I think a real man approaches lovemaking with the sole intention of making the person he loves feel loved. It’s not about “having” or possessing someone; it’s all about sharing. The times I felt my partner was not wholly satisfied, I was disappointed in myself.
Over time I realized that true intimacy is in that sharing, not in the act that we usually mean when we use the word intimacy.
Two songs come to mind — Silly, perhaps, but the first is “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” I remember the first time I held a girl’s hand — it was electric, even spiritual. When I sing the song, I slow it way down to emphasize the words and that feeling: “When I touch you, I feel happy inside.”
The other is Judee Sill’s “The Kiss,” which captures the yearning and the “sweet communion” of touching lips together. “Love, rising from the mists/Promise me this and only this/Holy breath touching me like a wind song/Sweet communion of a kiss.”
As we grow older, it’s easy sometimes to overlook the magic of these simplest acts of physical love.
The last advice I ever asked of Red — though I didn’t know in the moment that it was the last — was whether I should post the following description of what became the most intimate moments we shared. “Tell me if this is too personal,” I asked her, 36 hours before she left us, and read the blog post out loud.
With more energy than I thought she had left, she said simply, “Warren, You have to post that.” And so I did, and it bears repeating.
The gentle power of the ponytail
When I visit Red at the hospice, I usually get behind her and pull on her hair, running my fingers through it over and over and massaging her head and shoulders. It’s a little ritual she calls “giving her a ponytail,” and we have been performing this calming, intimate act together for many years.
Three times during her first few weeks here, three different women came up and told us how beautiful it was to see me stroking her hair like that. I wasn’t sure what to say except, “Thank you,” but it got me thinking about this relationship between men and women.
My first thought was to let my fellow males know that passionate kisses and wild love-making may reach their woman’s heart, but she’s more likely to melt in your arms if you brush her hair for awhile. I know she inspires you to urgent passions, but you may get a deeper response with a gentler intimacy.
Red’s response to the women’s compliments has been a warm acknowledgement and kind of a pride in the fact that this guy belongs to her, and it warms my own soul to hear that pride in her voice. When all is said and done, all a man really wants is to make his lady happy, and so, it appears, mission accomplished.
Let that be a lesson to you, young man.
