Let's get physical

I’ve been thinking off and on lately about physical intimacy and appropriate boundaries. I guess probably because I went from having few boundaries to developing some over the last few years. It’s also been spurred by a fairly recent Skype conversation with MNJ and MH and a brief conversation in the parking lot after church yesterday with a friend.

I was taught the law of chastity repeatedly all through my adolescent and young adult life. I knew it well. I prided myself in my youth in the fact that I was very respectful of other young women and had never defiled one. That’s like someone who is severely allergic to sugar being proud about staying away from sweets. It makes no sense. I was never able to engage in situations that tested and helped me explore my understanding of chastity. As a result, the principles surrounding chastity weren’t able to sink in to a level any deeper than having it taught to me and being able to regurgitate it.

Then I got home from my mission and realized my attraction to men was only increasing and I wasn’t aware of any healthy ways to explore what that meant for me and was kind of left to my own devices and started getting more and more curious and…yada, yada, yada…very few boundaries…yada, yada, yada. (This paragraph has been edited for content and length)

As I’ve gone through the process of creating boundaries, I’ve been learning some things about sex. I’ve learned that emotional intimacy is much more fulfilling and enriching than just physical intimacy, and that a better developed level of emotional intimacy can lead to more fulfilling and enriching levels of physical intimacy.

I’ve learned that physical intimacy is a powerful thing that we aren’t very good at understanding. So powerful, in fact, that it can make you fall in love with someone before you know him well enough to know that you shouldn’t fall in love with him. Physical intimacy releases powerful bonding hormones. It’s best to hold off on physical intimacy with a person until you know that person well enough to know whether or not you want to create a bond with him; otherwise, your physical bonding will outpace your emotional bonding and things will get messy fairly quickly.

I use the vague term “physical intimacy” on purpose, because I don’t think any one person can draw a specific line for anybody else. Each of us has to figure out that delicate balance for ourselves, but certainly with the help of outside sources. Trust me; don’t leave yourself in a vacuum of your own devices.

A while back I read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I know, I know, it’s that book that my friend Ninny Beth called "travel porn" that has been made into a movie starring none other than Julia Roberts. Who else was going to play that role? Anyway, there are actually some fantastic gems in that book and this is one of them:

“When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.”