Reflections from Monaco
The Mediterranean light has a quality unlike anywhere else revealing surfaces while somehow simultaneously illuminating what lies beneath them. As I sit on my terrace overlooking Monaco’s harbor, watching light dance across water that shifts between turquoise and navy depending on depth and angle, I’m reminded how this same principle applies to human connection.
For over two decades, I’ve observed the most intimate human interactions from a unique vantage point. If there is one myth I wish to dispel, one misconception that has caused more unnecessary suffering than perhaps any other, it is the persistent belief in “sexual compatibility” as some magical, pre-existing condition between bodies.
This belief that certain bodies naturally “fit” together while others don’t has sent countless potential lovers retreating at the first sign of awkwardness, convinced they’ve encountered irrefutable evidence of incompatibility rather than the natural first steps of any meaningful connection.
The Myth of Matching Puzzle Pieces
We’ve been misled by films and literature to expect immediate, effortless communion bodies that know instinctively how to please each other without communication, without adjustment, without the occasionally ungraceful navigation of unfamiliar territory. This fantasy has an undeniable appeal. Who wouldn’t prefer effortless perfection to the vulnerability of learning and adaptation?
Yet in my extensive experience, what appears as “natural compatibility” is almost always the result of something else entirely: attunement.
Attunement is not a state but a practice the moment by moment attention to another’s responses, the willingness to adapt, the courage to remain present through uncertainty. It is active rather than passive, created rather than discovered. Unlike the myth of compatibility, which suggests some bodies simply “match” while others don’t, attunement acknowledges that meaningful connection must be cultivated through awareness.
The Orchestra vs. The Recording
Consider the difference between a live orchestra and a recording. The recording perfect, unchanging, reliable might seem preferable. Yet the orchestra, with its subtle variations, its responsiveness to the conductor’s hand, its ability to adjust volume and tempo based on the unique acoustics of each venue, creates something the recording never can: a living, breathing experience uniquely tailored to the present moment.
Sexual compatibility as most imagine it resembles the recording a fixed performance expected to sound identical regardless of circumstance. Attunement resembles the orchestra alive to subtle cues, responsive to changing conditions, creating something that could never be precisely replicated because it emerges from the specific interaction of these particular musicians in this particular space at this particular moment.
The Evidence in Our Bodies
I’ve witnessed this transformation countless times: two people who initially struggled to find rhythm together discovering exquisite harmony not through technique but through presence the willingness to temporarily abandon expectation in favor of genuine curiosity about the person before them.
A client once confessed his disappointment after a first encounter with someone he’d desired for months. “Everything felt wrong,” he lamented. “The angles, the timing, even our breathing seemed out of sync. Yet I know we’re attracted to each other. How could the physical reality be so disconnected from what we feel?”
Instead of confirming his fear of incompatibility, I suggested an alternative: perhaps they were simply strangers to each other’s bodies, speaking different physical languages that required translation. Connection isn’t instantaneous it develops through invitation and response, through question and answer, through the gradual accumulation of shared vocabulary.
Two weeks later, he reported a completely different experience. Not because either had suddenly mastered new techniques, but because they had approached each other with awareness rather than assumption, with attention rather than expectation.
The Practical Path to Attunement
If compatibility is indeed created rather than discovered, how might we cultivate it? Here are the essential elements I’ve observed across thousands of encounters:
1. Presence before performance
Begin by simply noticing your partner’s breathing, the subtle tension in their shoulders, the almost imperceptible arch when certain areas are touched. Before attempting to elicit specific responses, develop awareness of what’s already happening. The body speaks constantly through these small signals; attunement begins with listening.
2. Questions as caresses
“Does this feel good?” asked with genuine curiosity rather than performance anxiety, is not an admission of inadequacy but an invitation to collaboration. The most attentive lovers never assume they know what brings pleasure they inquire, they observe, they confirm through both word and response.
3. Comfortable imperfection
Paradoxically, attunement flourishes when we release the need for flawless execution. The pressure to perform perfectly creates self-consciousness that prevents true presence. Grant yourself permission for the occasional awkward transition, the momentary loss of rhythm, the unexpected response. These apparent “failures” often open doorways to deeper connection when approached with humor and grace.
4. Adaptation as art
View each adjustment not as correction of error but as refinement of shared language. When you shift position to create better angle, when you slow your pace to match your partner’s breathing, when you increase pressure in response to their guiding hand these are not admissions that something was wrong but evidence of growing attunement.
5. Attention to afterglow
The moments following intimacy contain invaluable information. Notice what your partner does. Do they seek closeness or space? Do they become verbal or quiet? Do they appear energized or restful? These natural tendencies, when observed without judgment, provide essential knowledge for future encounters.
The Courage to Create Compatibility
Perhaps most importantly, attunement requires courage the willingness to remain present even when uncertainty arises, to stay curious rather than retreating into familiar patterns, to risk vulnerability rather than protecting ourselves through detachment or performance.
This courage creates connections that superficial “compatibility” never could. When we approach intimacy as a practice of presence rather than a test of inherent fitness, we discover that most bodies can create extraordinary harmony together, not because they were destined to match but because they committed to learning each other’s unique language.
The myth of sexual compatibility asks, “Are we naturally good together?” The practice of attunement asks, “Are we willing to become good together?” The first question leads either to complacency or premature dismissal. The second opens the possibility of connections that deepen with each encounter, that transform over time from tentative exploration to fluent conversation.
Next time you find yourself evaluating compatibility, consider whether you might instead be experiencing the natural first steps of attunement that delicate, sometimes awkward, always courageous beginning of learning to speak a new physical language together.
The most extraordinary connections I’ve witnessed weren’t discovered; they were created moment by moment, touch by touch, breath by breath by two people willing to remain present enough to truly see and respond to each other. Not as they imagined or wished each other to be, but as they actually were.
That is the art of attunement and it renders the myth of compatibility not only false but unnecessary. The question isn’t whether your bodies naturally fit together, but whether you’re willing to learn, together, how they might.