best friend, someone you want to spend your life with. Then even if you change and mature, you love each other in the way a mother loves her child, unconditionally... and you can stay together. We can, or course, need to end relationships at times and suffer the pain of losing our pair-bond, and pain it is. There can be real reasons to move on and begin anew and we should show empathy when that arises. However, we can minimise this by respecting our basic biology, being careful and choosing wisely whom we give our physical love to.
Sex brings that special addiction to your one love, your true life partner. If you aren't careful it becomes an addiction to the physical act and the fantasy rather than the person. And so, be good to yourself, love yourself by being sure that you've met your life partner before you have sex... then the relationship becomes all the deeper for you both... that's when humans mate for life instead of entering the carousel of pain that has become so normal in this toxic society.
Cold sores are herpes, they are the same virus regardless of if they are on the lips or down below. Indeed, you're more likely to get the virus from a kiss or oral sex than from sex. Eighty percent of US adults have the virus, and it can be broken down into type 1 or type 2, but increasingly these distinctions are seen as pointless. Either one can infect either place. So, since the 20% without it are either not sexually active or in longterm relationships, pretty much all of the adult population who are dating carry the virus... and you can have it without symptoms, so many are unaware they have it. So, for a start, be careful, only be physical with a person you want to stay with for life. Second, even kids can have coldsores from a well intentioned kiss from an adult relative. So, whether you get coldsores or not, let's be a bit more grown up when it comes to the word "herpes" - it is the coldsore virus and the vast majority of adults have it.
The best way to be safe is to abstain until you feel that you have met "the one." Then in future generations nobody will have the coldsore virus or any other that is transmitted by kissing or sex. And if you do get it, it is fairly benign, maybe you'll only ever get one cold sore, maybe once a year... and if the "cold sore" is down below, you'll probably only get one in your lifetime. Added to that, medications take it away immediately anyway. So while it does stay for life, and prevention is the best option, the virus becomes dormant and your life goes on as normal.
"I love you so much, let's take the next step."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Full STI screening?"
"I'm ready to spend the rest of my life with you, so yeah, let's go."
"That is the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me, I love you too."
This waiting to have sex with you, it's just a self-preservation thing... because once we go there, once we are that intimate, I'll be in love with you. So, my own sake, I need you to feel the same, that this is something you want, that you'll keep me, that you want me to keep you. That's all it is.
In that split second before his touch every nerve in my body and brain is electrified. It's the anticipation of being together in a way that's more than words, in a way that's so completely tangible.
I'm a one man woman, always united in soul and body... and so sex is an expression of love, of the bond, an intimacy that stretches gracefully into the thoughts, dreams and wishes. To be choosy is different from being a prude, for once we are in love, everything we want to do is fun, it's the right kind of play and my imagination is wild.
You are my drug. One touch and he intoxication is instant. Whatever you want to do is what we'll do and there isn't a thing I can do to stop you - not that I'd want to. Just your scent sends me into a heady trance, one that doesn't end until our bodies are still once more, just warm and snuggled in as close as two souls can be.
This time I'm in control; so you be a good boy and don't move your hands. I'm gonna drive you crazy, then stop, then do it all over again until you beg me to finish this. Even then, I won't. I'm just gonna do every naughty thing to you until your mind and body explode.
In the room that is twilight and shadow Greg stands close enough for me to breathe in his scent. His arms wrap around my back and in one gentle pull our skin touches. I feel his hand in my hair, how he loves the softness, watching it tumble as he releases it. Then his hand moves down my cheekbones to my lips. That's when the kissing starts and we start to move like partners in a dance that is written in our DNA. Our bodies fit together as if we were made just for this, to fall into one another, to feel this natural rhythm. With a laugh he lifts me right off my feet, carrying me toward the bed, letting me fall with a soft bounce on the mattress. We lock eyes for just a moment, just enough for us to feel safe with one another. Then he's all business, undoing my jeans, pulling them off, kissing from my toes upward, slowly, his hands on my legs, always just a little higher than the kisses. I feel my back arch in anticipation, knowing where his fingers will soon reach. My head rocks back against the pillow as he does, the first moan escaping my lips.
With the door closed every pretence falls. The facade we show the world melts away and all we want is to fuck each other's brains out. Every kiss has a raw intensity - breathing fast, heart rates faster. Then before I know how it happened we are naked and our skin is moving softly together, like the finest of silk. I feel his hand enter from below moving fast, our tongues entwined in a kiss, and then he's inside, changing my breathing with every thrust, hearing my moans timed to his body. Then all at once he stops and kisses from my breasts to my stomach, his hands light; then he's licking and using his fingers all at once, watching my reaction, feeling how my legs move, watching my body writhe. He tells me he's going to make me beg for it and I just let out a moan, unable to articulate a response. In seconds he's on me again, fucking me harder, just long enough to intoxicate my mind before stopping again. If it's begging he wants, he's gonna have to stop long enough for my brain to start working again first...
One touch and it was over, it was always that way with Amelia. She felt electricity in her skin, hormones shutting down of her higher brain and the rise of her animal self. From there on in it was all passion, intense, intoxicating. It was her release, her escape, her drug... not that she was easy, she knew well enough to avoid letting a man lay his hands on her. Yet with chemistry, with real love, too many of her switches were flicked for a reverse gear to be possible. If she was smitten all she could do was go along for the ride and pray her instincts were right.
My painted toes dig the earth - the grass around is damp rather than wet and the fall leaves still have a crunch to them. As Greg thrusts inward all I see is his face, the leaves above and the sky almost midnight blue, the moon a milky crescent. Our breaths rise in visible puffs and though there is a soft wind we are warm with one another. We're too old for outdoor sex; it really should be all silk sheets and petals, but I don't care and neither does he. Tomorrow this memory will be what gets us through our days, and in our old age it will be the reason behind our grins.
"Joel, I've been with you twenty years and still you are the only flame I will ever need. Your fingers are like divine fire for my soul, your voice intoxicating in all the finest of ways. I love you; I always will."
Sabine's skin is amber in the streetlight. The orange glow floods in the unguarded window, yet without a light on in here we're quite safe from prying eyes. As always she wears black lace, so soft over her pale skin, mahogany hair tumbling to the small of her back. I was so scared everything would change when we married, but if anything it's made our sex so much deeper, more sensual. Her hand alights on my face, moving down past my collar bone. Already my brain is on fire, she's my angel, my angel with fingertips of flame.
In these moments she loves me with her eyes has much as her body, our souls mingling in the quiet moments between action and stillness. The cool room already feels warm. Its hard to hold back, to make the moment last. Isn't it always the way, so caught between the intoxication of the climax and extending a moment we never want to end.
Pia used to be so nervous to put on weight, but it comes over the years just the same. She thought my interest would wane, but quite the opposite is true. Her sexiness comes from her confidence, her ability to take charge. I can say with all honesty I love to be dominated, after being the boss at work all day it's what I need. She blows my mind with her first command and I'm putty in her hands from then on. She can do whatever she wants and she does, over and over until I beg for mercy that never comes on first ask. It's the polar opposite to how she is in the daytime, so introverted and shy. It's the Pia only I get to see, my wife, the one who stole my heart.
Before the door has even closed Dan wraps his arms around me from behind. One inhale of his musky scent and I want to turn around. His right hand drops to my thigh, pulling up the skirt that hangs so loose just above my knees. I couldn't move even if I tried, like his fingers have short circuited my mind in the best possible way. He turns me around and we tumble to the couch, his eyes searching mine. I smile and kiss him back as he knew I would. With my lips I feel his mouth stretching wider than it should, fighting between a grinning and kissing. We've done this so many times and it keeps on getting better.
In the twilight room their fingers caressed each other's skin as if afraid a heavier touch would break the heady magic. They became one, one mind with one goal and purpose, each utterly drunk with love for the other.
Adam's finger tips are electric, they must be, for wherever they touch my skin tingles in a frenzy of static. As his hands move over my skin my body has a transitory paralysis, my mind unable to process the pleasure so fast. His head moves around to my left ear and he whispers what's coming next. Suddenly my body is off pause-mode and I pull back for a kiss that's both soft and hard. Both of us move in an intoxicated dance of limbs, never making the exact same moves twice, not in the decade we've been lovers. He's my cat-nip, I'm his whiskey on ice.
It isn't the first time for either of us, but we're so nervous you'd never know it. There's something about him that lights me up from the inside, there's something about me that melts his confidence to nothing at all. Touching him is like being handed the holy grail, like my heart is mended even though I never knew it was broken.
Ryan stands silhouetted against the open doorway and from his perfect outline I know he isn't wearing a stitch. He gives me one of the corny pick up lines he used when we were dating and I swallow a laugh, God knows his ego is big enough already. He's fresh from the shower, still wet in places, but still so warm. With one kiss my ambivalence shifts to enthusiasm. He's the only man on earth for me, the only one who can breathe fire into me even when I'm cold. From this moment on my clothes are a hinderance, but he solves the problem in under a minute.
The human body is capable of sex long before the mind is mature enough to handle the emotions that go with it. Sex isn't just a fun thing like laser tag or bungee jumping, it is a powerful union between two souls. Isn't that why we say "lovers"? I can never see anything sinful about sex between consenting adults, what people do is their own business, but the most damaging cultural dislocation is the one between sex and love. Sex should always be an act between two souls who love one another deeply, who are are committed to one another, for it is a deeply spiritual act that bonds. As a species we are happiest with life long mates. That is why older adults often caution young people not to run in too fast, to take time and be sure. To feel the heady passion that sex brings without the love to keep the bond strong ultimately brings damage not easily repaired. That is why emerging adults need to truly understand the difference between passionate love and lust. One builds strong relationships, keeps our souls healthy and our self esteem high, the other is fireworks in the moment but ultimately leaves us empty, shallow and addicted like the junkie.
The notion of sin has never sat too well with me. I can't see the world in those terms. What I see are behaviours that are either healthful or non-healthful, albeit on an individual, personal relationship or societal level. Sex between life partners is healthful. It bonds them, creates joy, relieves stress. Over their lives they'll try some new things, keep some of the old, surprise one another with new sexual adventures together. What they do together is a personal choice, one that couldn't be more personal or private. A healthy couple is good for every level, one in which both partners honour one another, truly love one another.