Love, sex, and service

Love, sex, and service

A quote from submissive journey prompts got me thinking. I've often told partners that I am uncomfortable with emotionally disconnected sexual contact. I want to know you, be known by you, before I allow you access to the intimate areas of my body - and that includes my heart, soul, and intellect.

A dear friend reminded me recently that our most potent sexual organ is our brain. How I could have forgotten that is amazing to me. I know I am most stimulated by someone with whom I have an intellectual connection. Someone who can get into my head will surely give and receive far more satisfying sexual gratification than those who do not take the time to connect with me in that way.

Another part of the original quote which got me started today dealt with the vulnerability inherent in giving someone your love. When we love, we open ourselves to another. Few can hurt us more easily or more deeply than those whom we love. But if one does not become vulnerable, one cheats him or herself as well is his or he partner. Despite the pain of past relationships, I will make myself vulnerable to someone again. How can I not? How can I go through life living behind a barricade? I cannot. I must open my heart and soul as I have in the past. I must give myself to others. I must be vulnerable or risk existing rather than living.

If I am not vulnerable, I cannot serve. Service requires trust to be given to the served and accepted from the served. There is vulnerability on both sides of the equation. Power exchange relationships, it would seem, begin with vulnerability and continue with vulnerability. Transparency must be there on both sides. Both partners must be open and must be receptive. Both must trust and both must love.

Yes, I said love. Even owners must love. I've reached a point in my life where I see through the silly, adolescent definitions of love that plagued my life. Now love is that place of safety and vulnerability where another human being has made a decision to let me into his or her walls and I have done the same. Lust is great, but love is life-changing.