... it was great, except we both want more than sex from a woman. I have on several times turned down sex from a woman, ...
In my experience (though initially it looks like petty nit-picking) that the word "from" is very telling here.
When we want (or don't want) something "from" another person, we're at a different level or stage in our way of relating with people than when the word "with" becomes the foreground, natural, appropriate and best choice of words.
We use the word "from" about relationships when we see other people as resources which either provide or do not provide us with something we think
we want
from them. As soon as we utter the word "from" we're indicating that we see the other person as a kind of piggy bank or store house of the resource we're wanting.
Yeah, I know, it may be nit picking. But try on for size the word "with". Imagine instead that what you really want is not something "from" someone, but something
with the person instead. If you explore this question carefully and don't treat it as a trivial nit picking, you may have an "ah-ha" moment.
I honestly don't want anything
from anyone ever again for as long as I live. And if ever I find myself imagining or feeling that I do, I'll probably very quickly catch myself in it and realize that all of this "from" business is delusional nonsense (for me).
What most of us probably really want is never "from" but with. When we are experiencing genuine closeness, intimacy and love, the word "with" obviously stands out as a FAR better word for what we want than "from".
"From" relationships are unidirectional relationships -- a kind of extraction process not entirely unlike mining or oil drilling. A resource is extracted.
"With" relationships are deeply empathetic, kind, compassionate and loving (give and give instead of give and take). We find that we do not want something
from our beloved. We instead want to share something with him or her.
Our predominant culture's notion of love, sadly, is the image of a very scarce resource which we must extract from others.
It is time for us to correct this by deliberately, consciously re-framing love as something we have
with others, which is shared (and thus multiplied, and thus never in the least scarce).
I'm talking about a revolution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gS8yzymivo