I consider sleeping with someone an act of intimacy. I remember times when I could easily share my body with a man I was incapable of sleeping with. Sex, for me, did not require intimacy and vulnerability.
Think about sleep. By definition, it is "the natural state of rest during which your eyes are closed and you become unconscious." Sleep, being unconscious, makes you physically vulnerable, but that's not the part that troubled me. It was the level of trust and security and care that I needed established with someone to allow him around a defenseless, unguarded me. I was uncomfortable with that.
I kept a mental fortress during sex. After all, sex, for me, was equally about pleasure and control. It was a sport of sorts. I had objectives; I wanted to win. I wanted to be so sexually pleasing to a man that he could never forget me; that he would need me in order to experience a certain level of physical pleasure. I wanted to be so desired that he would suppress his pride and forget his principles for what I could provide. For all of the wrong reasons, I wanted to be needed by men.
Sleeping with a man, for me, was nothing like that. Yes, sometimes sex accompanied the sleep regimen, but it was not a requirement. It was the cuddling, talking, laughing, kissing, snoring, slobbering, lack of facades, and genuine physical contact prior to and during sleep that made it intimately superior to sex. Waking up next to or in the arms of someone I care about and the comfort and happiness I couldn't help but feel made sleeping with someone more meaningful than sex. The number of men I've slept with is fewer than the number of men I've had sex with it. And, I can honestly say I loved and/or cared deeply for that minority.
Now married for almost 3 years, I am so grateful that I did not allow sleep to become tainted and casual as I did with sex. Sleeping with my husband is a daily act of intimacy that never gets old. In fact, I sleep best with my feet snuggled on some part of his body. (:
