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Building Intimacy Through Safer Sex
(07/22/2006) by Yvonne Fulbright
Safer sex isn’t just about avoiding pregnancy or reducing the risk of getting an STI. When discussed privately with a partner, safer sex talks can involve concerns beyond one’s sexual health, primarily the possibility of protection interfering with intimacy, e.g., reduced physical sensation or emotional closeness, or interrupting the moment. Whether such sex talks are private or public, the use of a condom or dental dam during vaginal, anal, or oral sex is rarely seen as an opportunity to build intimacy in relationships and a means to a better sex life on every level.
Safer sex can open a couple up to many sensual, even spiritual, sexual experiences in that such a joint effort can generate deep feelings of affection and love. In conveying compassion for your lover, providing emotional and physical security in a relationship (no matter how casual), and attending to each other’s needs, practicing safer sex is a simple case of the more you give, the more you’ll receive. As couples communicate about safer sex, they cultivate the emotional qualities of their relationship. Discussions around safer sex and words exchanged while protection is introduced can help couples to communicate more easily and openly about their love life. Couples can establish a better understanding of relationship wants and sexual needs beyond health prevention, as well as sexual performance and sensation concerns and desires. Such talks can help you to be in tune with what both of you are feeling – your moods, intentions, and expectations.
In using a condom or dental dam, couples can feel more connected in their mutual effort, with more intimacy garnering greater sexual happiness. Actually using protection does not have to be seen as interrupting the moment, but rather a time of acceptance and heartfelt communication – a bonding experience where two (or more) people are making the statement that they care about each other, they care about their health. They respect one another and want to keep each other safe.
Furthermore, using protection can provide physical and mental benefits in relaxing lovers. Reducing tension can make a partner more receptive to touch, heightening sensation and the exchange of sexual energy. As ironic as it may sound, a barrier allows for more body contact, with bodies melting into each other even more. With their bodies more at ease, a couple’s sexual movements can seem limitless, with figures better merging and sexual anticipation being about peaking – not pulling out or the wonder of “Will this experience come back to haunt me?” Couples are able to slow things down instead of rushing, taking advantage of more moments to look into the primary organ of intimacy – the eyes – and BE with each other.
Ultimately, all of these safer sex benefits make for more mindblowing sex, fewer problems in the sack, and more sexual self-confidence. Providing physical support that is safe and nurturing can dissolve performance anxieties. Men may be able to maintain an erection longer when wearing a condom, and can be less likely to suffer from premature ejaculation and last longer in bed. Women who use dental dams for giving and receiving oral sex won’t be worried about issues like disease transmission and can more easily receive sexual stimulation and be more easily orgasmic. For both sexes, protection can help them to hold off attaining climax, increasing the chances of multiple or simultaneous orgasms. Inevitably, greater sexual satisfaction will make for even more intimacy in a relationship.
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