Most of us have grown up with the notion that “making love” means having sex. And, at its best, that’s what sex can be. But making love can also mean much more.
My late friend Elizabeth Kanitz Canfield, a health educator and activist and an Austrian Holocaust survivor, was adamant in her belief that most people see making love in an all-too-limited way, relegating the concept solely to the physical, sexual realm when it could be expanded to mean so many ways people can share pleasure and, in so doing, increase the intensity of their emotional bond with each other.
“Listening to music together and being transported by the beauty of it is making love,” Liz would insist. “Taking a hike together and reveling in all the sights, sounds, and smells of the outdoors with pleasure and gratitude is making love. A good conversation, where you really connect with another, is making love.”
This expanded concept of making love can be a blessing in a number of circumstances:
It can further bond a romantic couple with a greater variety of shared pleasures.
It can deepen ties with close friends who will never be lovers but who can share love and delight in mutual interests and experiences.
It can become a soothing, reassuring substitute for physical lovemaking as a couple ages. For some, cuddling while listening to favorite music or revisiting favorite places or simply sharing warm memories is love-enhancing.
In our closest relationships, both sexual and platonic, allowing ourselves to have experiences that please all of our senses can help to create a lasting bond of shared pleasure.
What are your varied ways of making love?
Perhaps making love is enjoying a brisk walk in the chill of late autumn or reverting to your shared childhood passion of making snow angels and laughing as you enjoy the first snow of winter.
Perhaps making love is swimming with someone special in a tropical lagoon—or a backyard pool.
Perhaps making love is delighting in the antics and laughter of a child you share.
Or it may be embracing and reconnecting after a period of emotional distance, sharing both relief and joy that your relationship is enduring.
Making love may mean shared laughter, finding humor in everyday events, in resolved crises, or in memories.
I close my eyes and remember my dear friend Maurice, whose lighthearted humor and contagious laughter made him a delightful companion, both as a lover and, later on, as a lifelong platonic friend. Like Liz, Maurice was a Holocaust survivor (of the infamous Baghdad Farhud). He managed the trauma of that time by laughing between the tears and moments of pain and lived a long life filled not only with painful memories, but also true joy. Laughing with him was making love.
Both Liz and Maurice, who witnessed and experienced unspeakable horrors in their youth, lived fully and joyously, embracing pleasures both simple and profound that they readily shared with others.
To be able to do the same is truly making love.
