The Sex Container

What our sacred intimacy practice taught me about collapse, connection, and being loved by the Divine. (Sex, Systems, and Sacred Union: Part 3)

During our recent 7-day sex container, there was an evening where I felt utterly spent.

I’d had a long day caring for our daughter Ember, and by evening, all I wanted was to collapse—alone—in my office, to disappear into the cave of no contact. My body wanted to shut down. My nervous system was maxed out. Everything in me wanted to retreat from intimacy, from connection, from the container.

The sex container is a sacred commitment we make—sometimes for 7 days, sometimes for 30—to meet each other daily in the field of sexual intimacy. Not to force, but to come as we are. And on that night, the place where I found myself in was collapse.

Kiki looked at me and asked gently, “What if you just collapsed into the sex container?”

Even though that had been the whole point of the practice, my collapsed mind hadn’t considered it. And in truth, part of me was resisting it. It still felt safer to collapse away from connection.

But something in me knew to say yes.

I slid to the floor at her feet, the weight of the entire day and the ache of this moment of parenthood pouring through me. I cried. Not because I wanted to be seen. Not because I was trying to make anything happen. But because that’s where I was—exhausted, heartbare, with nothing left to give.

And she stayed with me. She witnessed me and welcomed me. She didn’t try to fix it or guide us toward something else. She just stayed.

And from that place of raw collapse, I found my way into deep connection—with the truth of where I was, and with her. And from there, we found our way into beautiful, tender, and intimate lovemaking.

It was a sacred moment, one that rewired something deep in me.

Welcome to Part 3 of “Sex, Systems, and Sacred Union”—a series weaving story, framework, and lived experience to explore sex not just as pleasure, but as a sacred system for healing, awakening, and intimacy that can hold everything. Read Part 1 here.

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Where the Sex Container Began

The sex container in our relationship was born from rupture.

Before this practice ever felt sacred or stabilizing, it was born in a storm—in a chapter of our relationship where sex had become a tender and triggering space between us.

I'd feel desire—and somewhere in the movement toward intimacy, something would kink: an attachment wound, an unmet need, a protective strategy. Sometimes subtle, sometimes explosive.

We’d lose each other, push each other away, or simply not know how to stay in connection. We didn’t yet have the tools to move through the emotional weather between desire and union.

And over time, a quiet fear began to build in me—especially as we were preparing to become parents. It was a fear of being helpless with my own desire. A fear that without a structure to meet what arose, we might slowly drift into a sexless partnership—this time not because of shame, but because we hadn’t learned how to stay.

What if I ended up in a sexless marriage, again?

My mind spiraled into fear. I had lived through that once before—a 17-year relationship where sex didn’t exist. And I wasn’t willing to go back to a life where I abandoned my desire again. I couldn’t return to a life where desire got tucked away, quietly set aside to keep the peace. I couldn’t go numb again—not in this chapter, not in this love.

So I proposed a sex container—not as a method or technique, but as a lifeline. A prayer to the universe.

A way to return to the magic I knew lived between us. To the kind of intimacy that had once felt like something out of a fairy tale—where I couldn’t believe how deeply we met, how wildly alive our sex felt, how safe and seen and turned on I was just being in her presence.

A way to train our systems to stay in connection even when things got hard—rather than making each other wrong, or pushing each other away when the intensity rose.

A way to practice letting desire lead to intimacy, not rupture—to learn how to stay even when one of us froze, or shut down, or didn’t know how to meet the other.

So I could trust that even in the chaos of parenting, even in the intensity of life—we could still find our way back to each other.

We started with a 30-day container. Recently we did a 7-day one. Sometimes we’ll explicitly do one for one night. Over time, it became less a thing we "did" and more a way we practiced being.

A sex container, for us, is a shared commitment to enter a field of nakedness, sexual intimacy, and emotional truth—every day of the container. Whether it’s one night or thirty, we agree to show up fully, just as we are.

It’s not about having sex each day. But it is about showing up with the desire to meet in sexual intimacy—whether or not that intimacy leads to penetration. It’s a devotional space where everything that arises is part of the practice—a structure for staying in connection through it all.

Grief is welcome. Numbness is welcome. Longing, anger, mismatch, shutdown, wild turn-on—all of it belongs.

If I’m shut down, that’s the practice. If Kiki is frozen, that’s the intimacy. If one of us is longing while the other is numb, we meet in that truth and let it teach us.

There’s no set time frame. Some containers last an hour or more; others are shorter. But we stay until there’s a real sense of completion—not from avoidance, not from discomfort, but because something true has been met.

Everything That Arises Is Sacred

Over time, we’ve learned that the true power of the sex container isn’t about sex at all.

It’s about learning to stay.

We’ve had containers that felt like magic—where our sex felt ecstatic, easeful, deeply connected. Where we touched realms of intimacy, pleasure, and sacred union we’d never known before. Where the space itself felt ritual, even shamanic—as if we were being moved by something far greater than ourselves.

Some of the deepest magic wasn’t in the turn-on or the flow.

It was in the moments when a part of us we thought wasn’t lovable got met—fully, gently, and without agenda. When a place inside that had long carried shame or felt unworthy of love became the very place being welcomed with tenderness, attention, and orgasmic pleasure. When that part didn’t just get tolerated, but got to receive beauty—and was made love to there.

We've also had containers where everything felt messy and misaligned—where we fought, froze, or didn’t want to be there. And looking back, so much of the early messiness came from not accepting what was actually here. We were still resisting the truth of the moment—trying to shift it, rather than stay with it.

But over time, we stopped fighting the moment. We learned to trust that nothing arising is wrong. And as that trust has grown, the containers have felt cleaner. More easeful. More alive. More magical.

Because what we’ve learned—again and again—is this:

Everything that arises is sacred.

Through repetition, our bodies have come to know this deeper truth. Anything less than that awareness only leads to rupture and suffering.

My nervous system has learned that I don’t need to be any different than I am to be met in intimacy. That love doesn’t require a different state. That I don’t need to fix, hide, or perform.

That I can collapse and still be loved.

This is the deepest teaching of the container: That nothing is in the way. That every emotion, every sensation, every rupture is part of the path.

It’s a spiritual practice of being with what is—together.

The container didn’t just hold us—it transformed us. It revealed our patterns and invited us to meet it all until our bodies remembered love.

And over time, the practice has rewired my nervous system. My body is learning that shame, collapse, fear, shutdown, turn-on—all of it—belongs inside connection.

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Life as the Ultimate Sex Container

The day after our most recent 7-day container, I felt something subtle but hard.

Inside the container, it had become easy to reach, to initiate, to trust I would be met. The shared commitment created a field of safety, permission, devotion. But now, on the other side of it, reaching felt more vulnerable. The trust that I’d be met felt less certain. The ache of desire—without the container’s holding—felt exposed.

I named it to Kiki. And she said, almost in passing, "What if life is the sex container?"

Something in me stilled—as the deeper truth dawned on me.

The first truth was this: Even when we’re not in an explicit sex container, the field still exists between us. The commitment doesn’t vanish. The container doesn’t disappear. We are still in it—for the duration of this life.

And so I could rest in that, in the knowing that I could still be met. The safety didn’t come from a defined time frame, but from the fabric of our bond.

The second truth was even deeper: That the ultimate lover here isn’t Kiki. It’s Life itself—Life, as in the Divine. God. The Universe. Source. The sacred intelligence moving through all things.

All the times I’ve made love with Kiki—tender, wild, devotional—I’ve been making love to Life, through her. And Life has been making love to me.

There was a morning on our recent trip to Kauai where I woke with collapse in my chest. We hadn’t had sex in a couple weeks—some of it logistical as new parents, some of it emotional. I didn’t know how to close the gap.

And I could feel how sex was mirroring life. I’d been working on my last piece of writing for days and still didn’t feel good about it. I didn’t know how to bring it to completion. I didn’t know how to close that gap either.

There was an ache in my body. A quiet despair. A thought that something was missing, and if only I could fix it—by having sex, or finishing my piece, or planning some grand adventure—then I’d feel okay.

And then I remembered.

None of those were the answer. They were all escapes from what was already here.

Life is the sex container, where everything that arises is sacred. What was needed was to be with the collapse—to feel it, to let it ache, to be with the deep yearning for union in sex, in creativity, in life.

This collapse was arising in consciousness so I could meet it—so I could heal my relationship with it. It would keep returning until I learned how to be with it fully. Not to fix it. Not to push past it. But to let it be here, in love. So I might as well begin now.

I sobbed—for the yearning, for the heartbreak of the moment. And in that sobbing, I could feel the truth: even in collapse, even in my sense of being alone, I was being loved by Life. Held by the Divine. Touched in the deepest places.

The training ground of the sex container had prepared me for this. To remember that I don’t need an explicit container to find my way back to connection. That I don’t need a structure to remember the sacred.

I am in the container. Always.

And whatever arises—this ache, this sadness, this longing—is not a problem to solve.

It is sacred. It is part of the lovemaking.

And the remembering keeps happening.

A few days later, after a red-eye flight and several low-sleep nights with my daughter, I felt exhausted. A deep desire to create—and the felt reality of exhaustion making that almost impossible.

I started to check out—unable to respond to Kiki, unable to be present to my daughter bouncing in front of me, me starting to make the motions toward doomscrolling social media.

And then, I felt a small flicker in my chest. A memory in the body—a quiet flame remembering itself. A faint knowing: This is the moment. A new option had appeared on the menu of my consciousness—one that hadn’t been there before. I didn’t have to check out—like I had so many times before when collapse hit.

I could collapse toward Life, instead of away from it.

“I could use a little loving,“ I said in my frozen, collapsed state.

Kiki came over and wrapped her legs around me, yab-yum style. I cried into her shoulder. With each sob, I could feel myself meeting Life—just as I had in the sex container. Meeting the heartbreak. Meeting the exhaustion. Meeting what was here.

Fifteen minutes later, I was back. Still tired—but present. Open to the beauty of it all—in touch with myself, with her, with my daughter, with the moment.

This moment. This breath. This ache.

All those nights of staying in connection with Kiki in our sex containers—through shutdown, joy, friction, laughter—were preparing me for this.

So I could recognize: this, too, is union. With the Divine, with Life, with God, with the universe. This, too, is lovemaking. This, too, is sacred.

Not once it shifts. Now.

That’s the ultimate gift of the sex container: an embodied training ground for how to make love with Life itself, in every moment. One that leaves imprints in the body so that I can find my way back.

A transmission that not only can I collapse into intimacy with another—I can collapse into the arms of Life.

And I can be made love to there, too.

P.S. I’m exploring offering a live, guided experience for a small group of couples, co-led with my wife, Kiki. This will be a private practice between you and your partner, supported by a shared field of guidance and devotion. The format is still unfolding, but if you and your partner feel called to explore this path together—to deepen your intimacy, to meet what arises with sacred devotion—I’d love to hear from you. You can reply to this or reach out directly.

Up Next in the Series

The Sex Container

If something in this piece stirred something in you—an ache, a memory, a moment of recognition—I’d love to hear. You can leave a comment below. I read every one.

And if you know someone who might need to hear this—someone navigating collapse, or seeking deeper connection—you can share this piece with them here.