Intimacy is not sex: why connection fades and how to rebuild it

What sent her looking in the first place

Ginger's route into tantra began with a question about her own experience: something was missing, and it was taking far more effort than it seemed to for other people.

Ginger: I thought there was something missing in my own sex life, and also in the connections I was making. I was confused — why am I not enjoying this? Why does it seem like so much effort? Why do I never reach this peak everyone is talking about?

She found her answer at a beginners' tantra workshop, in an exercise about presence and touch rather than anything explicitly sexual.

Ginger: My whole body felt alive just with that touch. Eye gazing, hands on each other's hearts. They spoke about presence, and about vulnerability.

The sensual curiosity we lose

One of the strongest ideas in the conversation is that adults are not missing a technique. They are missing something they used to have automatically.

MJ: There is a moment in your life as a child when everything turns you on. You feel aroused by anything, and you do not know what to do or how to do it, but you start trying things, discovering yourself. It is part of the journey.

Ginger: That sensual curiosity is what we do not seem to have any more. Even now, dating, people do not seem to have that curious, cheeky quality. It is very much grab. In tantra it is slow, and about the journey — exactly like it was when you were a child. Curious to discover new layers of yourself.

We have all been constructed by what society conditioned us to be. Surface-level, pornographic and disconnected.

What pornography teaches, and what it costs

MJ: Sometimes it is good to have passion. But you can also be soft, and gentle. We are so conditioned to grabbing and speed — like porn. And real relationships are not that.

MJ mentions a previous guest, a performer, who described the sex she has in a relationship as nothing like the sex she performs — because performance requires acting a certain way, over the top, for a camera.

MJ: When you have that curiosity, you feel genuinely connected. You put aside the judgment and the beliefs you carry around sex, and you enjoy it more.

Intimacy is the build-up, not the act

Asked for practical advice, Ginger immediately reframes the question — away from sex and toward intimacy.

Ginger: I do not like to talk about sex so much. I like to talk about intimacy. When people hear sex, that is all it becomes for them. Intimacy is the whole erotic build-up. And you can be intimate in every moment — with your partner, with clothes on, just talking, a touch as you pass.

Ginger: When you are with someone you are interested in, build rapport through small things. Eye contact. Your hands. Signals. Little details that tell the other person you want to be there. You do not go all the way in, three, two, one.

Why long-term couples stop connecting

In long-term relationships people lose this, because the honeymoon period ends and they do not know how to do it any more. So they just want to have sex, and it is disconnected.

Ginger: You come back from work, you are on your phone, and then it is okay babe, let's go. There is no intimacy in that. Intimacy is the build-up — making love to every single moment with the other person.

MJ: You can establish it with little details. A message. Flowers. Dirty talk. You build it all day, every day. Like a plant — it needs air and water. A little, every moment.

Vulnerability, and why men struggle with it

MJ: People are lacking honesty with themselves. It is hard for them to communicate their own desires.

Ginger: A big part of it is vulnerability. That is the huge one, and a lot of men really lack it. They feel they need to be strong and never have an issue with anything — able to protect without actually feeling their emotions. Which then does not allow them to properly meet the other person.

Learning it, rather than buying it

Both practitioners agree on something that runs against how their industry usually sells: a single session is a meal, and what most people actually need is to learn to cook.

MJ: If you want to eat a good dish, you go to a nice restaurant. You eat it, and the next day it is gone. But if you go to a cooking class, you learn the dish, and you can make it at home every day.

Ginger: That is where I am moving — helping people create lasting change and have the tools for the rest of their life. Working with what is blocking you from your desires, the things you have been holding unconsciously. That coincides with psychotherapeutic work — looking at your shadows. A lot of people ignore that, and it is exactly what stops them.

Is cheating wrong in itself?

The episode closes on a question drawn from a card deck: is infidelity wrong in itself, or only because it hurts someone?

MJ: I think it is bad in itself. When someone cheats, it means they did not have the communication skill. Women often cheat because they are not feeling any emotional connection, and it has not been built up or maintained in the relationship.

MJ: What is the point? You can be a grown person and talk about it. Talk about the desire. Be honest with your partner — say you would like to try something new. But people lack sexual confidence, and I think that comes from social norms, or from thinking this is too much, too soon.

Ginger: Cheating is when you do not communicate something, you do it behind their back, and you lie. You can have communication around connecting with other people — as long as it is a mutual decision you are both okay with. But you need that communication.

MJ: You always have to communicate. It is what helps the relationship grow.