Why are you actually having sex?

He was shaking when he sat down in front of me. He told me himself through a text message prior, anxious and excited. He could feel it in his body before he'd even arrived.

And with all new clients, I asked them the same question. "What got you interested in a tantric massage today?" And so he told me everything, how long he and his wife had been together, how much he loved her, how sex had faded over the last few years until now he's showing up out of obligation. Going through the moments, not really present for it or enjoying the sex that they had.

And underneath it all, how he was hoping that somehow I had the power to turn this mountain into a molehill, and to take all of that internal pressure away. I had to smile. "Oh, so the stakes aren't that high then, are they?

But what I was actually sitting with in that moment was that he knew obligation sex wasn't feeding him. To do his duty as a husband wasn't actually what he needed. He'd lost connection to his own desires so completely that all he could feel was that absence, and that was the mountain. And so I told him what I tell anyone who arrives and sits in front of me carrying that kind of weight. That I'm not here to solve anything.

What I offer is an experience of loving and devotional touch, a space to meet yourself, your body, and your sexuality through presence and breath. For some people, that creates a sense of lightness or inner freedom. But I'm not here to offer solutions. I'm offering a space for you to meet yourself.

I watched as his face drop, his arms crossed, shoulders pulled back, and I could tell he was disappointed. And I knew why. Because nobody has probably ever asked him to turn towards himself before. He has spent years orienting his sexuality outward towards someone else. And the thing is, most of us have.

We have been taught that sex is for the other person to be a good lover, just be a good partner. We need to know what they want, give it to them, show up and perform. And this messaging is everywhere. In porn, in the way that we talk about sex that just magically happens between two people rather than something that begins inside us. Very few people have ever been invited to ask the question, "What is it that I actually need from sex? What does it give me? And what am I seeking when I reach out for it?" And when you don't have that self-knowledge, most of us move through sex on autopilot, driven by reasons we've never examined and seeking things we've never named.

I came across a Instagram post recently, and what got me to stop in my tracks is that it listed reasons why people have sex. And I'm going to attach a link below to it, but what I appreciated that it was laid out so plainly.

IG LINK
https://www.instagram.com/p/DXjCQ41k6Qv/?igsh=aXVuc2MwcXFsMGl3

And using this post as inspiration, I decided to expand on it through my own lens, through the years of sitting with people in their vulnerable moments and hearing their reasons. So take a moment to read through these next 11 reasons slowly and maybe notice which ones you recognize.

Number one, pleasure. To feel good in your body because your body simply wants to feel good. There's no attachment, no agenda, and no story about what it means or who it makes you. Simply the experience of being alive in your skin. And honestly, getting to this state takes more self-knowledge than most people realize, which is why it's actually rarer than you think.

Love. One of the deepest vulnerabilities that two people can share, where you are fully seen, accepted, and witnessed by the other person, and to offer that same quality of presence back to them. And now, in the beginning of a relationship, this can feel effortless. Whereas in long-term relationships, it becomes real work. How do we find our way back to each other through all the layers of our lived experience of life?

The third reason for sex is validation. Am I worthy? Am I beautiful? Am I desired? Am I enough? Sex is a way of proving something to yourself through being chosen by another person. And this one is subtle enough that most people don't recognize it until the sex stops and the emptiness arise anyway

The fourth reason, power. Sex is one of the few places where power can be consciously felt, played with, and released. For the person who may carry enormous responsibility in their daily life, to surrender in sex can be a profound relief. Because someone else is holding the space, they're leading, and for once, you don't have to. While for the person who may feel small everywhere else, to feel powerful in the bedroom is a taste of something that maybe their regular life hasn't offered. Power moves through sex, whether you want to name it or not.

The fifth reason, healing. The mind can spend years trying to make sense of something that the body hasn't experienced yet. Healing through sex closes that gap that might look like loving, devotional touch, or something more intense than you're used to. The form matters less than what's actually happening beneath, which is the body feeling something that it didn't know was possible

Six, connection. Now, this isn't love nor validation, but rather the primal animal need for another warm body next to yours. Skin, breath, presence, warmth. Most of the world is touch-starved, and this is one of the most honest reasons that there is to bring bodies together.

Maintenance sex. Now, sex has seasons. It may not be the most wild or most memorable, but it's the consistency that is stable through time. It's continuing to put effort and action into a very primal part of the relationship. The deeper message behind maintenance sex is that the constant choosing of the other through this act of physical intimacy.

Reason eight, obligation. You are showing up to sex because you feel like you should. Because saying no feels harder than going through the motions. The body is there, but the soul is checked out. Perhaps you are the one having obligation sex, going through it while feeling nothing. Or maybe you're on the receiving end, and you can sense that something is off, that the person you love is somewhere else, even though physically they're right there with you.

Escape. Some people use sex to get out of their current reality, away from the responsibilities, the thoughts, the pain, and those dynamics that are too heavy to sit with. The difference between escape and pleasure is subtle. Pleasure is about deepening into a full life while escape is running from it

Money. Sex for money is a transaction made visible. The convenience of intimacy without the emotional and mental load of navigating a relationship. For some, it's purely physical release. While for others, it's the closeness, warmth, companionship without the complication. For the provider, this is a living and for the client, a need that is met. And both experiences are valid.

And finally, surrender. Sex for surrender, it's not about being passive. You can be surrendered while still being moving and active. To surrender is to let go of the performance and the agenda, to allow your body to respond with what's arising moment to moment without the mind dictating. And when this happens fully in sex, this is where it can become devotional, dare I say, even spiritual. By falling deeper into sensation until the mind opens somewhere beyond itself. And most people don't even know that this is available to them.

And I'll be the first to say, this is not a master list. I'm sure that there are more reasons out there than these 11, and none of these reasons are better or worse than the other. It's actually about getting honest about what you want from a sexual encounter. What is it that you want for yourself? What do you want to give? What are you genuinely seeking underneath that habit of routine or performance?

Because in order to create sexual experience that actually feels satisfying and fulfilling, we need to know what is driving us underneath, because it's going to be a lot harder to meet those needs in ourselves or with other people. So I'm curious, which ones do you recognize yourself in

Thank you, beauties. In the next post, I'm going to share one of my own memorable, erotic experiences, and one that changed how I understood my own sexuality entirely. I'm going to walk you through the same inquiry I use with my clients to unpack what's really going on underneath, so that you can do the same with your own. I'll see you in the membership space.