Intimacy in Marriage

          Growing up, sexual intimacy was always a very taboo topic in my mind. I was given “the talk” by my mother when I was about eight years old, but always thought of being intimate as something that was “gross” and not something that I ever wanted to think about or talk about. As I advanced in age and entered the stage of life where I could date, I remember all of the lessons we would have in Young Women’s about the importance of our virtue and keeping ourselves worthy to enter the temple, and clean from any sexual sin. As I came to understand the importance of keeping myself pure and free of that sin, I started to think of intimacy in a different, more important light. Though I feel as if I did not fully understand the sacredness and true nature of marital intimacy, I began to realize that it was something important enough in the eyes of God to keep the rules on. 

          After I got married, I realized the marital intimacy is so much more than just the worlds view of it (feeding the “physical appetite”, giving into temptation, exploring sexuality, etc.). Being intimate with that special person that you have chosen to spend eternity with is showing that person the essence of your unwavering and true love for them. Not only that is marital intimacy important in that aspect of marriage, but it also has great importance in the role that we have been asked to fill the just like the one Adam and Eve were asked to fill – multiply and replenish the earth. My husband and I are currently pregnant with our first child and are just starting to experience that incredible blessing of parenthood. Marital intimacy is truly something of upmost importance and is perhaps one of the most special things that we have been blessed with on this earth. Note, however, that “marital” has to preface that word intimacy in order for those blessings to be given to us.  In the words of the apostle Jeffrey R. Holland:

“…human intimacy is reserved for a married couple because it is the ultimate symbol of total union, a totality and a union ordained and defined by God.”