| sex and intimacy
Fear of Intimacy
Do you believe that it is through connection
and interaction that one gains a more varied awareness and deeper capacity to
live in the world?
I do.
Do you know how to give?
Do you know how to take?
Can you do both?
If not you can change, but not overnight.
I believe the ability to do both will provide
for an enduring and intimate relationship.
Are you whole enough in your self to be
intimate?
NO? YES?
"If you have a wounded or shattered sense
of self," says Dr. Holly Hein, "you may still have a fear of
intimacy. It will interfere with your capacity for intimacy."
Fear of Intimacy
 Hein, author of
Sexual Detours, says two seemingly opposite sets of
emotions interfere with intimacy: abandonment and control. At their root, they
are the same in that they both occur in individuals with a fragile sense of
self-esteem, yet at first glance they appear strikingly dissimilar. Fear of
abandonment and fear of control are both sides of the same coin: fear of
intimacy.
When we fear abandonment we may try to stay
glued onto another. We may seek to preserve the illusion of intimacy but, in
truth, maintain a distance that prevents us from the vulnerability of intimacy.
We may never develop ourselves as independent, whole individuals. Instead of
dealing with the fear that we won't be able to survive, we try to avoid the
feeling entirely.
Fear of control occurs when intimacy feels
controlling. Commitment issues are frequent manifestations of fear because we
equate being close to someone by being engulfed by him or her and losing
ourselves. We don't want to get too close because something that is frightening
or anxiety-producing is associated with closeness. The reason we fear being
"smothered" or "swallowed up" by another is that we have a
fragile sense of ourselves and perceive the other person as overwhelming or
dangerous. The root is again that we won't be able to survive.
To achieve intimacy it is crucial that we have
the ability to perceive our partners as they really are, not as characters in
the drama taking place within us. We each want to be valued for who we really
are, not as a figment of someone else's imagination.
How does our early learning about sex
contribute to the quality and pattern of sexual relating?
Find out here.
Ever
wonder why men go to prostitutes?
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