Anyone who is observant, who discovers the person they have always dreamed of, knows that sexual energy comes into play before sex even takes place. The greatest pleasure isn't sex, but the passion with which it is practiced. When the passion is intense, then sex joins in to complete the dance, but it is never the principal aim.

Coelho contrasts the physical act of sex with the anticipatory, imaginative force that precedes it—desire as attention, recognition, and emotional charge. The quote argues that “sexual energy” is not confined to intercourse but begins in perception: noticing another person, projecting hopes, and feeling oneself awakened by possibility. In this view, the peak experience is not mechanical gratification but the intensity of passion—an enlivening state that can culminate in sex yet is not reducible to it. Sex becomes a “completion” of a larger relational and psychological “dance,” shifting the emphasis from goal-oriented conquest to presence, mutuality, and the transformative power of longing.