Making Love vs the F Word: It's Simpler Than You Think
Making Love vs the F Word: It's Simpler Than You Think
205 people voted on our community tab for this episode. 63% wanted us to talk about it. So here we are, talking about the difference between making love and f*cking.
And after an hour of going back and forth with Master, I landed on something that surprised even me: it's just the roughness.
That's it. That's the difference. The spectrum goes from soft to rough. On one end, there's candles and eye contact and slow everything. On the other end, well, your mascara's running and your hair looks like you lost a fight.
If your lipstick is still on at the end, you made love. If it's gone, you know what happened.
Master and I talked about this because we have both in our relationship. Some nights are soft. Some nights are not. And neither one means more or less love. They're just different expressions of the same thing.
I think people overcomplicate this. They want making love to mean something spiritually elevated and the F word to mean something dirty or less than. But that's not how it works in real life. You can love someone deeply and still want it rough. You can have a one-night stand that's surprisingly tender. The emotion and the intensity are two separate dials.
There's this Eddie Murphy bit from Raw that Master grew up on. A guy gets caught cheating. His wife walks in. He's naked. And his defense is: "I f*cked her, but I made love to you."
We laughed about it on the podcast, but the reason it works as a joke is because everyone understands the distinction he's making. He's saying: what I did with her was just physical. What I do with you has something behind it. Something more.
And here's where it gets real: when someone gets cheated on, the first question is almost never "did you have sex?" It's "do you love them?" Because the physical act isn't what breaks the relationship. It's the emotional betrayal. You can have sex with someone else and your partner might survive it. But loving someone else? That's different.
The F word is the body. Making love is the body plus everything else.
Master said something that stuck with me. He said the first time we were together, it was making love. Not because it was planned or romantic. Because it was new. It was careful. Neither of us knew what the other wanted yet, and that uncertainty made it tender.
I was afraid to pull his hair. He told me it was okay.
And I think that's the real marker. Not roughness, not intensity, not how many candles are lit. It's whether you're paying attention to the other person or just chasing the feeling. When you're paying attention, it's love. When you're chasing, it's the other thing.
Both are fine. Both are necessary. A relationship that's only one or the other gets boring or burns out.
Someone in the Q&A asked: "Can you go back once you've had the click? Can sex go back to just f*cking?"
I don't think there's a click. I don't think it works like a switch that flips and suddenly everything is making love forever. It's a mood. Some weeks you're in one mode, some weeks the other. The healthiest couples have both. 50/50, ideally. Because you need the rawness just as much as you need the softness.
If your relationship is only one, something's off. All soft and you're roommates. All rough and you're f*ck buddies. The mix is what makes it a relationship.
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