According To Expert Explanations, These Are 3 Reasons Your Partner Closes Their Eyes When Making Love

Close-up love illustration (Freepik/Yanalya)

JAKARTA – Eye contact is a way to establish intimacy. However, when the moment is together in the activity of making love, many women close their eyes. What is the reason? The expert gave three explanations about the experience.

According to a 2014 study by Meylin Bolmot and colleagues published in the journal Psychological Science, faces play a role in conveying information for interaction and attracting attention in unique ways. Based on the study, looking at each other for a long time is an indication of attraction, including romantic attraction.

The study also distinguishes between lust and love by the duration of gaze and direction of gaze. If the duration of the gaze is longer and the direction of the gaze on the face, it could be love. However, eye contact in romantic interactions may also be different when having sex.

Aaron Ben-Zeév, Ph.D., quoted by Psychology Today, Friday, December 24, citing the answers of several women on Reddit AskWomen to the question 'do you close your eyes during sex?', the answers also vary. Some give reasons, such as to feel more sensation, more able to focus, do not want to be disturbed by other things, when making love close your eyes.

Professor Ben-Zeév, author of The Arc of Love: How Our Romantic Lives Change Over Time, explains there are 3 reasons why it's easier to 'feel' your partner's presence when making love with your eyes closed.

1. Relating to sexual imagination and fantasy

In love, to quote Ben-Zeév's book, imagination often includes positive illusions, whereas in sex fantasy is more central. The difference between illusion and fantasy is recognizing falsehood. In illusion, there is no falsehood of content, whereas in fantasy one can know.

In sexual desire, fantasy is important because it offers an effective way of overcoming personal limitations, normative boundaries, and external constraints. Sexual fantasy serves to avoid negative information and add positive data.

To keep the fantasy alive and reliable, temporary information will be ignored. Therefore, with her eyes closed, women can sharpen their sexual fantasies to reach orgasm.

2. Feeling uncomfortable

In a 2016 study by Koukouna, Light therapy as a treatment for sexual dysfunction: focus on testosterone levels and published in European Neuropsychopharmacology, found that sex with lights on can help increase a man's testosterone levels and increase sexual satisfaction.

But in a survey, people who are married and take the survey as much as 43 percent like making love with the lights on and 57 percent off. These differences can be driven by feelings of discomfort with their sexuality, such as shame so they choose to make love with dim lights or close their eyes.

3. Sharpen the sensation

Making love with a blindfold using a cloth or known as blindfolded sex is another way to close your eyes. By transferring control to a partner, sex games with their eyes closed can be agreed upon by partners to increase sensation and excitement.

According to an article in Glamor in 2017, there are a number of reasons couples do this. Such as for spices to make them feel new, reduce inhibitions, numb one sense to intensify the other, increase trust between partners, and add an element of surprise.

In general, closing your eyes is common when you are heading to climax. But closing or opening your eyes and even making love with dim or bright lights is the preference of every couple. The most important thing to discuss is about consent, position, novelty, and comfort of each person.