Potential for a sexual intimacy.
When our Creator devised the one-flesh relationship, He placed within it the potential for a sexual intimacy that could bless marriages almost beyond belief. This potential has not always been understood, but today therapists and researchers are discovering thatgenuine sexual intimacy has a remarkable power to heal, renew, refresh, restore, and sustain the marriage relationship.
But, one may ask, Isn’t every sexual encounter an expression of intimacy? After all, what could be more intimate than the sex act? The ancient Romans had a gloomy proverb that suggests the answer: Post coitum omnis animal triste. “Every creature is sad following sexual intercourse.” In other words, in the vastness of the universe, a small attempt at closeness has been made. Two have tried to cure loneliness through the temporary joining of their bodies. But in only a matter of moments, even the attempt is over, and one is alone again. For men and women trying to smother their loneliness and anxiety with casual sexual encounters, sadness and a gnawing sense of emptiness are the logical outcome; such intercourse is devoid of the real, sustained intimacy possible only between a husband and wife who are committed to each other.
Too often, impersonal sex happens within marriage. Then the loneliness becomes even more acute for married people who remain unsatisfied in their longing for a deep, shared closeness, in which each act of intercourse reaffirms and renews an intimacy that is always there.
Posted in The Power of Sexual Intimacy
To Ed Wheat Sr. and Gladys Gibson Wheat, whose commitment, devotion, warmth, generosity, and integrity stood for fifty years as a beautiful picture of genuine agape love.