“If your partner always asks you to do it from behind, it’s because he…”
…doesn’t want to look you in the eyes.
At least, that’s what you start to think when it happens again. You’re in bed, soft music playing, candles burning low, and he pulls you gently—almost absentmindedly—onto your stomach. It’s not unkind. It’s not rough. But it’s routine. Familiar. Scripted.
At first, you thought it was just preference. Everyone has their thing, right? Maybe he likes the view, the angle, the control. And you went along with it. You wanted to please him. You wanted him to feel free with you, safe with you. But somewhere between the third and thirtieth time, a question planted itself in your mind like a thorn.
Why doesn’t he want to see me?
Because when someone loves you—truly loves you—don’t they crave your face? Don’t they reach for your jaw, brush hair from your forehead, search your expression like a map they still haven’t finished reading? Don’t they want to see you?
Instead, your face is always buried in a pillow, or turned toward the wall. Your body becomes a shape, not a soul. A vessel, not a voice.
You begin to replay the moments outside of the bedroom. The way he answers your questions without really hearing them. The way he scrolls through his phone as you talk. The way his smile is there, but never fully reaches his eyes anymore.
Maybe it’s not about sex. Maybe it’s about distance. Maybe it’s about how people retreat in the subtlest ways, using routine to cover disconnection.
Or maybe—it’s darker than that. Maybe he’s hiding something. A truth, a guilt, a secret. Maybe looking into your eyes reminds him of what he’s doing, or what he’s done. Maybe your gaze is too honest. Maybe it asks too much of him.
Or, just maybe—he doesn’t love you anymore. Not fully. Not enough to face you.
It hurts to even think it. But silence has a way of speaking, and bodies tell the truth long before mouths ever do. And in that truth, you feel something crumbling. The illusion of closeness. The fantasy of being chosen, seen, cherished.
So the next time he turns you over and guides you into the same old position, you stop him. You sit up. You look him dead in the eyes and ask the question:
“Why don’t you ever want to face me?”
He freezes. He wasn’t expecting this. Maybe he laughs, deflects, tells you you’re reading into it too much. But the look in his eyes—that tells the real story.
And in that moment, you realize:
Sex is never just sex.
Not when it becomes a mirror.
And some people would rather look away than confront what’s really there.
