Did you know that even physical intimacy has an emotional side attached to it? When it comes to having sex, intimacy is something that merges between a person’s physical and emotional state. Making love with someone is akin to being connected and feeling connected with another person even emotionally while engaging with them physically. But there is a difference between making love and having sex.
Sex doesn’t always mean that you’re in love with someone – sex is usually looked at as a physical act that people engage in, with or without having a particular person they engage in it with.
A person can have multiple partners, even at one go. This doesn’t mean that it’s unethical – as long as one is clear about it with their partner and has obtained adequate consent. This is what you call an open relationship or a polyamorous relationship.
Making love to someone is deeper than just having sex. You can engage in physical intimacy with someone without feeling the love. On the contrary, making love is a step ahead, and often comes only when there is a commitment towards a relationship, as opposed to sex, which is something one can have any time. Are you wondering what do you engage in? Is it making love or having sex? Sometimes, the lines can get a bit blurry, so it can get slightly difficult to know what you’re engaging in – this usually happens when emotional boundaries aren’t drawn out between two people. How can you tell for sure?
- Commitment towards a relationship
Being in a committed relationship with someone you love and have known for some time, definitely qualifies as making love – this is a physical act of intimacy being carried out between two people who know each other, love each other and therefore have a similar mental and emotional wavelength.
Moreover, when you’re committed, it can make the experience very romantic, as opposed to just having sex with someone without any feelings attached.
2. No strings attached
A no-strings-attached relationship is the opposite of a committed relationship – where you are with someone, but you make sure that feelings and emotions don’t get mixed and involved. This is when two people clarify that they are just having casual sex, but there’s nothing more to it.
This is when sex is just viewed as a physical need to be taken care of – and you’re usually engaging in it with a one trusted person. A no-strings-attached scene is like a fling or a hookup, where there is no obligation to talk to the person again.
- Friends with benefits
How can you tell if you are in a friends-with-benefits situation? Well, for starters, if you guys have been friends or known each other for a while, and have decided to have sex together, then this is what it is.
So, this is a step ahead from the no-strings-attached relationship, because as friends, you can discuss your lives with each other – but just enough to shy away from emotionally engaging and being vulnerable with each other, so that feelings don’t get involved.
- Motivation and communication
More often than not, people are clear about their motive behind having sex – are they into the other person romantically, or are they just doing it as a way of taking care of their physical needs?
Most people are also always communicative about what they want to do – in today’s day and age people specify whether they are just looking for a random hookup or they are actually looking to be with someone romantically and thus, looking for something more. So you clarify if it’s pure lust or love.
There are many ways to tell if you’re just having sex or making love to someone – just understand the vibe, understand what the other person wants, and more than anything, understand what you want.
