To Have and To Hold In Sickness and In Health

I should write about sex, I guess. If you're gay that's what everyone expects, isn't it? (An assumption that I find off-base and disturbing, since I don't believe sex in the gay community is any more superficial or casual than in the straight. Hedonistic sex is not a gay monopoly!) Anyway, here's my take on sex tonight - while I'm awake and can't sleep. I've been with my partner, Mark, for almost eighteen years. We are monogamous. We haven't always been, but we are now. It is the best choice we've made because it preserves and builds trust in our relationship and that gives room for intimacy to grow. Intimacy is the purpose of a long-term relationship, a marriage. The gift of marriage to each other is the committed and loving companionship of one other human soul who knows you as completely as you know yourself. This knowledge combined with earnest love, love which is not selfish but rather open and giving, creates a gentle harbor for the windswept, wave tossed bark we call our life. It is the greatest blessing of being together: the constant and true nurturing of you by one who loves you, and in return your true and constant nurturing of he (or she). This prime relationship, when tended and cherished, creates a stable foundation which will weather the storms of illness, financial changes, loss of loved ones, the responsibilities of parenting and those times when sex is NOT what you want. Yes! I said that. It is true. There are times when you or your spouse may not want sex and it's usually when you're partner most especially does. Until your relationship is visited with this difficulty you may laugh thinking it cannot be possible to ever not want sex. I'm going to tell you I think it will happen to every couple. What can cause it? Nearly anything. The list of marriage challenges I stated a few sentences back have, each one, the potential to provide a loss of sexual desire. My experience has been to see my sexual desire plummet when I was confronted with several major challenges in our life together. We have been confronted with several serious health issues all at once: HIV/AIDS treated with a broad spectrum of anti-virals daily (the meds can interfere with sexual desire), Mark's broken back requiring a disc fusion and my necrosis of both femur heads requiring a bilateral hip replacement, and lastly the onset for me of serious depressive illness which requires more medications and therapy - medications again inhibiting sexual drive. These serious health issues have also contributed substantially to the loss of work and primary income. So let me break that down a little. Statistics show that ONE of the major problems I've listed can strain a marriage to the point of divorce. Mark and I have had five. FIVE. Four major health conditions. Financial devastation. The loss of our home due to same. No employment prospects. Coitus Interuptus? Big Time! Who can't understand why?! One has to laugh, for the humor may save us... Seriously, I have to believe two things keep Mark and I going at this point. One. We both believe in God and His power to intervene because of His love for us. Two. A strong, intimate, nurturing foundation brought about by TRUST which is established, at least in part, through sexual fidelity. So, there it is in a brief superficial overview. This is the way I see sexual monogamy being integral to our lives. I think it's normal, healthy and not any different from a heterosexual relationship. Monogamous sex affirms for us that we are a better as a couple, and stronger, knowing the partner will be there for us, committed, not intent on escaping from reality, however painful, through the heady pleasures of hedonism. The most basic expression of our love and commitment for each other is able to be transformed from having sex to making love. This choice stabilizes us as a couple, providing the room for emotional trust and spiritual growth: two individuals who have chosen to be together, exclusive of all others physically, so that together we may know that we have the strength, with God's help, to not merely survive the trials of life, but perhaps even because of them, to thrive .