Sacred Sex

When my husband and I decided to leave the fast-paced city life in Eastern Canada to live and work in a small town in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, we knew it would be a big change. We sold our house on a major city street, packed up the moving truck, loaded our sport utility vehicle to the brim and started driving west. The decision to follow our dream was an incredible adventure that changed our lives in many ways, but also brought us closer together.

We have always thought of our relationship as another dream come true. From the moment we first laid eyes on each other, we were smitten. In fact, we are very much alike and felt from our first meeting that we are "soulmates." To commemorate our shared adventure across Canada as well as our marriage of souls, we decided to get personalized license plates from the registry office in Alberta.

The SUV that brought us one step closer to our dream and each other now sports the license plate "SOULM8S." We get a mixed bag of responses from this plate. One young man driving what I refer to as a "pimped up Honda"-an old Civic that boasts window tinting gone awry, a mile high rear spoiler that looks more like a handle, purple lights, among a dozen other accessories-shouted out at us "soulmates, yeah right!"

On the flip side, we've had people tell us how much they love our license plate. We've observed glaring, middle-aged women laugh almost with disgust. Young and old couples alike often take a long look at the plate, smile at each other and then smile at us. Our simple gesture seems to bring out the best and worst in people, depending on how they feel about themselves, their life, and the possibility of "soul love."

I'm not surprised at the responses. It seems that so much in our society prevents us from finding much depth or intimacy in a "love" relationship. It promotes a fast-paced life where television commercials flash thin, scantily clad, heavily made-up and seemingly "perfect" bodies every millisecond, with the accompanying annoying "music" which sounds like noise with a heavy beat. And, of course, the same commercial is marketing beer, or cars, or shampoo.

Sex sells. There's no doubt about that. And, it's not surprising in a society that is starved for deep and meaningful love. Sex seems to be the stand-in for intimacy. Somewhere between little girls who dream of a fairy tale romance and little boys that are raised to deny their emotional selves, we've created a monster-sex. A person doesn't have to look very far to see the relics of our collective consciousness.

Sex appears everywhere: television commercials, movies, newspapers, and billboards line their messages with naked or mostly-naked bodies that have been buffed up, made up, and touched up. The hemlines of many a teenage girl seems to get shorter in a desperate attempt to get attention while many young (and not so young) boys feel that their masculinity falls short if they don't gawk, stare, or yell something crude at the sight of a scantily-clad woman. I call this blatant display of sex and sexuality, "looking for love in all the wrong places."

I should know. I didn't always have soulmate love. As a child model who learned by watching the models around her of the "importance" of perfect skin, perfect hair, and a perfect body, I bought into the notion that "pretty" girls are happier and attract their Prince Charming. They live happily ever after, and of course, that includes the perfect sex life.

Of course, I never learned that attractiveness is subjective and just because the media and fashion industry attempt to sell a particular look as attractive, doesn't make it so…and certainly not to everyone. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Undoing this brainwashing hasn't been easy. There was the severe acne during those terrible teenage years, a serious bout with anorexia as I tortured the body that seemed increasingly imperfect, and failed relationships as I realized (afterward of course) that I had accepted society's notion of "love" as this superficial display of sex and bodies that surrounded me at every turn.

I woke up one day from this pervasive fog and realized that there was only one way to have a deep and meaningful, loving relationship that is full of intimacy-by learning to love myself. Could I have embarked on a more difficult journey? This journey isn't over and I imagine it will be an ongoing adventure that never ends. For me, that journey included turning off my television, boycotting women's fashion magazines, and avoiding movies that portray women as nothing more than sex objects. I also started saying affirmations to myself that, at first, felt like blatant lies. Over time, they became truer for me. These positive statements affirmed, not my capacity to have a fulfilling sexual life, but my love of myself, my body, and yes, my appearance. For you, the journey may be similar or it may be entirely different.

I am a firm believer that a fulfilling sex life comes from self-acceptance and self-respect. Sacred sex, or more aptly, sacred love, is the outcome of believing that you are worth the love, attention, and appreciation that another human being will have for you, and of accepting nothing less. By gaining respect for yourself, you learn to avoid relationships where there is little mutual respect and the resulting lack of intimacy-relationships that may have plentiful amounts of sex or none at all. Either way, these sexual relationships may have nothing to do with love, particularly sacred love.

Sacred sex is the result of a tremendous amount of emotional work on oneself and one's relationship. It is the byproduct of intimacy that begins with how you treat yourself, your partner, and how you are treated in return.

I recently overheard the conversation of a young couple in their early twenties. It involved some insults, foul language and, ironically, a demand for marriage. I hoped, for their sake, that marriage was not the result since there was obviously very little respect and much less love in this relationship. Yet, I don't see much difference in a lot of marriages and long-term relationships. Of course, relationships are not always full of bliss. Sometimes, they can be downright hard. But, at their core, there needs to be respect, something that this particular couple seemed to lack.

This respect begins, first with oneself. When a person truly respects herself, she respects the partner she chooses. When she respects his partner, he treats him as an equal-in all things from housework to finances, to childcare and love and intimacy. Long before there is sacred sex in the bedroom, there is the foundation of sacred sex in all other aspects of life.

A person cannot expect his partner to be ready for lovemaking at the end of a long day when his partner has had the exclusive responsibility for cleaning the house, making meals, and taking care of children. A disparate breakdown of work and responsibilities is not the stuff of loving relationships and mutual respect. It may be commonplace, but is not the basis of sacredness in a relationship. Neither is insulting or belittling a partner. I am sad to say I have seen many women belittle men as their means to garner more respect from a male partner. And, I've observed many men treat women as nothing more than a housekeeper, sex object, and babysitter. Isn't it time that we learned as a society that relationships have so much more potential when we treat our partner as an equal-in all things.
Sacred sex is also about making a commitment to your partner. I am constantly dumbfounded at the number of men and women who are in serious relationships yet take every opportunity to "check out" other people: real or two-dimensional in magazines or television.

Sex is part of a healthy relationship, not the replacement for one. It seems to me that sacred sex has little to do with the actual act of having sex and a whole lot more to do with physical, emotional, and spiritual intimacy, commitment, love, and respect that may or may not result in physical lovemaking. When a relationship has all these components, the expression of such powerful and beautiful love will most likely result in sacred sex-the physical, emotional and spiritual kind.