Intimacy

I often wonder when I lost it.

The intimacy I once shared with my Husband.

I know there was a time when we knew each other's bodies very well and enjoyed them frequently... in a totally vanilla way naturally. But what happened? Where and when did that mutual affinity disappear?

Was it the advent of our children and the divisions that grew over our inability to agree about the correct method of raising them? Or did it absent itself long before, when we saw so little of each other due to our busy working schedules? Was it obscured by our differing levels of expectation in terms of displays of affection? Did it become irretrievable through my resentment of his attitude towards me? Maybe we just frittered it away in tiny pieces of dislike as we grew further and further apart? Or perhaps it just imploded during one of our five-yearly outbursts of acrimony at the disintegration of our partnership.

However it happened, it is just as surely and irredeemably destroyed.

All that is left is two people who share a house, a bed and a common concern over the future of their children.

Someone asked me recently whether I thought that "toys" are natural in relationships that have true intimacy? Or are they actually a distraction from the lack of intimacy within the couple?

It certainly made me think.

Toys didn't work in my marriage. I did try once with my toothbrush in an attempt to save things but, because we had lost the intimacy, irrevocably mislaid the rapport of two people who really adore each other's bodies and minds, we had forfeited the pleasure of toys. It wasn't 'comfortable', just forced.

In my relationship with Ruf, I believe we do have true intimacy and the toys are just an extension of that. We play with toys for him and for me and they were a part of our lovemaking right from the start. The idea is to get the best possible orgasm for both of us and to see if accessories help or hinder.

We use them when we have a whole day or, even better, an entire weekend just to enjoy each other. However, if time is short, then there is no room for them. We need to express our feelings using just our bodies. It has to be skin on skin. Does that make sense?

But if we didn't have the basic foundation of a relationship where we want to pleasure each other physically and mentally, where we know each other's bodies like the backs of our own hands. From head to foot and all orifices in between, there are no secrets. If we didn't have that, combined with an amazing mental connection, I believe the toys would indeed be purely a distraction from the fundamental lack of intimacy between us. A way to try to improve the physical side of our sexlife, without attending to the emotional content.

How many couples do you know who wander from one life-changing experience to the next - marriage, children, moving from house to house. Each time looking for that missing component within their relationship, trying to achieve that sense of complete fulfilment. For some, that search will encompass the use of toys - a way to improve their sexual connection. But if you cannot achieve the optimum conjunction through skin on skin, if you don't feel desire just from the touch or the presence of that other person, then how can you expect to attain it with the aid of artificial devices?

Intimacy is an amazing gift between two like-minded souls, but if it is not nurtured, you can lose it in the blink of an eye.