Men Really Want . . . Intimacy

There’s a “bikini barista” coffee hut just down the street from my office. There are always cars (pick-up trucks, to be precise) in the drive-thru. Sometimes I wonder what would compel a girl to work such a job. But I’m more curious about the men who pull into the establishment, guilelessly announcing to everyone else on Edison Street, Yes, I’m the kind of man who’d do such a thing.

If men wanted to see women wearing less clothes than normal, why not find a more private way to do it?

I didn’t understand . . . until I read the reviews. Here’s a sample:

“The gals working the drive through were super sweet.”

“Small talk is always good to start the morning.”

“The girls are friendly and engage in conversation.”

“From the moment I walked in, she greeted me with a warm smile and made me feel welcome.”

Very few of the reviews said anything about the coffee shop’s overtly sexual nature. Almost all were about the customer service, the conversation, how patrons felt like the baristas genuinely cared.

A hunger for connection seems to be driving this business even more than the NSFW attire.

And yet, I doubt men would pay $10 for a coffee if the baristas were friendly and chatty but fully clothed. The point is that they’re kind, attentive, and welcoming while also wearing lingerie.

Every man in that drive-thru has access to a world of pornography on his phone. And he could see the same amount of skin by going to his local gym or swimming pool. What’s he gaining in this interaction? Why risk looking like a pervert to everyone else on the street?

It’s this: Sex is about intimacy.

Sex Is About Intimacy

“Being intimate” is a common euphemism for sex. It carries shades of the biblical phrase of a husband “knowing” his wife (e.g., Gen. 4:1). And it touches on one of the most profound aspects of sex: it’s about connection with a person. You can create intimacy in a relationship in many different ways, but it all revolves around this idea that you let someone in—you share your time, ambitions, fears, quirks, memories, flaws, and jokes. A guard drops, and this person gets to experience you in a way that others don’t.

Sex is the physical expression of that holistic intimacy. Having sex isn’t a handshake; it’s something you reserve for the most intimate of all relationships. Thus, it presumes exclusivity, commitment, and love. Or, to use the Scripture’s words, it presumes covenant. Tim Keller explains,

Sex is perhaps the most powerful God-created way to help you give your entire self to another human being. Sex is God’s appointed way for two people to reciprocally say to one another, “I belong completely, permanently, and exclusively to you.” You must not use sex to say anything less. So, according to the Bible, a covenant is necessary for sex.

But what happens when you try to pluck the sexual act out of that setting of relationship, commitment, and exclusivity? When sex is no longer about intimacy but about raw, sensate pleasure? Sex is diminished. It’s downgraded. It’s worse. To use C. S. Lewis’s evocative image in Mere Christianity, it’s like chewing food but then spitting it out. You get a taste but lack all the nourishment.

To reduce sex to a merely physical act is to miss its meaning entirely. Paul notes in 1 Corinthians 6:16 that even immoral perversions of sex—such as sleeping with a prostitute—cannot escape the fundamentally unitive, one-flesh nature of sex. You can minimize sex to justify it, but by God’s design, this physical act has unavoidably spiritual and emotional dimensions. If you’re trying to have an “it’s just sex” relationship with someone, you have to talk yourself out of the natural pull toward commitment. Sex draws you toward intimacy and whole-person unity.

To reduce sex to a merely physical act is to miss its meaning entirely.

Unless, tragically, you get really good at chewing the food and spitting it out.

In time, the “it’s just sex” perspective bends sex into what it means to you as the individual: Sex is how I express myself, practice liberation, and vent my urges, so I don’t need commitment. I could give lots of good replies to this as a pastor. But one of the simplest and most intuitive is this: Sex that’s only about you is never as good as sex that’s about another. Sex is meant to be an expression of commitment and love. Removed from commitment, from intimacy, from relationship, sex loses its beauty and much of its pleasure.

What Men Want

Few forces today have worked more militantly against this fully orbed view of sex than pornography. In the world of porn, men and women are baptized into the “it’s just sex” worldview.

Still, I’m convinced from my ministry and counseling experience that the reason most men seek out pornography isn’t to see a certain kind of body or sexual act. In time, they may become so bent by the gratuitous nature of what they see that they crave the perverse for perversity’s sake. But this isn’t what first draws them. They’re looking for the face of a woman who looks back at them and says, “I desire you. I want to give myself to you in a way I don’t give myself to anyone else.”

They’re craving intimacy.

This is what the men overpaying for poor-quality coffee seek: a pretty girl who’ll look them in the eyes and laugh and ask them how they’re doing, even if she stops laughing the second the truck pulls away. It’s a pantomime experience of intimacy. Because the girls are scantily clad, they’re already communicating to these men, I’m offering something to you that I normally wouldn’t offer to anyone else. Even though, of course, they’re offering it to everyone else in the drive-thru. It’s a fantasy that lonely men, starved for true intimacy, will let themselves believe.

Sex naturally draws you toward intimacy and whole-person unity.

In a world where men have fewer friends and are generally lonelier than ever, it can be nice to just have a girl who talks to you. This is part of why OnlyFans has exploded in popularity: It takes traditional pornography and gives it a personalized, relational twist. Users get the illusion of a more intimate, two-way relationship rather than a one-way, voyeuristic peep show.

Companies like OnlyFans have figured out what Hooters and the bikini barista coffee hut already knew: Men will pay a lot of money for faux intimacy from pretty girls. Now, tech companies are investing in the same thing—developing AI technologies to offer “AI companions” that simulate the intimacy of a romantic relationship (see the 2013 movie Her to glimpse the future we’re entering).

All these examples illustrate the reality that sex is fundamentally tied to a desire for intimacy.

Many men aren’t just confused about where to find intimacy—they’re unwilling to pay what it costs, too. True intimacy demands vulnerability and the real risk of rejection or disappointment. Faux intimacy offers the dopamine hit of feeling desired without requiring any of these costly investments. The bikini barista customer gets to feel wanted for 30 seconds without having to work through conflict or show up when it’s inconvenient. He gets the intimacy without the price tag, which is ultimately why it’s also intimacy without the payoff.

Men: porn, lust, and faux intimacy will never give you what you’re looking for. It’s a farce that always leaves you diminished afterward because it doesn’t contain the object you truly desire. You long to be known and loved. That’s to be found penultimately in knowing and loving a wife, and ultimately in knowing and loving your Lord.